This Vegan Vegetable Soup with Bowties is hearty, filled with vegetables, and also has creamy white beans and bowties. It’s a perfect way to enjoy a warm bowl of soup while being simple and quick! Topped with crisp and cheezy homemade croutons, this easy vegetable soup will likely be in your rotation all season!
As the weather is turning cooler here, I’m finding myself having the craving for soups all the more often. But really, this soup can (and should, if you ask me) be enjoyed any time of year, or even if you live in a tropical locale!
It’s hearty and packed with vegetables, yet it’s also very light. Making it the perfect lunch or light dinner. If you’re like me though, you may have trouble eating just one bowl! It has so much savory flavor from the vegetable broth and herbs (I use both dried and fresh here), as well as the various aromatics and mushrooms.
The flavors in this Vegan Vegetable Soup with Bowties
There are so many delicious flavors in one place:
- onions
- celery
- carrots
- mushrooms
- garlic powder
- tomato paste
- marinara (can be homemade or store bought)
- tarragon (dried)
- oregano (dried)
- parsley (fresh but you can use dried)
- lemon juice
- thyme (fresh but you can use dried)
These flavors combine to make such a delicious and really flavorful broth and base for the soup! I really love using a mix of onions, carrots and celery as a base for soups given the amount of flavor that they add. Garlic is another key flavor powerhouse, and you can either use fresh garlic or garlic powder (as I used here).
Additionally, the mushrooms really give the broth a yummy umami feel, but you can totally skip them if you’re a full-on mushroom-hater. You should still get lots of goodness from the rest of the ingredients.
Also, adding fresh lemon juice at the end of cooking a soup is a great tip that I picked up and started doing for soups like this. It’s another way to boost depth of flavor without adding more salt. Which brings me to one of the main reasons I love making soup at home, versus the canned or boxed variety from the grocery store. They typically have a relatively high salt content, so it’s great that you can make really flavorful soup at home with alternatives like citrus, aromatics, and lots of herbs without the extra salt.
Helpful Tips
For the croutons, it’s best to use a heartier firmer bread so that the croutons don’t get soggy quickly when topping the soup. Sourdough, rye, ciabatta works or a French or Italian bread loaf works well too.
Chop the onions as fine as you can. While I love onions, it’s probably ideal to avoid hunks of onion as you’re eating soup. You can cut the celery and carrots a bit larger.
You can adjust the amount of mushrooms, beans, pasta and TVP for your liking. If you prefer less pasta in your soup for example, you can reduce the amount. Or, alternatively leave out the pasta and substitute for extra beans.
other delicious soup and stew recipes to try at home
Cozy Vegetable and Macaroni Soup
Thai Noodle and Vegetable Soup
Vegan Chickpea Ratatouille Stew
helpful items for dishes like this one
Nordic Ware Natural Aluminum Commercial Baker’s Half Sheet (2 Pack), Silver
OXO Good Grips Utility Cutting Board
Vegan Vegetable Soup with Bowties
Ingredients
Croutons
- 1 cup bread cut into squares
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1/4 tsp each salt, pepper, garlic powder
- 1 tsp nutritional yeast
Soup
- 1 medium onion finely chopped
- 1 cup celery diced
- 1 1/4 cup carrots peeled and diced
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper
- 1/2 tsp dried tarragon
- 1/2 tbsp dried oregano
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 3/4 cup marinara sauce
- 5 cups vegetable broth
- 1 cup sliced mushrooms
- 1 cup dried bowtie/farfalle pasta
- 1/2 cup re-hydrated TVP textured vegetable protein*
- 1 cup great northern beans
- 2 tbsp fresh parsley finely chopped
- Juice of 1/2 lemon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Place the bread cubes onto a baking tray. Drizzle with the olive oil evenly, toss, and sprinkle with the salt, pepper, garlic powder, and nutritional yeast, toss. Bake for 10 minutes, flip, and bake further until the bread is lightly browned. Set aside.
- In a large pot, add onion, celery, carrots, salt, pepper, and olive oil. Cook over medium heat for 10 minutes, stirring often. Add 1/4 cup water and cover, cooking another 5 minutes.
- Add dried tarragon, dried oregano, tomato paste, garlic powder, marinara sauce, and vegetable broth. Cook for 5 minutes then add the mushrooms and pasta.
- When the pasta is nearly al dente, add the TVP and great northern beans. When the pasta is cooked through, add the lemon juice, stir, and serve topped with fresh parsley and croutons.