Sopa de Feijao Verde
A Portuguese green bean soup with potatoes, onion, garlic and olive oil, simmered for 40 minutes and blended or left rustic.
Photograph credit: For dessert: Green Bean Soup, Made With Love ❤ by Maurina Rara · CC BY 2.0 · Flickr
Don't Make These Mistakes
Add the oil at the end.
Blend only part of the soup for texture.
Taste for salt before serving.
How to Make Sopa de Feijao Verde
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Put the onion, garlic, potatoes and water in a pot and bring to the boil. Simmer for 15 minutes.
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Add the beans and salt and simmer for 15 minutes more.
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Blend about half of the soup with a hand blender, leaving the rest chunky.
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Take off the heat and stir in 3 tablespoons of the oil and the pepper. Serve with the rest of the oil on top.
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Why It Works
This is what to make in late summer, when the garden beans are at their best and a soup is the easiest way to use a glut. Sopa de feijão verde is a simple Portuguese soup of green beans and potatoes with garlic and olive oil, and it is served at the start of nearly every lunch in the country.
Simmer sliced onion, garlic and diced potatoes in water for 15 minutes, until the potatoes are soft. Add the green beans, cut into short lengths, and a good pinch of salt, and cook for 15 minutes more. Stir in the olive oil at the end, off the heat, because raw oil tastes fresh and fruity, and cooked oil goes flat. A bay leaf and a little coriander are optional.
The soup can be served as it is, rustic, with pieces of potato and bean. Or blend about half of it for a creamier texture, and keep the rest chunky. In some regions a slice of chouriço is added, or a spoonful of rice. Taste for salt and pepper, and serve hot with a drizzle of oil on top and a piece of broa.
After You've Cooked It
Keeps for 3 days in the fridge. Freeze for 3 months.
Swaps and Variations
- An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.
Serving Sopa de Feijao Verde
- Broa de milho
- Crusty bread
- Cheese
The Numbers per Serving
Per serving, calculated from the ingredient list with USDA FoodData Central figures (SR Legacy). A calculation, not a laboratory analysis: brands, cuts and how you measure change the real numbers. How the figures are worked out.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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