Hearty Escarole and Bean Soup

Here’s a classic Italian beans and greens combination, a quick and easy escarole and bean
soup. Tart escarole adds flavor to an Italian favorite, cannelloni beans. The secret
ingredient is a chunk of parmesan cheese. It makes my escarole and bean soup silky and
rich.

What so appealing about this dish is how quick and easy it is. In less than 15 minutes, my
pot is going to be simmering with this hearty, robust, very flavorful soup. So how you get
that flavor is with my escarole and we’re going to sauté it with garlic and olive oil before
we add some beans and stock and some parmesan cheese.

First thing we’re going to do with escarole, we’re just going to cut it. I'm going to cut the
crispier parts so it take a little longer to cook, so we’re going to cut that off and use the
leafy greens and they are beautiful. I'm going to make it a little easier to eat by just
cutting it up.

Now escarole, it’s a leafy green and it’s part of the endive family yet it has it’s not as
bitter as Belgian or curly endive and is delicious in a soup. It’s light yet hearty. I want to
be able to chop up some garlic so let me just put this right back here for a minute. I need
some garlic, so let’s say two cloves is good.

Now when you sauté the garlic with the olive oil and then you add the escarole, that is
where the great flavor comes from. And you know what? You could use spinach in this
dish, you could use Swiss chard. So you know, you're not bound to escarole. It’s just this
is the traditional way of making it. So let’s just chop up some garlic. Alright, let’s put
some olive oil in our pot. There we go. And there we go.

Let's raise our heat to about medium. And we’ll just let the garlic simmer for about 15
seconds or so just until you can smell the aromas and the oil has heated through. And I
can already smell the aromas. So let's add the escarole. There we go and now we’re just
going to sauté the escarole for about two minutes or so and cook it down. Yeah, I'm going
to add a little bit of salt just to help with sautéing and flavoring. I think a lot of times
when you cook vegetables the trick is to really flavor them.

These are coming along nicely. Okay, while that finishes sautéing I'm going to drain and
rinse my cannelloni beans. And cannelloni beans are formed with kidney beans they're
Tuscan style, they're creamy and they're white. And they make this dish robust and
hearty. I’m draining them off because I don’t like that thick, syrupy juice that comes with
the beans. And I’m just going to quickly rinse them just a light rinse. We’re going to add
four cups of chicken stock. You could add vegetable stock, you could add beef stock if
you wanted too.

I like how light the chicken stock is and then I'm using low sodium. Just so I can decide
how much salt goes into my dish. Alright, now the beans, we’ll just turn that around a bit.
Now a little salt and pepper and the little bit more flavoring, I'm going to add a piece
parmigiano-reggiano cheese. And I buy blocks of this cheese during the weekend I used
it up for pasta sauces, I grate it for salad all sorts of stuff.

Alright, now this needs about five minutes. So I'm going to cover my pot, I'm going to
grab my bowl and a spoon and some crusty bread to dip inside the soup. The creamy
beans and the escarole with the garlic, it is out of this world. It transports me back to
being in my mom’s kitchen.