I know sweet potatoes and beans combined with Asian seasonings sounds like a crazy combination. You are just going to have to trust me on this. This soup is seriously delicious!
It is also fast and easy to make, filling, and frugal.
I pulled this soup together in under 20 minutes. I was able to do that because I had cooked rice on hand. If you don’t have cooked rice you can add 1 cup uncooked basmati rice and an additional 2 cups of liquid and let the rice cook while you are making the soup, but you will want to let the rice get a 5 – 10 minute head start before you add the sweet potatoes.
If you don’t have mirin in your pantry, you can substitute a sweet juice like white grape juice or apple juice. You can save money on mirin, rice vinegar, soy sauce, and sesame seed oil by shopping at an Asian market.
Put broth, soy sauce, rice vinegar, mirin, sesame seed oil, onion, garlic, and ginger in a large pot. Add sweet potatoes. Cook over a medium-high flame until the broth begins to boil.
Lower flame and simmer for 5 minutes or until sweet potatoes are fork-tender.
Add beans and rice and cook for 2 – 3 minutes until rice and beans are heated through.
Add spinach and cook until just wilted. Serve immediately.
I served the Ginger Sweet Potato and Black Bean Soup with a garden salad.
Alea, I’m not seeing the chicken listed as an ingredient. About how much chicken did you use and I assume that it was already cooked before adding to the soup?? Looking forward to trying it. Thanks!
Actually I wrote chicken, but I meant beans. I had chicken on the brain because I adapted my Asian Chicken and Rice Soup and used it as the base for the Sweet Potato and Bean Soup. You could add a cup of cooked chicken if you wished and you could also replace the vegetable broth with chicken broth, but it is delicious and filling without the chicken (and more frugal too).
Thanks Alea! Looks delicious and versatile! Can’t wait to try it either way!