Lemon white bean soup is a creamy, vibrant one pot meal that’s perfect for busy weeknights. It’s hearty, filling, and uses simple, budget-friendly ingredients. (gluten-free with soy-free and nut-free options)

It’s soup season, and I am loving all the creamy, hearty, and budget-friendly soups — and this lemony white bean soup fits exactly into that category. It’s packed with tons of veggies, beans, and protein. 

The best part about this lemon white bean soup is that it’s flexible to your flavor profile. You can easily adjust the flavors and ingredients based on what you have on hand. It’s vibrant, lemony, and perfect for the whole family!

The soup gets its protein from beans, cashews or tofu, nutritional yeast, and the veggies. You also blend up some of the beans into a puree to create that creamy texture along with either cashews or tofu. You can even omit the cashews and tofu, if you need to, and use just the beans for the creamy base.

This creamy lemon white bean soup is wholesome, flexible, and easy to make. The perfect go-to for cozy soup season!!

Why You’ll Love Lemon White Bean Soup

• creamy, vibrant soup with tons of veggies and protein
• versatile recipe! Adjust seasoning and proteins to your taste.
• 40-minute, 1-pot meal
• naturally gluten-free with easy soy-free and nut-free options

Continue reading: 1-Pot Lemon White Bean Soup

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Dal Makhani is one of the most ordered Indian dish in restaurants. You can make authentic, buttery, rich dal makhani at home. It’s just as good as the restaurant version! Black gram and kidney beans are simmered in a creamy spiced sauce and is perfect for special occasions or a great dinner. With Instant Pot and Sauce pan instructions. (gluten-free, soy-free, nut-free, oil-free option).

Love ordering Dal Makhani at restaurants? You’ll love this homemade version even more! This is adapted from my home-style dal makhani that’s on the blog and in my books. The difference is that this version has more spices, including some whole spices, which create more layers of flavor. 

This version of dal makhani is a little bit more involved than my home-style version. It has both a base sauce and a spiced oil. This levels up the flavor and adds a smoky, creamy flavor, like restaurants usually serve.  There’s also a lot more Kashmiri chili powder in this version compared to the home-style one. 

The home-style recipe is quicker and still delicious, but this one takes it up another couple of notches, simmering the beans in a deeply-flavored sauce.

Makhani means both “butter” and “like butter,” and the dish is called dal makhani, both because of the butter content and the creamy, buttery texture of the dal. The goal is to cook the beans long enough that they become soft and almost break down into the sauce, thickening it and creating a smooth consistency. For the right texture, I prefer to use a pressure cooker / instant pot, but you can also cook it in a saucepan. I included both methods in the recipe.

After cooking the beans, we make a delicious sauce with whole spices, aromatics, and ground spices, then add the cooked beans to it. Then, we prepare a spice oil with toasted fenugreek leaves, Kashmiri chili, smoked paprika, and a smoky burnt cinnamon stick. Burning the cinnamon stick for just half a second before adding it to give the dal its smoky restaurant-style flavor.

Traditionally, restaurants achieve this smoky flavor by using food-grade charcoal. They place a piece of hot charcoal in a bowl with oil, which immediately smokes. Then, they nestle the bowl inside the dal pot and cover the pan for 10 to 15 minutes. If you don’t want to use charcoal or burnt cinnamon, liquid smoke can also work.

Why You’ll Love Dal Makhani

• creamy, buttery dal with two kinds of beans
• deep flavor from the sauce and the spice oil, no dairy needed!
• flexible! Cook the beans in the Instant Pot or on the stovetop
• naturally gluten-free, soy-free, and nut-free with an oil-free option

Continue reading: Restaurant-Style Dal Makhani

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Pillowy tortellini and a velvety tomato-cream broth, enriched with my easy homemade sausage spice mix. Bursting with bold Italian flavors and ready in just 30 minutes, it’s your new favorite irresistible soup.

I got some almond ricotta–stuffed tortellini, so I decided to make an amazing soup with it. This is a hearty, delicious, and easy tortellini soup recipe. It uses the usual suspects of an Italian-flavored soup: aromatics, carrot, celery, Italian herbs, and vegan sausage. Those flavors pair up with the tortellini, tomato purée, and some non-dairy cream. 

It turns out absolutely delicious.

I make this spice mix which adds all the flavor of sausage to whatever plant based protein you choose. This spice mix combines smoked paprika, fennel seeds, garlic powder, black pepper, oregano, and pepper flakes, and it’s just so versatile and flavorful!

First make the spice mix, and then decide which protein you want to use for the sausage. You can use vegan sausage, lentils, walnuts, pecans, chickpeas, crumbled tofu, chopped up soaked soy curls, seitan, or whatever else you like. 

Cook your protein of choice with some garlic and the spice mix, then add all the aromatics. Fold in the tomato sauce, tortellini, and some stock, then add non-dairy cream at the end. The tortellini cooks up in the same pan with the rest of the soup.

The soup comes together within 30 minutes in just 1 pan, and is creamy and satisfying!

Why You’ll Love Tortellini Soup

• super easy 1-pot meal ready in 30 minutes
• creamy, tomatoey broth with sausagey flavors and tender, cheesy tortellini
• super versatile! Use whatever plant-based protein you like!
• Easily made gluten-free, soy-free, and/or nut-free.

Continue reading: Creamy Tortellini Soup (30 Minutes!)

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Marry me tofu bake is like a high protein plant-based lasagna style bake. Tofu, creamy smoky sauce, spinach sun-dried tomato tofu ricotta, and no pasta! Lasagna meets tofu parmigiana meets marry me tofu, minus pasta. Easy to make all in one baking dish. Over 20 gm protein! Options for gluten-free, soy-free, and nut-free

My husband loves my tofu parmesan bake, and so did you guys, because lots of you have made that one and variations of it since I first posted it. It’s basically like a lasagna with this delicious spinach ricotta filling and some pasta sauce, all layered up but with tofu slices instead of lasagna noodles. It’s a hearty dish that’s easy to make and can be served in various ways.

For this marry me tofu bake, I changed up the fillings. I used the flavors from my marry me pasta and made this creamy smoky sauce and the an umami filled ricotta filling to create something new and delicious. It has this incredible, smoky rose-style sauce. Then, we make the spinach ricotta filling, but we also add sun-dried tomato and some heat to it for a richer deeper umami flavor.

Together, all of these flavors create a sort of a marry me pasta flavor profile, but in a parmigiana kind of format. This bake is hearty, delicious, and everybody’s going to keep going in for seconds. And thirds!

It is a high-protein dish, because we use tofu layers instead of lasagna noodles, add tofu to our spinach ricotta filling and even in the creamy pasta sauce. The pasta sauce gets its creaminess from protein-rich cashews and tofu. So, there’s protein in each element of this dish. If you don’t want to use cashews for the sauce, you can use hemp seeds or silken tofu as another source of protein. There’s also nutritional yeast in the sauce, which adds even more protein to each helping, making each serving super satisfying and delicious.

You can serve this with some sourdough or whole grain bread for even more protein, or over lentil spaghetti or lentil pasta for an extra protein boost.

Why You’ll Love Marry Me Tofu

• super simple, 1-pan, weeknight meal
• Lasagna meets tofu parmigiana meets marry me tofu, minus pasta!
• bakes in the oven, so very little active cooking time
• tofu in creamy, smoky, marry me cream sauce
• high protein dinner
• easy gluten-free, nut-free, and soy-free options

Continue reading: Marry Me Tofu Bake (Lasagna style)

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