Creamy Garbanzo Bean Soup

Garbanzo bean soup made with rosemary, diced tomatoes, onions, garlic, and parmesan is a simple recipe with wonderful Tuscan flavors packed with fiber and protein. Gluten-free and vegan!

This garbanzo bean soup recipe carries a bit of nostalgia for me. Not only is it one of the first dishes I made when I started cooking, but it brings me back to my vacations in Tuscany, where the inspiration for this soup comes from. 

The first time I made this Tuscan bean soup recipe, I remember how apprehensive I was making soup from scratch and how my husband had to be my cheerleader pushing me along. The soup was absolutely delicious even though I overfilled the blender and had hot soup explode all over the kitchen!

This Tuscan chickpea soup recipe is actually not difficult to make at all, I think my nerves and inexperience just got the better of me that first time around. Canned garbanzo beans, also known as chickpeas, are rich in protein and fiber and easy to work with! You’ll love that this colorful and creamy soup is ready to enjoy in about 30 minutes, even if garbanzo soup is your first homemade soup recipe.

👩🏽‍🍳 Why You’ll Love This Garbanzo Bean Soup  

• Perfect First Soup Recipe: If you are a newer cook or are apprehensive about making homemade soup like I was, try this recipe! Minimal chopping and just a few kitchen tools are needed. The cooking process is simple and will build your confidence to try more plant-based soup recipes!
• Hearty: Making soup with garbanzo beans adds protein and fiber and the beans and vegetables blend smoothly with vegetable broth for a dish that is hearty and comforting.
• Stovetop and Pressure Cooker Options: This recipe can be prepared on the stovetop or in your pressure cooker, so choose the cooking method that works best for you!
• Creamy Without Cream: This vegan garbanzo bean soup is blended after cooking so no cream or dairy is needed for the velvety creamy texture, sure to be a family favorite.
• Kid-Friendly: My kids adore this delicious healthy garbanzo bean soup because the flavors are mild, and the soup is smooth, just the way they like it! They also love the melty parmesan cheese.

🥘 Ingredients

This vegan garbanzo bean soup recipe calls for easy-to-find ingredients that combine to create robust, amazing flavors. For the full recipe and nutritional information, see the recipe card at the bottom of this post.

• Garbanzo Beans: This recipe uses three cans of garbanzo beans or 45 ounces. Be sure to drain and rinse the beans before adding them to your soup pot. 
• Water or Vegetable Broth: You’ll need 4 cups of water or vegetable broth or a combination of the two. I prefer a more flavorful broth, so I like using vegetable broth instead of water, but either will work.
• Onion & Garlic: White or yellow onion and fresh, minced garlic sauteed in a little bit of olive oil will offer the best flavor.
• Tomatoes: Canned, diced tomatoes add delicious tomato color and flavor without chopping.
• Fresh Rosemary: Fresh herbs have a delightful aroma and rosemary brings a hearty and comforting flavor, finely chopped.
• Salt and Pepper: I prefer to use kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste.
• Vinegar: Balsamic vinegar finishes this delicious soup off with a little extra zip. 
• Parmesan Cheese (optional): Grated parmesan cheese or vegan parmesan cheese for topping the soup.

🍲 Ingredient Substitutions

• Cannellini or Great Northern Beans: If you don’t have garbanzo beans, you can use a white bean like cannellini beans, great northern beans, or any combination of the three.
• Dried Garbanzo Beans: If you prefer using dried garbanzo beans, you can use them in place of canned chickpeas. Rinse, soak, and cook the dried garbanzo beans to prepare them for this recipe.
• Fresh Tomatoes: If you have tomatoes on hand, you can peel and dice your own for this recipe.
• Broth: If you don’t need this recipe to be vegetarian or vegan, you can use chicken broth instead of vegetable broth for this hearty soup.
• Cheddar or Mozzarella Cheese: Top soup with grated white cheddar, sharp cheddar, or mozzarella cheese in place of the parmesan cheese, or use your favorite vegan or lactose-free cheese variety.

🔪 How To Make Creamy Garbanzo Bean Soup

Here’s how to make this creamy garbanzo bean soup:

Saute: Heat oil in a Dutch oven, or a large pot, over medium heat. Add diced onion and garlic, and cook for 10 minutes, stirring frequently.

Stir In: Add the water or broth, rosemary, salt, black pepper, chickpeas, and tomatoes and stir.

Boil: Bring to a boil over high or medium-high heat. Reduce heat to medium low, and simmer for 20 minutes.

Blend Soup: Using an immersion blender, blend this Tuscan chickpea soup until creamy. You can also use a food processor or blender to blend 2 cups of soup at a time until smooth, transfer to a bowl or other pot, and repeat until all soup has been blended. Return all of the pureed soup to the Dutch oven.

Add Vinegar: Stir in the vinegar, and bring the soup to a boil. Remove from heat.

Serve: Spoon 1 1/2 cups soup into each of 6 bowls; sprinkle each serving with 1 tablespoon cheese. Garnish with fresh herbs like fresh parsley or rosemary. Serve this Tuscan garbanzo bean soup warm!

♨️ Instant Pot Directions

You can also make this creamy garbanzo bean soup in the pressure cooker! Here’s how:

• Cook the vegetables on the medium heat sauté setting for 10 minutes, add the water, seasonings, chickpeas, and tomatoes, and pressure cook on high for 10 minutes.
• Natural-release the pressure and turn the heat to low before blending the soup and stirring in the red wine vinegar. Easy and delicious!

💭 Expert Tips

• Use A Dutch Oven, Large Saucepan, O Stockpot: This recipe for garbanzo bean soup makes a lot of soup, so using a large pot is best. Doing so allows you to easily combine and stir ingredients and gives room to blend with the immersion blender without splashing.
• Saute Onions And Garlic First: Saute the onions and garlic until they become translucent. This will deepen the flavor and soften them so they meld easily with other ingredients.
• Blend In Small Batches: If you blend the Tuscan bean soup using a countertop blender or food processor, blend in batches because the soup will expand, and you don’t want hot soup overflowing! Try blending 2 cups of soup at a time and start blending at a slow speed. Use an oven mitt to hold the blender if needed, especially if your container is all glass.
• Drain And Rinse Garbanzo Beans: Before using garbanzo beans in soup, drain and rinse to remove the liquid used in canning. This will create a nice thick soup. Including that liquid will make the soup too thin.
• Blend In Greens: For some additional greens in this creamy chickpea soup, add fresh baby spinach before pureeing. You won’t be able to taste the spinach at all and you’ll get some extra nutrients! Adjust the salt pepper and rosemary to taste.

📖 Variations

• Bay Leaves: Two bay leaves will enhance the flavors of this Italian garbanzo bean soup as it cooks. Remove before blending.
• Citrus: Add a squeeze of fresh lemon juice or a little bit of lemon zest to finish off this soup before serving.
• Spinach: Add 1-2 cups of chopped fresh or baby spinach before blending soup for some extra greens.
• Add Some Heat: Sprinkle in ½-1 teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes for some additional spice. 
• Thicker Or Thinner Soup: For a thicker soup, add a few tablespoons of tomato paste for thickness and deeper tomato flavor. For a thinner garbanzo soup recipe, increase the broth or water by 1 cup.
• Chunky Style: If you’d prefer a chunkier soup, consider adding a cup of black beans, white beans, or diced tomatoes after blending the soup. This will add some more texture as well as protein.
• Pasta: Stir in cooked small shells, or your favorite small pasta shape, to the blended soup and serve immediately.

🍽 Serving Suggestions

I like serving this blended garbanzo bean soup in a deep bowl, perfect for dipping crusty bread or stirring in extra cheese.

This soup is filling and hearty on its own, but you can serve it with some vegetables such as roasted broccoli and potatoes or a grain like buckwheat or quinoa (Learn More: pressure cooker quinoa and how to cook buckwheat). Or try this ceci bean soup with crispy air fryer garlic bread!

🙌 Dietary Adaptations

This recipe is naturally gluten-free and dairy-free. To make this recipe vegan, omit the parmesan cheese or use vegan parmesan.

🫙 Storage Directions

This soup stores really well and tastes even better the next day! Here’s how to store and keep this easy soup recipe:

• To Store In The Fridge: Allow soup to cool to room temperature and transfer to an airtight container. Leftovers keep in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
• To Freeze: Soup stores in a freezer-safe container for up to 2 months. Thaw in the refrigerator overnight, or reheat on the stovetop when ready to enjoy.
• To Reheat: Reheat this dish on the stovetop until it is heated through. Add additional water or broth to thin soup if it has thickened.

❓ Recipe FAQs

🥣 More Delicious Recipes For Vegan Soup!

• Vegan Butternut Squash Soup
• Tomato Soup With Canned Tomatoes
• Vegan Tomato Soup
• Spaghetti Squash Soup
• Vegan Black Bean Chili
• Vegan Minestrone Soup
• Carrot Potato Soup
• Butternut Squash Bisque
• Curried Cauliflower Soup
• Vegan Pozole Recipe
• Italian Chickpea Tomato Soup
• 41 Vegan Soup Recipes

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4.79 from 19 votes

Creamy Garbanzo Bean Soup

Garbanzo bean soup made with rosemary, diced tomatoes, onions, garlic, and parmesan is a simple recipe with wonderful Tuscan flavors packed with fiber and protein. Gluten-free and vegan!

Prep Time10 minutes mins

Cook Time35 minutes mins

Total Time45 minutes mins

Course: Soup

Cuisine: Italian

Diet: Low Calorie, Vegan, Vegetarian

Servings: 6 servings

Calories: 286.5kcal

Author: Anjali Shah

Ingredients

• ▢ 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• ▢ 1 red onion finely chopped
• ▢ 8 garlic cloves minced
• ▢ 4 cups water or low sodium vegetable broth
• ▢ 1 tsp minced fresh rosemary or ¼ tsp dried
• ▢ 1 tsp salt
• ▢ ¼ tsp ground black pepper
• ▢ 45 oz chickpeas (garbanzo beans), rinsed and drained 3 cans
• ▢ 15 oz diced tomatoes, undrained 1 can
• ▢ 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• ▢ 6 tbsp grated fresh Parmesan cheese 1½ ounces
• ▢ 6 oz fresh baby spinach chopped, optional if you want extra greens

US Customary – Metric

Equipment

• ▢
  Dutch Oven
• ▢
  Wooden Spoon
• ▢
  Food Processor
• ▢
  Immersion Blender Or Regular Blender

Instructions

• ▢
  Heat the olive oil in a Dutch oven (or a large pot) over medium heat. Add onion and garlic, and cook for 10 minutes, stirring frequently.
• ▢
  Stir in the water, rosemary, salt, pepper, tomatoes, and drained and rinsed chickpeas, and bring to a boil. Note: If using spinach, add it in here. Reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes.
• ▢
  Place 2 cups soup in a blender or food processor, and process until smooth. Pour the pureed soup into a bowl. Repeat procedure with 2 cups soup. (Note: the other alternative here is to use a hand blender – it works a lot more quickly and is a lot less messy!)
• ▢
  If using a blender, return all pureed soup to pan.
• ▢
  Stir in the vinegar, and bring to a boil.
• ▢
  Remove from heat. Spoon 1 1/2 cups soup into each of 6 bowls; sprinkle each serving with 1 tablespoon cheese.

Notes

To Store: Allow soup to cool to room temperature and transfer to an airtight container. Leftovers keep in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.

To Freeze: Soup stores in a freezer-safe container for up to 2 months. Thaw in the refrigerator overnight, or reheat on the stovetop when ready to enjoy.

To Reheat: Reheat this dish on the stovetop until it is heated through.  Add additional water or broth to thin soup if it has thickened. 

Recipe Tips:

• Use a large Dutch oven or stock pot so there is plenty of room to boil and blend the soup in the pot.
• Sauté onions and garlic in olive oil before adding other ingredients.
• Drain and rinse garbanzo beans before adding them to the soup.
• If you blend the soup using a countertop blender, blend in batches because the soup will expand, and you don’t want hot soup overflowing!  Try blending 2 cups of soup at a time and start blending at a slow speed. Use an oven mitt to hold the blender if needed, especially if your container is all glass.
• For some additional greens in the soup, add 1-2 cups of fresh baby spinach before blending.

Nutritional Info uses water and includes baby spinach. Adapted from MyRecipes

Nutrition

Serving: 1.5cups | Calories: 286.5kcal | Carbohydrates: 47g | Protein: 13g | Fat: 5.9g | Saturated Fat: 1.5g | Cholesterol: 4mg | Sodium: 635mg | Potassium: 448mg | Fiber: 9.8g | Sugar: 2.8g