This Mexican-inspired pinto bean soup is creamy, packed with flavor, and hearty enough for a meal! Bonus: it's super easy to make and cooks up in one pot in about 35 minutes, making it perfect for weeknight dinners.
Pinto beans don't get nearly enough love, if you ask me. Everybody makes such a fuss over black beans and chickpeas. And yes, I love my black bean soup and pasta e ceci. But pinto beans are just as wonderful, and a big bowl of this creamy pinto bean soup is about as comforting and delicious as a weeknight winter dinner can get!
Jump to:
Pinto beans are perfect soup material. They are savory, smoky, and they blend up deliciously creamy. This soup is Mexican-inspired. Is it authentically Mexican, you ask? No, probably not. Unless that happened by accident. I basically made this soup up, with my favorite bean burrito filling as inspiration.
But this pinto bean soup is so much better than anything that comes from a takeout window. And it's almost as easy, hearty enough for a meal, and perfect for chilly days.
Ingredients You'll Need
Below you'll find a list of ingredients in this recipe, with notes and substitutions. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the post to see the full recipe, including the amount of each ingredient.
- Olive oil. You can substitute your favorite neutral-high heat oil if you'd like. Vegetable oil, canola oil, avocado oil and coconut oil will all work.
- Onion.
- Garlic.
- Spices. You'll need ground cumin, smoked paprika, dried oregano, and ancho chile powder, all of which are available in the spice aisle of most supermarkets.
- Vegetable broth.
- Canned pinto beans. We're using canned beans since they're precooked and allow the recipe to come together quickly and easily. If you'd like to soak and cook your beans from scratch, go right ahead. You'll need about 5 ½ cups of beans.
- Fire roasted tomatoes. Fire roasted tomatoes add a deliciously smoky flavor to the soup, but regular canned diced tomatoes can be substituted if that's all that's available.
- Lime juice.
- Salt and pepper.
- Accompaniments. While not strictly required, I really love to pile the toppings on my pinto bean soup. Try hot sauce, guacamole, shredded vegan cheese, avocado slices, chopped scallions, fresh cilantro, pico de gallo, or tortilla chips or strips!
How It's Made
Below is a detailed photo tutorial on how to make this dish. Scroll all the way down if you'd like to skip right to the recipe!
- Coat the bottom of a large pot with some oil and heat it up. Add diced onion. Sweat the onion for about 5 minutes, stirring it often until it starts to soften up.
- Add minced garlic and your spices. Sauté everything briefly. Make sure to stir the mixture and keep an eye on it — the spices can burn quickly!
- Stir in the broth, beans and tomatoes. Raise the heat and bring the soup to a boil, then lower the heat so it's just simmering. It only needs to cook for about 20 minutes!
- Take the pot off of the burner and blend about half of the soup. I'm using an immersion hand blender (a tool I LOVE!), but you could always transfer it to a food processor or blender. Always be super careful when blending hot liquids.
Tip: Feel free to adjust the amount of soup you blend to achieve your desired consistency. For creamier soup, blend the whole batch. For brothier soup, blend less than half of it.
- Season your soup with a bit of lime juice, salt and pepper. You can also thin it with some broth or water at this point, though I like my soup nice and thick!
- Ladle it into bowls and pile on the toppings. Enjoy!
Variations
- Add greens. Leafy greens make a great addition to bean soups. Once the soup is blended, stir in some chopped kale, spinach, or collards, and let the soup simmer until the greens are tender.
- Veggie stir-ins. Add some fresh or frozen corn, diced bell peppers, zucchini or summer squash after blending, then simmer briefly until the veggies are tender.
- Smoky chipotle bean soup. Stir in some diced chipotle peppers or adobo sauce (the sauce that canned chipotles are packed in).
- Add hominy. Hominy is dried corn that's been alkalized, which makes it super tender and enhances the flavor. It's a star ingredient in my vegan pozole, and it makes a great addition to Mexican and southwestern bean soups. Drain and rinse one can of hominy, then stir it in with the lime juice.
Leftovers & Storage
Leftover pinto bean soup will keep in an airtight container in the fridge for about 4 days, or in the freezer for about 3 months.
The soup can be reheated in the microwave or in a saucepan on the stovetop. It may thicken up during storage. Simply thin it with some water or broth during reheating if needed.
Frequently Asked Questions
It is!
It's spicy, but not very hot. In fact, the ancho chile powder is the only ingredient that adds heat. If you're nervous about the heat level, add it at the end (after blending) to taste. If you'd like extra heat, add a bit of cayenne pepper or some hot sauce.
Probably, though the flavor and texture will be a bit different. Black beans, navy beans, kidney beans and cannellini beans should all work fine.
More Bean Soup Recipes
Like this recipe? If so, please stop back and leave me a review and rating below if you try it! Also be sure to follow me on Facebook, Pinterest or Instagram, or subscribe to my newsletter for more recipes like this one!
📖 Recipe
Mexican Pinto Bean Soup
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 tablespoon ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon ancho chile powder
- 2 cups vegetable broth, plus more as needed
- 3 (14 ounce or 400g) cans pinto beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 (14 ounce or 400g) can fire roasted tomatoes
- 1 tablespoon lime juice
- Salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Coat the bottom of a large pot with olive oil and place it over medium heat.
- When the oil is hot, add the onion. Cook, stirring frequently, until soft and translucent, about 5 minutes.
- Stir in the garlic, cumin, smoked paprika, oregano, and ancho chile powder. Cook everything for about 1 minute, stirring constantly, until very fragrant.
- Stir in the broth, beans and tomatoes. Raise the heat and bring the liquid to a boil.
- Lower the heat and allow the soup to simmer for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add a bit of water if the liquid reduces too much.
- Remove the pot from the heat. Use an immersion blender to blend about half of the soup (or get it as smooth or chunky as you like). Alternatively, transfer the soup in batches to a blender or food processor, blend, and return it to the pot. (See Note.)
- Thin the soup with water or additional broth if desired, then place it back on the burner for a few minutes to heat back up if needed.
- Stir in the lime juice and season the soup with salt and pepper to taste.
- Divide into bowls and top with toppings of choice. Serve.
Notes
Would you like to save this?
We'll email this post to you, so you can come back to it later!
Love the combination of flavors in this recipe. So warming on a fall day. Fire roasted tomatoes make all the difference here, so use them if you can find them!
I made a 1/3 recipe as I live alone and it's delightful, just what I had in mind when I was thinking to create when I googled instead. I do think the servings are off on the original proportions. It' says for servings with 3 cans of beans and one of tomato. I'm not a growing teen but to eat 14 oz of this before broth or aromatics seems too much.
This one's a keeper, a 5-star soup and so easy!! Perfect balance of spices. I garnish wirh a dollop of sour cream &:cilantro if I have on hand.
I forgot to rate the recipe. Definitely 5 stars!
This recipe is excellent! I loved it as written, but this time I cooked some fresh green chiles with the onions, and added a pound of browned chorizo. Made either way, it's outstanding. This is a keeper!
love this!!
Absolutely delicious as written. The second time I made it the only adjustment was to the beans I used. The second time around I used a combination of black and pinto beans (love taste of black beans) and it turned out better than the first time. Highly recommend.
OMG. This soup is amazing. I used fire roasted tomatoes that were for making salsa which made the heat level just right for us. I will be making this often as soon as it cools off in Arizona. Thank you for sharing this easy, delicious soup!
Super easy, creamy and delicious!
Thank you for a super easy and scrumptious soup!
I will be making this again! I only had 2 cans of pinto bean, so I used a can of refried beans for the 3rd can. Came out creamy, without using a blender! Perfection!
I am totally doing this too.
Hubby loved this. He had a twelve hour shift today starting at 3am and had this for breakfast. He said it was hearty and filling.
Omg so good! This makes an amazing base for Tortilla Soup. And super easy. Thank you!
I soaked 2 c pinto beans and skipped the ancho chile. I let it simmer until beans were very soft. For some heat, I added cayenne at the end of cooking. Very easy to make and tasty. I will definitely make again.
Making this recipe now so no comment on taste (yet) but I do have a question. Where does the sodium content come from in this recipe? My canned beans are no salt added and salt is only added to taste so I’m just wondering where it comes from & if there’s any way to reduce it.
Additionally, my roasted tomatoes were no salt added (both beans & tomatoes had some, but not much).
It's mostly from the beans, tomatoes and broth. Yours will have less sodium since you're using no salt varieties. Here's a link to the nutrition calculator I use - you might be able to plug in the specific brands you're using to get an idea of the sodium content of your batch: https://www.verywellfit.com/recipe-nutrition-analyzer-4157076 I hope you enjoy the soup!
I usually use https://nutriely.com/tools/recipe-builder to figure out where minerals and vitamins are coming from, it is very detailed.
BTW, I loved the recipe!
This soup was fantastic! It didn't last long! The only change I made was I substituted one can of vegetarian refried beans for one can of pinto beans. Very fast and easy to make and delicious!
I made this recipe again today, only I used dried beans. I measured out one cup of dried pinto beans, & soaked them overnight. Then I cooked them in my pressure cooker, with plain water, until they were super tender. It made about 2 cans worth of beans. I used refried beans again, for the third can of beans. This is favorite already!
That was a lot of flavour for a little bit of effort. The ingredients were all in my pantry and it came together quickly. This soup is hearty and delicious. It retains the heat very well so my advice is don't serve immediately, let it cool a bit otherwise once you taste how delicious it is you can't stop eating it and might burn your tongue like me. Exactly the type of recipe I love - lots of flavour, minimal effort, and it's healthy. Thanks for a great recipe!
I made this soup today and it was a hit. After losing track of which of my chili powders were super hot I just used mild chili powder. But then I had to add 1/2 cup of salsa and a lot of Franks Hot Sauce to bring the heat back up. I also added about a 1/4 cup of avocado oil to add some silkiness to the texture. Anyway, it was completely delicious and my husband wants me to save the recipe and make it again. It's a winner. Thanks for sharing the recipe.
Wildly simple and supremely tasty, THIS pinto bean soup has officially become my new standard. Yum, yum,YUM!
Ok, so day 1 I started with my normal slow-cooked pinto bean recipe that we eat with cornbread. Has most of these seasonings in it to begin with (I use normal chili powder instead of the "ancho" tho. Day 2 of my slow-cooked pintos is burrito stuffing, so I add in fire-roasted Rotel, typically, sometimes normal, depending on what I have on hand. but always Rotel (gotta have those extra chilis). This soup made a nice treat for day 3 of the beans tho, it brightened it up to then add in the broth and lime and purree it smooth. 3 days of meals for 3 people off of a basic 2 lb bag of pinto beans.
So no, I didn't make the soup right off to start...but we got there..Thanks for the idea!
Wow amazing soup and so easy! Thanks for sharing. I roasted my own Roma tomatoes in the oven for this and they really add that authentic Mexican flavor that is so hard to pinpoint. I also used water instead of broth and fresh herbs...so yum! Very happy with canned beans too, I just rinsed them really well. I will add this to my repertoire...thanks again! :-)
Homemade roasted tomatoes sound like a wonderful addition! I'm so glad you like this!
II used dry beans soaked overnight and a day and still waS not soft
Did you cook them after soaking and before adding them to the soup? Canned beans are fully cooked, so you'll need to cook your dried beans completely before using them in this recipe, otherwise I'd expect them to be hard.
I have been waiting for this recipe! Thank you. I made it as written and it is just what I hoped. Sprinkled with some tortilla chips and cheese. Yum!
Could I use dried pinto beans for this?
Yup! You'll just need to cook them first, since canned beans are precooked.
Soak em overnight
This was OUTSTANDING!!! Even my picky mother liked it! Will make again and again. Thank you for another great recipe!
Yay! Glad it's a hit! Thanks Erin!
Delicious!
Thank you!!
This is excellent as written. It was easy to cook and so tasty.
Awesome!! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
This looks good. Can leftovers be frozen?
I haven't tried freezing this one, but generally I find that bean soups freeze great. So I think so!