Delicious Low Fat Vegetable Soup

So, I’ve told you before how I’m crazy about making soup, especially in these cold, dreary months where you are locked indoors for weeks on end before you see a sunny day where you can actually be out and about without freezing your nanos off.  Well, I just got a recipe from a friend that I tweaked a bit to make it my own.  I’m going to share that recipe with you in a moment, but a word about this and other low fat soups that use a lot of broth as their base first, and lots of veggies.

Soups can be very filling. They are, after all, hot liquid, and this fact alone makes the other foods you eat with them sort of swell in your stomach, and for some reason just hot foods alone make you feel fuller, for what reason exactly I’m not sure. They are a great natural appetite suppressant.

They are a great way to not only warm you up in the winter, but I like them because they are the ideal side dish to a healthful, low calorie meal. They help to fill you up and keep you satisfied, and yet they still contain few calories because they consist mainly of broth, which contributes minimal calories, a lot of fiber rich veggies, and maybe some kind of starch in minimal content, like a brown rice or a whole grain pasta.

That’s what this soup uses, a whole grain pasta, and the whole pot of it only uses about one to one and a half cups of whole grain pasta, I like to use the kind of whole grain pasta that also has omega 3′s added to it, I think it’s made by Barilla, so that it adds not only extra nutrients to the soup, but it also helps contribute to keeping you full, since omega 3 fats actually make you think you’re fuller, faster.

Ok, enough with talking about this soup, let’s get on with how to make it!

I’m going to list all the ingredients. All you do is put them all together in a stock pot, bring them to a boil for a minute, then turn it down to simmer for as long as you’d like so the flavors all blend together. I like to simmer mine for a while, it just gives a better flavor.

Here’s the ingredients :

4 cups of either chicken or vegetable broth, fat free (most of them are naturally fat free)

1 can of black beans, drained

1-2 cups (depending on how you are watching your carbs) of whole wheat rotini pasta

1 bag of mixed vegetables (corn, peas, green beans carrots)

2 cans of petite diced tomatoes. You can use regular too, I just prefer petite in soups

2 Tablespoons of Italian seasoning

3 cloves of garlic, crushed or garlic salt

1 bay leaf (you will take this out when it’s done simmering, it’s simply to infuse the flavor into the soup while it is heating initially)