White Bean and Sausage Trail Soup
Instant beans, summer sausage, and dried kale in one pot. A stovetop version of a pressure-cooker dinner.
- calories
- 720
- weight
- 6 oz
- cal / oz
- 120
- protein
- 33 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 2 min
- cook
- 10 min
- total time
- 12 min
- water
- 600 ml boiled
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Canister stove
- Alcohol / Esbit
- Liquid fuel
- Backpacking
- Basecamp
- Car camping
- Winter / snow
- Gluten free
- Dairy free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Instant white bean flakes | 3/4 cup | navy or great northern; whole dried beans will not cook on a stove |
|---|---|---|
| Chicken bouillon | 1 tsp | |
| Hard summer sausage | 3 oz | sliced into coins at home |
| Dried kale | 1/2 cup, loosely packed | |
| Garlic powder | 1/2 tsp | or 1 tsp dried garlic flakes |
| Tomato powder | 1 tbsp | stands in for tomato paste |
| Dried oregano | 1/2 tsp | |
| Olive oil | 1 tbsp | |
| Salt, pepper, red pepper flakes | to taste |
Method
- Boil 600 ml of water. Drop in the sausage coins, bouillon, tomato powder, garlic, and oregano. Simmer two minutes so the fat renders into the broth.
- Add the dried kale. Simmer three more minutes until it softens and loses its papery edge.
- Kill the heat. Stir in the bean flakes a few spoonfuls at a time, waiting between additions so it does not clump.
- Cover and let it sit five minutes. It will thicken.
- Pour the olive oil over the top and season. Thin with hot water if it goes past soup into paste.
The original is a pressure-cooker recipe, and pressure is the whole reason it works: dried navy beans go tender in one sealed cycle. A backpacking stove cannot do that. Whole beans want an hour of simmering and most of a fuel canister, so the beans here are instant flakes, which rehydrate off the heat and thicken the pot at the same time.
The rest is substitution. Summer sausage replaces raw links because it is already cured and needs no cooking, only warming so its fat melts into the broth. Tomato powder does what a spoonful of paste did, dried kale does what fresh kale did, and the butter is gone because there is no fridge. Olive oil at the end covers the lost fat and pushes the calories up where a dinner needs them.
Packing
Bean flakes, bouillon, tomato powder, garlic, and oregano premixed in one bag. Kale in its own bag or it crushes to dust. Sausage and oil ride separately.
Variations
- Swap the chicken bouillon for vegetable and drop the sausage for a vegan pot; add a scoop of nutritional yeast for body.
- Dried mushrooms rehydrated in the first boil add depth the tomato powder cannot.
- No bean flakes? Instant refried beans work, but the result is thicker and less soupy.
https://dontwastethecrumbs.com/instant-pot-white-bean-soup-sausage-kale