Now that I am back to dieting, it’s really important for me to adjust both what and how I am cooking.  To get started I turned to SparkRecipes.com, a healthy recipe database from SparkPeople.com. For those of you with iPhones, SparkRecipes has an iPhone app. I love the site because it not only has healthier recipes, but it also gives you the nutritional information so you can track your fat and calorie intake.

This weekend while looking through the recipe database I found what I think is a great recipe for black bean soup. Not only really easy to make, which is important, but it’s low in fat (2.8 grams) and low in calories (>250). Following is the recipe, modified slightly to fit the ingredients I had on hand. This recipe makes 6 servings.

INGREDIENTS

1 cup onion, green/red/yellow bell pepper mix
1 medium carrot,chopped
2 cans cooked & rinsed black beans
1 can tomatoes,diced undrained
2 bay leaves
1 tsp.ground cumin
1 tsp.dried thyme
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
4 cups chicken stock
salt and pepper to taste

Garnish – low-fat sour cream & chives

DIRECTIONS

Place  onion, green/red/yellow bell pepper mix in small pan and heat through.  Place mixture in slow-cooker. Add black beans, chopped carrot, tomatoes (undrained), chicken stock, bay leaves, cumin, thyme and cayenne. Allow to simmer for 60 minutes, letting the carrots cook mostly through and the flavors to merry.
Before serving, puree 3 cups of the soup in a blender and then add back into slow-cooker.

Garnish with a dollop of low-fat sour cream & chives

For the original black bean soup recipe, click here.

This post is part of Mouthwatering Monday. To check out more mouthwatering posts, head over to A Southern Fairytale.