Sarra Barefoot Contessa rosemary white bean soup is a smooth, creamy pureed soup made with just eight ingredients: dried cannellini beans, yellow onions, olive oil, garlic, a full branch of fresh rosemary, chicken stock, and a bay leaf. The beans soak overnight, simmer for 30 to 40 minutes, and get passed through a food mill into a velvety puree. It serves 6 and takes about an hour of active time.
This recipe comes from Ina Garten’s very first cookbook, The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook (1999), where she describes it as “as simple and satisfying as any soup we do” and says it “always reminds me of Tuscany.” There’s no cream, no bacon, no carrots, no celery. The flavor depends entirely on the quality of the beans, the stock, and one large branch of rosemary. As Ina puts it, “fresh rosemary is truly essential.”
The salt goes in after the beans are fully cooked, never before. Ina is direct about this in her tip: “if you add salt before the beans are cooked, they become tough.” Salt tightens the skins on dried beans and prevents them from softening properly, so even 40 minutes of simmering won’t fix beans that were salted too early. Season after the food mill, when the puree is back in the pot and ready to serve.
Barefoot Contessa Rosemary White Bean Soup Recipe
Course: Soups4
servings30
minutes40
minutes300
kcalThe original white bean soup from Ina’s first cookbook, with only eight ingredients and zero filler. This was one of the most popular soups at the Barefoot Contessa store in East Hampton, and 23 years later Ina published a chunkier version in Go-To Dinners. This is the smooth, elegant original.
Ingredients
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1 lb (450g) dried white cannellini beans
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4 cups sliced yellow onions (3 onions)
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1/4 cup (60ml) good olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
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2 garlic cloves, minced
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1 large branch fresh rosemary (6 to 7 inches)
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2 quarts (1.9L) chicken stock
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1 bay leaf
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2 teaspoons kosher salt
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1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Directions
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Soak the beans: Place the beans in a medium bowl and cover with water by at least 1 inch. Refrigerate for 6 hours or overnight. Drain.
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Sauté the onions: In a large stockpot over low to medium heat, sauté the onions with the olive oil for 10 to 15 minutes until translucent. Add the garlic and cook over low heat for 3 more minutes.
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Simmer the soup: Add the drained beans, rosemary branch, chicken stock, and bay leaf. Cover, bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 30 to 40 minutes until the beans are very soft.
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Puree the soup: Remove the rosemary branch and bay leaf. Pass the soup through the coarsest blade of a food mill, or pulse in a food processor until coarsely pureed. Return the puree to the pot.
- Season and serve: Reheat gently, then add the salt and pepper to taste. Ladle into bowls and drizzle with good olive oil. Serve hot.
FAQs
Why does Ina use a food mill instead of a blender?
The food mill fitted with its coarsest blade gives this soup a rustic, slightly textured puree that still feels smooth on the tongue. A blender whips the beans into a completely uniform paste that loses all character, and it also whips in air, which makes the soup frothy instead of creamy.
A food processor works as the backup, but Ina says to pulse it rather than run it continuously. You want a coarse puree with some variation, not baby food. The food mill also catches any bean skins that didn’t fully break down during cooking, so the final texture is cleaner.
How is this different from Ina’s Tuscan White Bean Soup?
The Tuscan White Bean Soup from Go-To Dinners (2022) is the bigger, heartier evolution of this original. It adds pancetta, leeks, carrots, celery, garlic, and rosemary to the base, and the soup stays chunky with whole beans and diced vegetables in every spoonful.
This 1999 original is the opposite: stripped down to eight ingredients and pureed smooth. No pancetta, no carrots, no celery, no leeks. The flavor comes entirely from the onions, one branch of rosemary, and the beans themselves. It’s a first-course soup that lets one or two flavors shine, while the Tuscan version is a full dinner in a bowl.
Can you use canned beans instead of dried?
You can, but the soup won’t be the same. Dried beans that soak overnight and simmer for 40 minutes release their starch into the broth, which is what gives the puree its naturally creamy body without any cream or thickener.
Canned beans are already cooked, so they don’t release starch the same way. The puree ends up thinner and less silky. If you’re short on time, use two 15 oz cans of cannellini beans, drained and rinsed, and simmer for just 15 minutes before pureeing. Add a tablespoon of butter to compensate for the missing starch and body.
What makes fresh rosemary essential in this recipe?
One large branch of rosemary simmering in the stock for 30 to 40 minutes perfumes the entire pot. The heat releases the oils from the needles into the broth, so the rosemary flavor is woven through every spoonful rather than sitting on top.
Dried rosemary doesn’t work here because the oils have already evaporated during the drying process. You’d end up with sharp, woody little needles floating in the soup without the warm, piney aroma that fresh rosemary delivers. Ina calls it “truly essential” and she means it. This soup only has eight ingredients, so every one of them has to pull its weight.
Does rosemary white bean soup store well?
It keeps in the fridge for up to 5 days and freezes well for up to 3 months. The flavor improves after a day because the rosemary and bean flavors continue to deepen overnight.
The puree thickens a lot as it sits because the beans keep absorbing liquid even after pureeing. Add chicken stock a splash at a time when reheating until you get back to the consistency you want. Don’t add water because it dilutes the flavor. A fresh drizzle of good olive oil on each reheated bowl brings back the richness
