This black bean and roasted tomatillo soup is a delicious plant based soup; it’s zesty flavor comes from roasting tomatillos with onions and garlic.
It’s taken a while, but I finally love cooking. I used to be the impatient type, only wanting to cook for as little time as possible so I could enjoy the best part – the eating. Alex has always loved the process, so he’s had to drag me through it, helping me learn how to cut vegetables so that it’s soothing instead of maddening, helping me resist the urge to watch the pot until it boils, or hover over piping hot baked goodies asking whether they’re cool enough to sample yet. Thank goodness that’s worn off, little by little. I’m finally starting to understand the rhythm and waiting in cooking. Keep reading for what I learned about the rhythm of cooking in this delicious black bean and tomatillo soup.
First, what are tomatillos?
Tomatillos are little fruits that are native to Mexico, but they’re also grown in the US. They look like green, unripe tomatoes with a dry husk that wraps around the outside (hence their nickname, husk tomatoes). Tomatillos are bright green and taste acidic, a little less sweet than a typical tomato. They’re also the main ingredient for salsa verde, if you’re a salsa verde lover!
We picked up our tomatillos at our farmer’s market – check one near you to see if they’re in season! You can also find them at the grocery in the produce section when they’re in season. Tomatillos are typically in season in the fall in America; you’ll have to ask at your local grocery or farmer’s market for specifics.
Tips for roasting tomatillos
A few years ago, I would have taken a shortcut on a roasted tomatillo soup. Why waste the time roasting the veggies? Just throw them in the pot and cook them down as fast as possible. Those of you more experienced chefs know that the more time invested in a recipe, generally the better it tastes. So these days we’re okay with taking the extra time to roast, or simmer, or chop. It feels good to make it the right way if there’s time, instead of trying to take the easy way out.
Roasting tomatillos is very simple. First, remove the papery husks from the tomatillos, which easily slide off using your fingers. After you’ve removed the husk, you’ll notice a sticky film on the surface of the tomatillo. Rinse the tomatillos under warm water and it comes right off! Then, roughly chop the tomatillos and place them on a parchment lined baking sheet. This recipe involves roasting tomatillos with onions, garlic, and jalapeno peppers, which imparts a fantastic flavor!
How to make tomatillo soup
This is a lovely tomatillo soup, and really doesn’t take too much time to put together, outside of roasting tomatillos and veggies for about 20 minutes. It’s based on a recipe from the talented Gwyneth Paltrow, and has a subtle, intriguing flavor. After you roast the tomatillos, you blend together the roasted veggies with veggie broth to use as the base of the soup. Then you add black beans and hominy, and simmer until warmed through. The garnishes are where this soup really shines: radishes, cilantro and lime bring a zesty flavor that you won’t be able to stop eating!
Related: Try using our Homemade Vegetable Broth for this recipe!
Looking for more tomatillo recipes?
Outside of this tomatillo soup, here are a few more tomatillo recipes on A Couple Cooks:
- Homemade Tomatillo Salsa with Fresh Tomatillos
- Artichoke & Quinoa Vegetarian Enchiladas
- Roasted Tomatillo Salsa (Salsa Verde)
This recipe is…
This roasted tomatillo soup is vegetarian, gluten-free, vegan, plant-based, and dairy-ree.
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Black Bean & Roasted Tomatillo Soup
(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 1)
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Prep Time: 15 minutes - Cook Time: 35 minutes
- Total Time: 50 minutes
- Yield: 4
- Category: Soup
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Mexican Inspired
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Pin RecipeDescription
This black bean and roasted tomatillo soup is a delicious plant based soup; it’s zesty flavor comes from roasting tomatillos with onions and garlic.
Ingredients
- 12 small tomatillos
- 2 red onions
- 2 jalapeno peppers
- 3 garlic cloves
- Olive oil
- Kosher salt
- 15-ounce can beans
- 15-ounce can hominy
- 8 radishes
- 3 green onions
- 1/4 cup cilantro, chopped + 3 sprigs
- 1 quart vegetable broth
- Kosher salt
- Fresh ground black pepper
- 1 lime
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 450°F.
- Remove the husks from the tomatillos, rinse them, then roughly chop them. Chop the red onions, and jalapeno peppers (remove the seeds). Cut the garlic cloves into quarters.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place the chopped veggies on the sheet, drizzle with enough olive oil to coat, and sprinkle with kosher salt. Roast until soft and slightly browned, about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Meanwhile, drain and rinse the hominy and black beans. Also, prepare the garnishes: thinly slice the radishes and green onions, and chop the cilantro.
- Add the roasted vegetables to a large pot. Add the vegetable broth, and use an immersion blender to puree until fully blended (alternatively, transfer the hot soup to a blender, then blend and return it to the pot).
- Add 3 sprigs of cilantro and the hominy and black beans. Bring the mixture to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Season with kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper.
- Remove the cilantro sprigs. Pour into bowls, and garnish with green onions, radishes, cilantro, and fresh-squeezed lime juice.
Notes
Adapted from It’s All Good by Gwyneth Paltrow and Julia Turshen
Keywords: Tomatillo Soup, Mexican Soup, Roasting Tomatillos, Black Bean Soup, Hominy Soup, Hominy, Tomatillo Recipes, Vegetarian Soup, Healthy Soup
About the Authors
Sonja Overhiser
Cookbook Author and writer
Sonja Overhiser is author of Pretty Simple Cooking, named one of the best healthy cookbooks of 2018. She’s host of the food podcast Small Bites and founder of the food blog A Couple Cooks. Featured from the TODAY Show to Bon Appetit, Sonja seeks to inspire adventurous eating to make the world a better place one bite at a time.
Alex Overhiser
Cookbook Author and photographer
Alex Overhiser is an acclaimed food photographer and author based in Indianapolis. He’s host of the food podcast Small Bites and founder of the recipe website A Couple Cooks. Featured from the TODAY Show to Bon Appetit, Alex is author of Pretty Simple Cooking, named one of the best vegetarian cookbooks by Epicurious.
32 Comments
Tieghan
October 9, 2013 at 11:05 pmThis is so pretty! The tomatillos are so gorgeous! I have never cook with them, but this make me want too. Such a warm and cozy soup!
Sonja
October 9, 2013 at 11:32 pmThank you, Tieghan! We haven’t used tomatillos a lot, but have loved everything we’ve made with them. You should try them out! :)
Cookin Canuck
October 9, 2013 at 11:15 pmTomatillos add such wonderful flavor. I love how you pureed the whole mixture to make the soup creamy without adding cream. Featuring this on my Facebook page tomorrow.
Sonja
October 9, 2013 at 11:30 pmThat is so nice – thank you, Dara!
Katrina @ Warm Vanilla Sugar
October 10, 2013 at 5:33 amThis looks so wonderfully comforting. Love it!
Jill
October 10, 2013 at 12:08 pmThis sounds great! Definitely trying it soon. I personally do not like hominy (I think it’s the texture) so I imagine I’ll either substitute corn or chickpeas….Or just leave it out. I’ve never had tomatillos in anything other than green salsa, so I’m excited to try it out. Thanks!
Alex
October 10, 2013 at 12:11 pmI’ve never been too big on hominy either, but Sonja convinced me we should try it in this soup. It turned out I really liked it; if you’re feeling wild you should try it :)
Vanessa
October 10, 2013 at 8:40 pmYou two are so cool.
Sonja
October 11, 2013 at 8:46 amAww, thanks, Vanessa! :)
Morgan Hamilton
October 10, 2013 at 9:03 pmI have been working my way through “It’s All Good”, but somehow I missed this recipe. I can’t wait to try it!
Sonja
October 11, 2013 at 8:39 amYes! It is actually called “Easiest Pozole” in the cookbook :)
Nicole
October 11, 2013 at 4:04 amThis looks delicious! Do you think you could use canned tomatillos? Hispanic flavors and ingredients haven’t quite made it over here to the UK – much to this California girls frustration! However I did manage to get a big can of them shipped over courtesy of the parents!
Sonja
October 11, 2013 at 8:39 amHmm, interesting thought! I would think you could use canned tomatillos, but we’ve never tried it! The only thing would be to figure out the quantity; I’m not sure what size of cans you have, so you might have to guess. Let us know if you try it out! Glad to hear you’re a tomatillo fan — maybe they’ll start to appear in the UK someday :)
Alexe @ Keys to the Cucina
October 11, 2013 at 2:15 pmYour pictures are gorgeous! I’ve never cooked with tomatillos but this soup looks so light and fresh I’m sure I’d love it :)
Sonja
October 13, 2013 at 2:53 pmThank you so much! This is a great starter tomatillo recipe — good for getting your feet wet :) Let us know if you try it out!
Josie
October 13, 2013 at 9:48 pmTomatillos, hominy, and black beans are some of my favorite ingredients to cook with – how have I never thought to combine them all into one kick-ass soup? Thanks for sharing such a beautiful recipe, I can’t wait to try this one out!
Alex
October 14, 2013 at 10:43 amYou’re welcome! Let us know if you try it out :)
Emily
October 14, 2013 at 10:33 pmWe made this tonight and it was delicious! Next time I may keep some of the jalapeño seeds/ribs to give it a little “kick”! Thanks for posting!
angela @ another bite please
October 15, 2013 at 3:57 pmi could not agree with you more about taking that extra time to cook. when i first began cooking i wanted it fast and easy…now I enjoy sauteeing all the vegetables and stirring…the smells…to me it is so much more enjoyable – cooking and eating :-)
this soup looks perfect…tomatillos and black beans yum.
Kasey
October 16, 2013 at 11:37 amThis sounds fantastic. I love the tangy flavor of tomatillos, particularly when they’re roasted. I sometimes rush through the process of cooking, too (why sift? why let the eggs come to room temp?) but I do think a little extra effort leads to inevitably better tasting meals.
Casey
October 21, 2013 at 12:19 pmThank you for sharing this! I’m so down.
amanda reynolds
October 28, 2013 at 5:56 pmNate just came home to a piping hot bowl of this goodness…he said to tell you thank you and “nom nom.” :)
Alex
October 28, 2013 at 5:57 pmHa! Glad he enjoyed it :)
Sarah
September 24, 2014 at 11:32 pmThis is amazing! Came together pretty fast and tasted divine!!
Anonymous
October 8, 2014 at 8:00 pmI had 2 tomatilla plants this year that produced about 6 million fruit.
This recipe caught my attention so I had to try it.
It has incredible flavor. I didn’t have any black beans so I substituted pinto beans.
Very easy to make as well.
Don’t skip the roasting part. It is well worth the time.
Pam
October 15, 2014 at 11:12 amI made this today. Never cooked with tomatillos before but knew I wanted to roast them. Wonderful soup! My tomatillos were quite sour, so I added maybe 1 cup Arroy-D coconut milk instead of a sweetener. YUM. I think maybe I will play around with how to roast tomatillos to get a char and do this again. Thank you
Meg
August 16, 2015 at 12:44 pmI just made this with tomatillos and jalapenos from our CSA. I didn’t have any hominy and didn’t feel like running to the store for the fifth time this weekend :), so I subbed corn for the hominy. I’m enjoying a bowl right now. Thank you for the recipe! It’s great to have a good way to use tomatillos other than salsa (which just makes me eat chips).
nadia
October 20, 2015 at 10:00 pmwow!!! this is fabulous and even better the 2nd day. very quick and easy to make! the flavours jump out at you, and the textures-just wonderful.
I would serve this to company, family and take it in to work :))
Madeline
April 21, 2017 at 9:29 pmSeriously divine! We added a bit more posole (25oz), left in the jalapeño seeds, added some green chile powder we recently picked up in New Mexico, and stirred in our radish greens as a topping. It had a sweet heat and was a real treat. Thanks for the inspiration! Imagining it with some wholewheat levain or tortilla chips. Can’t wait for leftovers!
Sonja
April 21, 2017 at 9:42 pmOoo we’re so glad you enjoyed it! Your additions sound spectacular!
Julia
September 30, 2017 at 11:13 amWe’ve grown tomatillos for the first time this year, and got lots! Just made this soup and its lovely and creamy, i added some corn and blackeyed beans as that’s what was in the cupboard and some cauliflower that needed using up. It’s really tasty and the onions and tomatillos give such a lovely texture! Thanks for a great recipe
Nancy
October 16, 2018 at 9:36 pmGOOD SOUP! Had a huge crop of tomatillos so I’ve tried making enchilada sauces, salsas, and jam. I have eaten them raw on salads, grilled with other veggies and added to soups and hot dishes. But, this soup is the best tomatillo recipe I’ve made so far! I followed directions and used ingredients except I did omit the cilantro (not a fan) and added 1/4 tsp cumin and 1/4 tsp lime juice to the finished soup to brighten the flavor. (Too much lime significantly changes the flavor.). Roasted veggies 45 min. to get good carmelization. Deglazed pan with broth to get all the brown bits of flavor. Carmelization causes soup to be golden instead of bright green like other recipes. Hominy really is good in this soup, so try it! I prefer yellow hominy but white works too. I served it with green onions, crushed tortilla chips and grated Cotilla cheese. I’ve think I’ve just discovered how to use up the last of my tomatillos!!! Thank you for sharing this recipe!