Healthy Eating Tomato, Bean & Vegetable Soup

So it's still January, and I am still trying to eat healthy thanks to a drunken New Years resolution I made in the local pub on New Years Eve! It is very much something that I need to do - I am not exactly stick sized to say the least! However, it doesn't stop me from being hungry, nor cold, and I would usually warm up with some luxurious soup of some description - usually a soup with cream in it!

As you can imagine, "cream of" soups are not very healthy, and I still wanted to warm up. So I came up with this recipe the other day and I actually enjoyed it more than the usual soup I would have!

This soup has a tomato base and contains a wide variety of vegetables in it, which means it has a variety of textures, flavours and colours, making it interesting to look at and eat! I also placed some baked beans (You can also use any range of beans in the recipe, I only had baked beans in the cupboard!) in the recipe so that it will be more likely to fill you up as well as providing a proteinous boost to the recipe!

Bring out the natural flavours of the soup with lemon juice and Worcestershire Sauce, which are low calorie options which bring out the natural sweetness of the tomatoes without using sugar! Flavour further with some dried mixed herbs.

I very much enjoyed this for lunch, and there was so much left over that I also had some for dinner. However, because I made the soup thick like a meal soup, I used the soup as a pasta sauce to mix up what I was eating that day! Cook 75g of wholegrain pasta per person and mix into the sauce for a great, relatively low calorie meal option that will still give you that winter warming dinner you crave! You could even mix in some chicken or some Quorn should you wish to too!

A portion of this should provide you with 2 of your 5 a day, be low and calories and in fat, but more importantly, taste fantastic!

I hope you enjoy trying it!