Beans are a great source of nutrition, especially proteins and fibre. However, not everyone will love them as much as everyone else and might miss out on this nutritional power house.
There is a good trick though - blended soups! Blend the beans into part of the soup liquid and they may never know!
I follow Adam Ragusea's general vegetable soup method of putting vegetables in boiling water and just boiling them! No need for any messing around, just chop the veg put in some water and boil until the hardest veg is cooked, then whizz with a stick blender.
Today I stared with a small amount of water, probably half a mug, and added in a chopped onion, a diced garlic clove, with a teaspoon or so of dried mixed herbs. I also chopped up 4 or 5 dried shiitake mushrooms and threw them in.
I added half a teaspoon of salt at this stage - need to be careful not to overseason early on!
Into this I added 3 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped. Then I went in with a can of beans, including the water in the can (aquafaba). Any beans will do, I happened to have a can of mixed beans, and they were great.
Next I quartered and added about 5 vine tomatoes that were in the fridge. There was a bag of mixed salad leaves which had seen better days, so they went in too. Top up the water levels to cover the veg.
I had been out jogging, so I put the lid on and left this on a low simmer while I showered and got changed. When I came back, the potatoes were falling apart so it was time to blend.
You could pour the soup, carefully, into a blender. You could use a hand potato masher to good effect. However, I find that a stick immersion blender is by far the best tool for soup.
Check for seasoning, and add more water if it seems too thick - or if you need to serve more people!
Serve with some brown soda bread.