First sort through the beans to make sure there are no bad ones, then rinse them. Combine the beans, onion, salt, garlic, and bay leaf in a crockpot with 8 cups of water. Set the crockpot to cook the beans according to your schedule. For example, I set mine for 4 hours (which would be on high), because I knew I would return to the soup in that amount of time.

Once the beans are fully cooked, remove and discard the bay leaf. For the onions and garlic pieces (if there are any solid pieces left), you can either take them out and discard them as well, or you can leave them as is if you like. I chose to skim them out of the beans with a slotted spoon and add some of the pieces to the pot that I would be finishing the soup in. If you choose not to use the onions or garlic, just start cooking the ground turkey meat as you normally would.

Add the lean ground turkey meat to the onions and garlic and cook on medium heat until all the meat is fully separated and there are no large chunks of ground meat left. Cut through and mash the onions along with the meat as it cooks.

Add the chopped carrots and celery (it’s okay if the meat is not completely cooked yet) . Continue cooking the meat with the vegetables for 10 minutes.

Chop the parsley well and add it to the pot. I remove the stems, but you don’t have to. Stir everything well and cook again for another 2-3 minutes.

Next, use a ladle to transfer the entire pot of beans and bean broth to the pot of meat and vegetables. Stir it all together well and simmer partially covered on low to medium-low heat for 25 minutes.

When done, serve hot with homemade corn tortillas or simply top with freshly diced avocado.