Soups are awesome – they are easy to make, there are plenty of healthy ingredients, you can make a big batch to feed a family and there is only one pot to clean afterwards. All of these reasons make them a worthy staple in your meal plan. There is a simple framework that you can follow to make a soup while completely customising it with your own ingredients. In this how-to guide I am listing all the types of ingredients you should consider adding to the soup and then I am taking you through the steps of the actual cooking process.
Ingredients
When it comes to the soup ingredients the first three are a must in my opinion while the other two are optional (mostly depending on how filling you want your soup to be).
1. Liquids
Broth is the star ingredient in this soup framework. You can get away with using water instead or something like a bouillon cube but you will never get the flavour and especially the health benefits with those substitutes. It is super easy to make your own broth and it’s really worth putting that little bit of effort into this component of your soup. There are other liquids that can be added to play with the flavour some more – things like wine, vinegar, lemon juice, soy sauce and cream. More on those in the cooking process section.
2. Vegetables
There are about a million different vegetables that you can add to your soup. You have the usual suspects like onions, garlic, carrots and potatoes but really anything goes – celeriac, celery, zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, peas, corn, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, brussels sprouts, leek, tomatoes, cabbage and the list just goes on and on. One thing to be mindful of when thinking about your vegetables is their hardiness or water content, essentially how “squishy” are they. The more squishy the less cooking time they will need.
3. Spices and herbs
You will always want to at least salt your soup (I am adding salt in the spices category here to make things easier) but ideally you want to add a few more spices to build on the flavour of the soup. What you want to think about here is the state of your spice – is it a powder (garlic, onion, paprika, turmeric, cumin, ginger, chilli powder, nutmeg, etc.), a dried herb (thyme, rosemary, oregano, bay leaf, etc.) or a fresh herb (basil, cilantro, parsley, chives, etc.). Just like with the water content in vegetables the state of your spices is going to determine when you want to add them into the soup.
4. Protein
We are getting into the first optional category here. You can absolutely make a soup with just a few vegetables but for me personally I will always want to add a protein as well. This can of course be in the form of all kinds of meats – whether it’s already cooked (possibly the meat you’ve used to make the broth) or raw – chicken, turkey, beef, pork (think bacon), lamb, rabbit, fish, seafood and more. Usually you would match the broth to the meat, so you if you are using chicken broth use chicken meat as well. But this is not an absolute must so if you only have beef broth and chicken meat I wouldn’t worry about putting those two together. There are lots of other sources of protein that you can use either together with meat or on their own – beans, lentils, tofu, eggs, cheese.
5. Carbs
If I want to bulk up the soup to make it super filling and nourishing I go to this last category and add carbs. Once again you have plenty of options to choose from – pasta, noodles, rice and other grains like barley, quinoa, bulgur, oats, and of course bread as croutons or just a few slices on the side.
As you can see there are many ingredients and therefore combinations to choose from. Find one or two to have as an easy go-to when you don’t feel like putting in a whole lot of effort and then experiment on the days when you are up for it to discover a new favorite.
Cooking process
Even though the combinations seem endless when you look at all the possible ingredients, the actual cooking process is pretty much the same every time. This may look like a lot of steps in the process but usually you are only doing a selection of those based on the ingredients that you’ve chosen. So here it goes:
1. Brown vegetables and meat
You always want to start with browning something – usually your onions and then garlic and the more hardy vegetables. If you are using bacon or raw meat you want to brown that as well at this first stage. The browning brings out the sweetness and in general the full flavour of all those ingredients which is why you don’t want to skip it. I am always starting my soups with browning an onion and then moving on to the rest of them. I prefer to use butter for the browning to add the creaminess of it and also because I don’t like the taste of oils in my soups.
2. Brown powdered spices
If you are using any powdered spice you also want to brown them to bring out their flavour. You only need 30 seconds or so to get them to really start emitting their wonderful aromas. At this point you want to quickly move to the next step to avoid burning the spices.
3. Add wine
If you’ve decided to use wine you would do so at this point so that you can use it to deglaze the pot. Let it simmer for a few minutes to let the alcohol evaporate and leave behind only the flavour.
4. Add broth
And here comes our star ingredient. Add it to your soup (make sure to get everything out of your jar including the solidified fat if you’ve been keeping it in the fridge) and bring it to a boil over medium heat.
5. First salt
As you are bringing everything to a boil add the first bit of salt to your soup. It’s always better to salt a bit less as you can add more later, this is especially true if your broth already has salt in it. You want to taste your soup throughout the cooking process and add salt bit by bit if needed.
6. Add dried herbs
If you are using any dried herbs you want to add them together with that first salt as your soup is coming to a boil. You want to give the dried herbs time to impart their flavours to the soup.
7. Add other vegetables, proteins and carbs
Add all of these ingredients based on their cooking time. As an example if you want to use raw chicken cut up into cubes that will probably need about 20 mins of cooking time in the soup. And let’s say you also want to use some frozen peas and small pasta which both need about 5 mins of cooking time so you add both of those 15 mins after putting in the chicken to have them all be done at the same time. This is probably one of the hardest parts when it comes to making a soup – knowing how much cooking time each ingredient needs. It’s easy for things like pasta where you have the cook time written on the package but it’s a lot more difficult to estimate with fresh produce or meat. If you are not sure you can always try googling your answer but ultimately you just have to go for it and experiment. The worst that can happen is that your vegetables and carbs will turn out more mushy than desired. You can always adjust your timing next time.
8. Add other liquids
If you are using any other liquids such as soy sauce, cream, lemon juice, vinegar, etc. you will be adding them only a few minutes before your soup is done. They don’t need to be cooked through and since they are liquid the flavour is mixed in with everything else pretty quickly. So really you are just heating them up with the rest of the soup. And the same advice applies as we saw with salt – start with a small amount, do a taste test and add more if needed.
9. Add fresh herbs
This is the last step in the process. You can add the fresh herbs into the pot with all of the soup or even just into individual bowls (especially convenient if someone is not a fan of cilantro or basil). They don’t need to be cooked, if you were to cook them they would loose their vibrant colours and flavours which is the reason you want to add them in the first place.
And there you have it, you now have a flavourfull and nourishing soup to enjoy!