Share your best soup recipe.
We’ve just seen the end of winter here in the Northern Hemisphere (good riddance!) so no more soup for us. Although chicken soup is always welcome, even in 40°C weather.
This winter I made a few ‘throw everything in the pot’ soups and they all actually turned out really well.
In my opinion there are a few basic steps that MUST happen in order for any soup to be good, regardless of the ingredients.
- Onion. Diced finely and fried until golden. Every soup should start with this as a base.
- Herbs. Dried or fresh or frozen. You can use whatever you have on hand and don’t be shy, the more the merrier.
- Time. You cant rush a good soup. Cook your veggies on a lower heat for longer. If you can, make your soup the day before you need it. Soup always tastes better the next day.
So, here is a basic recipe. You can adapt it depending what veggies you have in your fridge.
'Throw Everything In The Pot' Soup
2016-04-03 07:33:26
A thick, smooth soup, perfect with fresh bread.
The recipe below includes veggies I happen to have in my fridge at the time of writing this.
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil (I use 2 'ice cubes' with chopped herbs from my freezer, very Pinterersty of me)
- 1 large onion, diced
- Herbs such as rosemary, thyme, cilantro, mixed Italian herbs, basically whatever you have on hand
- Garlic, either fresh, chopped or garlic powder
- Salt & pepper to taste
The following veggies are not set, use all or some or add what you have
- Potatoes, peeled and cubed
- Sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
- Carrots, peeled and chopped into chunks
- Turnips, peeled and cubed
- Leeks, leaves chopped off, cut into 1 cm thick slices
- Celery, leaves chopped off, cut into 1 cm thick slices
- Water to cover chopped veggies
Instructions
- Once you have washed, peeled, diced and chopped all the veggies, add your olive oil and onion to a large pot and saute until golden.
- Add remaining veggies to the pot and sprinkle with the herbs, salt and pepper.
- Stir the veggies until they are all coated in the oil and spices.
- Keep stirring the veggies every 5 minutes or so until they are all heated through and starting to soften.
- Add enough water to the pot so that all the veggies are covered. I usually add about 1 cm above the veggie line.
- Turn down your heat to a simmer, cover the pot, leaving a small gap to allow steam to escape and simmer for an hour or longer until veggies are soft and falling apart when poked with a fork.
- Remove soup from heat and allow to cool slightly.
- You can leave the soup at this point and have a chunky broth or you can blend the veggies with a stick blender which is what I do.
- Reheat the soup when you are ready to eat.
Notes
- You can really add any veggies you want to this soup, peppers, squash, pumpkin, you name it you can add it.
A Bit of This A Bit of That https://gnatj.com/
That’s interesting I see you don’t put any stock in?! I’m going to try it without, maybe in a couple months as autumn is sooo hot in Durban.
Yup, my husband is diabetic and I’m never sure what ingredients the powder stock has in it, so I dont use it. I find that if you use enough herbs and a bit of salt and pepper and cook the veggies slowly you really dont need stock. I did plan to make a homemade chicken stock or a bone broth to reduce and then freeze in portions to use as a base but I’ve never gotten round to it. Maybe one weekend I will do that.