The Simple Guide to Soups

the simple guide to soups

I’ve been experimenting with a new habit. You see, I’m on a mission to expand my soup repertoire. Especially now the days are shorter and we’re lighting the fire in the evenings.

Yes! Soup season is here!

My habit is pretty simple.

I’ve been making soup for dinner at least one night each week. Usually it’s Monday. And usually it’s some sort of vegetable based soup. But sometimes it’s not.

I love soup night.

There’s only one pot to clean up. I can easily add bread or cooked pasta to keep my tiny (and big!) carb-lovers happy. And I always feel warm and contented afterwards.

So I hope you enjoy this simple guide to soups!

With love,
Jules x

6 Golden Rules of Delicious Soups

1. Don’t use soup as a dumping ground

While soup can be a good way to use up vegetables and leftovers, it’s important to make sure you have a reason for adding each ingredient for the soup to taste good. Afterall, there’s no point in making a soup you’re not going to love.

2. Have a vision

What do you want your soup to taste like? Which ingredients are going to be the stars? How will you add interesting textures?

If you’re following a recipes these questions will be answered for you, however if you’re forging your own path it’s important to think these through before you start cooking.

3. Season properly

As with anything the different between and OK soup and an amazing one is the seasoning. So taste and made sure your salt and acid levels are humming.

If you need more help with seasoning, check out the Art of Seasoning quick training.

4. Invest in a stick blender.

If you like smooth soups a stick blender makes life soo much easier. And safer. IF you’ve ever had a blender of hot soup explode, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

5. Add textural / flavour contrast

This is especially key for smooth soups, but all soups will be more enjoyable if you give them their own garnish. See the Soup Topping Ideas tab for my favourites.

6. Have fun!

Soup is one of the most simple, satisfying meals. Enjoy it!

7 Surprising Reasons to Eat More Soup

1. Soup can be Quick

While soup tends to conjure up the image of vast pots simmering away for hours, not all soup takes forever. When I was writing my book ‘5 ingredients 10 minutes’, I found the soup chapter practically just wrote itself.

The secret to super quick soup is to use ingredients that are pre-cooked or will cook in the time it takes to boil the water or stock.

2. Soup Fills You Up with Less Calories

Because soup contains more water than solid foods, it fills us up with less calories. A study at Penn State confirmed that people who ate a chicken and rice soup as opposed to a solid chicken and rice meal ate 26% less.

3. Soup doesn’t Necessarily Need Home Made Stock to Taste Amazing

One thing that used to keep me away from soup was the misconception that you needed wonderful home made stock to make full flavoured soup. Once I realised that great soup just requires great tasting ingredients, a whole new world of soup opportunities opened up. For 7 tips on making full flavoured soup without stock check out this post.

4. Soup is Pretty Independent

Unlike other quick cooking methods such as stir frying or grilling, soup can be made with only minimal supervision. Just pop everything in the pot and let it simmer (or boil if you’re in a hurry) until you’re ready to eat. Too easy.

5. Soup is Very Forgiving

There tends to be a large window where soup tastes delicious. Unlike a steak which requires clock work precision, it’s actually pretty difficult to under or over cook a soup.

And even forgetful cooks who end up with a scorched bottom can usually rectify the situation by transferring the unburned parts to a clean pot and and adding the word ‘smoked’ to the soup title.

6. Soup Doesn’t Require Much Cleaning Up

Most soups can be made with just one pot. What’s not to love about that?

7. Soup Can Keep You Cool

It can be easy to forget about soup during the Summer months. But if you do, you’re missing out on the cooling properties of soup.

From my travels I have two vivid memories of soothing Summer soup. You probably won’t be surprised that a trio of Spanish gazpacho or cold soups is on the list.

But the second is not so obvious.

I still remember a steaming bowl of noodle soup in a back alley in Bangkok on a typical super sweaty day. I was determined to find and try this soup I’d read so much about even though I thought the conditions weren’t great. I couldn’t believe it when I left the little street stall feeling refreshed from my steaming bowl. I went back every day for the rest of my stay.

20 Favourite Soup Recipes

For more recipes see the Soups Recipe Index.

Soup Template Recipes

What are template recipes?

They’re general recipes which are like stepping stones on your journey to help you cook without traditional recipes.

If you’re interested in learning more we go into depth in the Master Your Meal Plan program.

Soup Topping Ideas

As we covered in the ‘Golden Rules’ of soup making, adding a textural or flavour contrast by way of a garnish is essential for making your soup feel like a proper satisfying meal, rather than an afterthought.

Here are some favourites:

How to Make Bone Broth

Do you struggle to get organized to make broth or stock on a regular basis? Well as my friend Rico says, ‘I hear ya honey‘!

I used to be the same.

Having a good supply of home made stock seems like such a great idea because the store bought stuff is never as good. But there’s also the ‘too much effort (and waste) for not enough reward’ perception.

These days, however, I’ve been loving my stock making.

What Caused the Change?

1. I got a good system for collecting bones.

Basically I have a large ziplock bag in the freezer labelled ‘bones’. Yes, I thought long and hard about that one 😉 So now whenever I cook something with bones, they go straight into the freezer bag.

2. I developed a good workflow.

Like most of cooking (and life) having a good system and practicing makes a huge difference. Now that I have my system I look forward to my stock making days.

3. I discovered the ‘remy’.

One of my gripes about broth / stock making was disposing of all the bones afterwards. It seemed like so much waste. Then I discovered the idea of a remouillage or remy for short. Basically, it’s a weaker broth / stock you make with the bones after you’ve made the original batch of full strength broth / stock.

There are still the bones to discard at the end but it feels more worthwhile when I’ve made this extra batch.

What’s the Difference Between Bone Broth and Stock?

There’s a lot of talk about bone broths these days and really the two terms can be used interchangeably. Although for me a broth is something you’re planning to be drinking on it’s own or as a simple soup. Whereas a stock is something you use as an ingredient.

When making stock / broth the bones provide the minerals and gelatine (to give the body) and meat on the bones provides the flavour. So broths tend to include more meat but I don’t get too worried about it.

Bone Broth-2

How I Make Bone Broth (Stock)

Like my recent post on making muesli for my boys, this isn’t so much a recipe as a work flow. There are no right or wrong ways to go about this. Every batch I make is slightly different but that’s part of the beauty.

  • makes: how long is a piece of string?
  • takes: 1-2 days

  • enough bones to fill your stock pot
  • 2 carrots, chopped
  • 2 sticks celery, chopped
  • 2 onions, chopped
  • 2 bay leaves
  • optional extras (see variations below)

Day 1.

1. Place bones in your pot (mine come straight from the freezer). Cover with cold water, leaving about 2 inches from the top so the broth won’t boil over.

2. Place on a high heat and bring to the boil. If you can be bothered, skim any foam from the top and discard it. I often don’t bother but removing this fat and protein makes for a clearer stock so I try and do it a couple of times.

3. While the stock is coming to the boil prep your veg and add to the pot.

4. When the stock has boiled, reduce heat and simmer gently uncovered for 4 – 12 hours. Top up with some boiling water if the level reduces too much. Remove from the heat and cover. You can refrigerate in the pot or just leave on the stove top like I do.

Day 2.

1. Remove bones from the pot using a strainer or skimmer and place in another large pot or a really big bowl (like I do) and save for your remy. Bring broth to a rapid boil to kill off any bacteria that have grown overnight.

2. Pour stock through a fine sieve into a heat proof jug (I do this in batches). And then transfer the strained stock into storage containers (I use glass jars about 2 cup capacity). Remember it will expand when frozen so leave some space. Seal jars / containers and pop in the fridge to cool.

3. When the fat has solidified you can remove it and save for other cooking. Or just leave it on (like I mostly do).

4. Broth will keep in the fridge for up to about 5 days (sometimes I leave it longer but I always make sure it gets a good boiling before consumption). Keeps for months in the freezer.

Day 2. The Remy

1. Place your saved bones back in the stock pot and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for as long as you’ve got (4-12 hours). Don’t top up with water because you want to concentrate the flavours.

2. Remove and discard bones. Strain remy through a fine sieve into storage containers or directly into a large saucepan to make a batch of soup (like I usually do.). If storing, refrigerate or freeze as per the full-flavoured broth.

Variations

optional extras – bunch thyme, bunch flat leaf parsley, can diced tomatoes, vegetable peelings.

more chicken flavour – include some chicken wings with your bones.

more flavour – roast bones in the oven until well browned. 200C / 400F for about 60 minutes is usually enough. I generally don’t bother but sometimes I do and it makes a richer darker stock.

more body / gelatine – add some (well scrubbed) chicken feet!

short on time – You can do everything in the one day if you like. Or skip making the remy at the end.

stronger flavoured remy – add an extra carrot, onion and stick of celery to the bones.
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7 tips for Full-Flavoured Vegetable Stock

1. Chop Fine

When I make meat based stock I tend to just roughly hack the veg and not bother to peel even the onions. When you’re looking to maximise the flavour from your vegetables, however, a finer dice is better as it increases the amount of surface area in contact with the water – so it’s easier for the flavours to be infused into the broth. You don’t need to go too crazy – it’s up to you how much time you’re prepared to spend cutting.

2. Lightly Brown Your Aromatics

Sweating your aromatic veg – the onion, celery and carrot helps them develop sweeter flavours with more complexity to add to your stock rather than just chucking them in raw.

3. Be Generous with the Mushrooms

Mushrooms contain intrinsically high levels of glutamic acid which makes them little powerhouses of flavour enhancing goodness – we’re talking natural MSG that imparts those lovely savoury, umami-type flavours.

4. Go for Tomato

Tomatoes are another great source of savoury goodness. The colour they bring can be quite attractive, unless you want a neutral stock.

5. Start with Cold Water

Different flavour components have different levels of solubility in water at different temperatures. By starting cold and slowly increasing the heat, you can be sure that all the flavours have had a chance to be extracted at their preferred temperature.

6. Let it Simmer

To further extract all the flavour goodness, letting the vegetables gently simmer is optimum. Too high a heat and you can boil off some of the more delicate flavours, too low and you won’t coax all the flavour out of your veg.

7. Taste as You Go

I find it helpful to take a little sample at regular intervals and taste the stock. It’s then fun to keep samples from different times so you can taste them all together at the end and see how the flavour of your stock has developed over time. It also helps you decide when to stop cooking: when the flavour isn’t tasting any stronger between samples.

veg stock

Basic Vegetable Stock

makes approx 4 cups

Feel free to use this as a base recipe. You can easily add other vegetables or herbs. Especially anything that needs using up in the fridge. Starchy things, like potatoes, can make your stock go cloudy. Strongly flavoured veg, like cabbage and broccoli, can overpower your stock but this might be a good thing if you’re after a cabbage or broccoli stock for a change.

Herbs are also a great addition, especially things like thyme, bay leaves and parsley. I didn’t have any on hand which is why they weren’t included here.

  • 2 onions, chopped
  • 2 carrots, chopped
  • 2 ribs celery, chopped
  • punnet cherry tomatoes, halved
  • 2 cloves garlic, smashed
  • 2 handfuls button mushrooms, sliced
  • 1 teaspoon black pepper corns
  • 5 cups water

Heat a few tablespoons olive oil over a medium heat. Add onion, celery and carrot. Cook, covered stirring occasionally until veg are soft and starting to brown a little.

Add remaining ingredients and bring to a gentle simmer. Cook gently for about an hour or until the stock tastes rich and full. Strain stock and discard vegetable solids.

Soups Resources

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