. . . you could make with what you have at home this week.
Soup is one of the most frugal foods, financially, calorically, and time-wise. You can add all sorts of odds and ends from the kitchen, cellar, garden or spare freezer. Soup is one-pot cooking at its finest. Start it on the stove or in the crockpot, and leave it to simmer until you're ready to eat. A bowl of soup, some crackers or bread, and you have a meal. Bonus -- on a chilly day, a steaming bowl of soup will warm you from the inside out.
Here's your challenge: Think of one soup that you could make this week using what you have on hand. Thinking of what you could cook with on-hand ingredients is a good exercise to do from time to time. It always helps me see the possibilities. Sharing your one soup, here in the comments, will also help the rest of us, as we think through whether or not your soup would work for our ingredients.
So, name your soup plus the list of ingredients it takes.
Anyway, I'll start. My soup is Cream of Green. I use kale, broccoli, collards, spinach, chard, or as I used this week, Brussel sprout leaves (they're like collards). In addition to the raw, chopped greens, I used 1 onion, 1 clove of garlic, some celery leaves, nutmeg, dried thyme, salt, pepper, milk (I used unsweetened soy milk), flour, butter, oil, water. We topped our bowls of Cream of Green with cheddar cheese. A creamy and hearty soup.
Your turn. In the comments name the soup you could make with what you have on hand and list its ingredients.
Hmmm. As we are heading towards winter, we have food for several weeks at home - all kind of ingredients, vegetables, protein, carbs, spices... I usually make one soup per week, and for this week I've planned hamburger (? minced meat? ground beef/meat?) soup. Some fried minced meat seasoned with garlic, ground black pepper, paprica (usually I have a mix of pork and beef, because it it cheapest), a lot of potatoes, carrots, beetroot, swede, green beans, cabbage, a tablespoon of green powder (that is greens like carrot tops, stinging nettle, swiss chard etc dried and ground to powder) and a stock cube AND my secret ingredient: I rinse an "empty" ketchup bottle from the fridge - there's always some left it the bottle you just can't get out, so I pour some water in, shake it and pour that to the soup pot. I don't use chili, because one of my children can't eat chili. We eat this with dark sourdough full corn rye bread (which is actually one of the cheapest breads here if you don't count in your own baking!).
ReplyDeleteUlvmor (still in Northern Europe)
Hi Ulvmor,
DeleteThat sounds delicious and very hearty. I love your secret ingredient. I happen to have an almost empty ketchup bottle in my fridge right now. I may be making some of your soup in the next week. Thank you!
I always keep a big pantry so could do several soups. But Split Pea Soup comes to mind. Rinse 1# bag of split peas, add to slow cooker along with 2 chopped carrots, 1 chopped onion, 1 ham bone, 1 tsp poultry seasoning. Cover all by at least 2 inches. Cook on low 8-10 hours. Pick meat off ham bone and return to slow cooker. Serve. Hope you enjoy..we do!
ReplyDeleteOops..cover all with either water or chicken broth by 2 inches.
DeleteYour split pea soup sounds delicious! For poultry seasoning, which herbs would you add if you didn't have a pre-mixed seasoning?
DeleteI would probably replace w/blend of sage and thyme. But I get my poultry seasoning at a bulk store and we like the balance. Linda M
DeleteHi, Linda and Lili. My mom always kept poultry seasoning on hand, and I love it, too. Like you, Linda, I get it in bulk, at a restaurant supply, but I've also made my own. Seems like most poultry seasoning is, as you said, sage and thyme. The other standard things we see are marjoram (which is the one herb we put in split pea soup, traditionally, in our family), rosemary, black pepper, and a little bit of nutmeg. I think that the nutmeg is part of the charm of the blend, but Lili, if you make your own, don't put in a lot. Sara
DeleteThank you Linda and Sara.
DeleteRed Thai Curry soup, split pea soup, chicken noodle soup and cheese broccoli soup. All easy stove top recipes but I don't have the recipes with me now since I'm away from home for the day.
ReplyDeleteAlice
Hi Alice,
DeleteRed Thai Curry soup sounds interesting. And I love a bowl of good homemade chicken noodle soup any day.
I made soup yesterday with ingredients we had on hand. Let me see if I can remember what I put in. From the freezer - chicken broth, carrot tops, spinach, and green beans. From the fridge - carrots, celery, chicken Better than Bouillon, and half jar of spaghetti sauce. From the pantry - potatoes and a can of chicken. I didn't add any additional spices other than what was in the ingredients. It turned out quite well. I will not be very creative creative with my name. I'll just call it vegetable soup.
ReplyDeleteHi Live and Learn,
DeleteYour "vegetable soup" sounds delicious and a whole meal in itself! Good job on throwing something together from what you had on hand!
You folks are making me hungry! Like most of you, we keep a lot of food on-hand, and some of our favorites and currently available options are similar to some mentioned. Here's another that we make fairly frequently and keep in double servings in the fridge. It's a Sausage-Barley-Black-Eyed-Pea soup. Fry bulk sausage in a stockpot (we have a regional company whose sausage products go on DEEP sales a couple of times a year, so we can stock up cheaply), add minced dried garlic or pressed fresh garlic, chopped celery, a little marjoram and some cracked pepper. We pre-cook black-eyed peas and freeze them in sandwich bags, so we don't have to cook those in the soup; but if you are starting from dry, you'd do that next, with water or stock enough added. If you use canned pre-cooked peas, then you just add enough water to make it as soupy as you want, get that to simmering, add pearl barley, and we also add chia seeds. Simmer until the barley's tender. Then serve it with a garnish of parsley, if you have that in the house. I'll probably be making this again in a couple of days. Sara
ReplyDeleteHi Sara,
DeleteThat sounds tasty! I never would have thought to add chia seeds to soup. I love how much flavor sausage adds to a dish or pot. I try to keep some coked beans in the freezer, too. But I haven't done that with black-eyed peas. I'll do that one now, too. Thanks!
Chia thickens soup/stew a little bit by gelling up, and it adds some fiber/resistant starch, protein, and healthy fats. I think the only downside to chia is that it can thin your blood (maybe through the quercitin levels?), so you have to be careful with it if you take blood-thinning medications. We add a tablespoon or two to a big pot of soup (2 pounds of sausage, worth). No one notices it's in there. As for the B.E.P.s, we like those in quinoa salad, as well as in soups, so we like them cooked and frozen, so all we need to do is thaw them for salad, or dump them in frozen for soups. We make one zipper cheapo sandwich bag's worth is about one serving for us, and put all of them, flat, in a big freezer bag, which makes it even easier to used than canned cooked beans (which we find aren't always QUITE cooked, anyway.) A little sausage flavor does go a long way. We're so happy that we can get a good quality sausage for a cheap price to have on-hand. We even used it in split pea soup a couple of times we couldn't find ham shanks. Different, but yummy! (We always have split pea soup in the freezer. It's a staple.) Sara
DeleteThank you for the further info, Sara.
DeleteI made Chicken pot pie soup. Chicken picked from a chicken carcus, brothe made from the chicken ugly bag. A half of a bag of frozen pea and carrots with frozen onion, carrot and celery added to the broth and chicken and pie noodles thrown in. Unfortunaely the broth remains are thrown because I can't compost them. Great soup though.
ReplyDeleteHi Amy,
DeleteYour Chicken Pot Pie soup sounds tasty. What are pie noodles?
Just one soup? ;) I have to hold myself back from making soup every night when the weather gets cold.
ReplyDeleteI'll choose ham and potato soup. It's my mom's recipe and is a comfort food for me. We try to keep cooked ham in our freezer (purchased on sale and portioned into smaller amounts). It also takes potatoes, onions, carrots, chicken broth (we use ham broth if we have any on hand), butter, and I sometimes throw in mashed potato flakes at the end to thicken it up. Oh, and a can of evaporated milk. Salt and pepper to taste, and you can add parsley/chives as a topping if you want.
I love soup, and if we all lived close, a soup party would be fun! Lots of variety to sample!
How close would we have to live, Kris? I'm in! LOL Sara
DeleteThe same continent and the same side of the Mississippi would be a start!
DeleteHi Kris,
DeleteI love potato soup. I'm sure I would love your mom's ham and potato soup. Comfort food for sure. Thanks for sharing.
Kris, I guess the soup potluck isn't really a frugal idea, but it sure sounded good. Lots of people here I'd love to meet! Sara
DeleteLike everyone else, I have the fixings for a variety of soups. But, since my husband requested Ham Bone soup, and that’s what’s in the crock pot, I’ll select it!
ReplyDeleteI had not heard of this til I moved to the Outer Banks years ago and it was one of the soups offered at our church’s bazaar. It’s basically a ham and vegetable soup. I had a ham bone in the freezer which I put in the crock pot. After it cooks for several hours, I take the meat off the bones and return it to the broth. Then I add many of the ingredients that you think of with ham: (at least here in the South) green beans, peas, white potatoes or sweet potatoes, cabbage, corn, tomatoes, onions, carrots, black eyed peas, celery. I use whichever of these veggies I have on hand. The recipe as told to me added pasta, but I omit it. Add spices (bay leaf from our yard, thyme, garlic, salt, pepper) and let simmer until the vegetables are tender. My husband thinks it always tastes best the next day. Good served with cornbread or any other bread or a sandwich.
All of these different soups sound delish! How fun that would be if we were all close to have a tasting, but we span the width of the US-coast to coast- and have our friend from across the pond as well! How fun!
Hi Lynn,
DeleteI've never heard of Ham Bone soup. The different vegetables sound like they would add a lot of flavor and texture. Thank you for sharing!
Fun exercise...! For my husband and me, it's Lentil Soup. Very simple and forgiving! Basically, we're talking lentils, stock (or water) and whatever fresh (or frozen, or dried) veggies at hand (options including (but not limited to): onion, garlic, celery, carrot, bell pepper, tomato, potato, squash, spinach, kale, greens etc-etc). Or not...! Plus maybe a little canned tomato product at hand (options including: crushed, cubed, sauce, paste etc-etc). Or not...! Then some seasoning (options including: garlic/onion powder, chives, fresh herbs, dried herbs, bay leaf, soy sauce, miso paste, salt/pepper, splash of lemon juice etc-etc). Simmer on stovetop until lentils/veggies are tender, serving hot with rice or bread -- cheap, healthful, easy and tasty eating...!
ReplyDeleteYum! Your lentil soup sounds delicious! I love the flavor a little bell pepper adds to a pot of soup.
DeleteYour Cream of Green sounds delicious. I'm going to try that soon. The soups we frequently make are Portuguese Bean Soup, loaded miso soup, and wonton min. They're quick and easy, but we should expand our soup selection and have it more often, because as you've said it's economical, nutritious and easy to prepare. We like to make stews, like hamburger curry, beef stew, but these don't usually use up greens.
ReplyDeleteLaura
Hi Laura,
DeleteAll of your regular soups sound tasty. I had to look up Portuguese Bean Soup. The photo I found online looked really good, perfect for a chilly day, here. I may give this a try if I can find the sausage.
Cabbage & Potato soup. With all my food sensitivities, it's very simple: cabbage & potatoes cooked in chicken broth. Add some salt & maybe some parsley. Served with gluten free crackers for me & saltines for DH. It actually tastes pretty good.
ReplyDeleteJo
Jo, thanks for posting this simple soup recipe. It's always nice to hear ideas for minimal-ingredient recipes. I have a lot of dietary issues, too. Sara
DeleteHi Jo,
DeleteI agree with Sara. This sounds wonderful and it's simple in ingredients. I can imagine that the cabbage would add a lot of flavor to the potato soup. I can see myself making this for our lunches very soon. I even have the chicken stock in the freezer right now, so I'm all set. Thanks!
I'm late to the party. :)
ReplyDeleteMy first soup would be similar to yours, and I just call it Green Soup. Saute onions and garlic, add various greens and things in my fridge (leftover broccoli stem, a few turnips, celery, etc.). Add chicken stock. Cook for 20 min or until vegetables are soft. Then add a large handful of cilantro (I also freeze cilantro stems so I use those if I don't have fresh). Cook for 5 more minutes, and then puree with hand blender. I've had people tell me they can't taste the cilantro, and in any case it really elevates the flavor.
My second soup would be Thai squash soup. Roast butternut squash, pie pumpkin, kabocha squash or similar in the oven at 400 degrees until soft. Set aside. Saute onion and garlic. Then add roasted squash and chicken broth or water to cover. Cook for about 10 min. Add 1 can full fat coconut milk and 2 TBSP (or to taste) of Thai curry paste (see note** below). Cook for a few more minutes, and then puree with hand blender. Add salt/soy sauce to taste. This is one of my favorite soups. So velvety and delicious!
If you don't want to roast the squash, you can peel and cube it and boil it in the broth. I personally hate peeling squash so I roast it first.
**Note about Thai curry paste: If you have access to an Asian grocery, they probably have 14oz containers of Thai curry paste at a very good price (I can get these for $5 - I like the Mae Ploy brand). I like Massaman curry paste best for this recipe, but any kind will work. I have also made this soup with those tiny expensive jars of Thai red curry paste from the supermarket - those work fine too.
Hi Tina,
DeleteThose soups sound tasty. Thank you for the suggestion to look for the curry paste in an Asian market. We have several of those nearby. I agree, I find great prices on many items at our H-Mart and Ranch 99. The Thai soup sounds especially appealing as it sounds so different from the other soups I make. Thank you for sharing.