If you follow me on Instagram and Instagram stories, you know I’m becoming a slave to the kitchen lately. I’ll let you in on a secret though, if you make soup, it’s fast as hell and you just throw all this chopped fresh vegetables, herbs, and already made rotisserie chicken in and you are done! Nothing to awe about here. If I can do it, you sure can. The other fun part about making soups is that you never have to follow a recipe 100% of the way. If you don’t like cannellini beans, use chickpeas or no beans at all! If you don’t want it to be creamy just add more broth to make up for lost butter/cream liquid. If you want more veggies add whatever you have in your refrigerator (except don’t use lettuce just use leafy greens like spinach or kale). I will say kitchen supplies REALLY helps. Here are a few of my favorites to help in the process:
- Staub Dutch Oven prevents anything from burning and keeps the soup/stew all together. It’s also pretty and you can serve soup out of it in front of guests if entertaining.
- Michael Bras knives save me about 10 minutes when chopping an onion. Be careful this baby is S-H-A-R-P. Yes, they are expensive, but time is money, right?
- Kitchen Aid 2 Speed Hand Blender. If you want a thicker soup, go out on a limb and buy a hand blender like I did. No, I didn’t know what this contraption was until a couple months ago.
- Trader Joe’s Pre-Cut Butternut Squash– This will also save you time when making that butternut squash bisque.
- Anthropologie Gold Ladle. Like I said, I’ve been making so much soup, that I decided to fancy up my serving area and bought this gold serving soup ladle for $24.
- Rotisserie Chicken from any grocery store. Let’s just say when I tried cooking my own chicken in the soup it was not as flavorful or tender. RC’s are usually under $10 bucks anyway.
Now here are my 10 favorite soup recipes with the tweaks I made to each.
- Monkfish and Cauliflower Chowder. Out of the 10 plus soups I’ve made recently, this was surprisingly one of the easiest yet most intimidating at first impression. Don’t be scared to cook fish in a soup because you don’t have to even do anything! It’s much cheaper than going out for cioppino, too. I used san marzano canned tomatoes and cod. ***From Bon Appetit
- White Chicken Chile. This is one of my all time favorites because it packs in the heat and spice! Don’t forget to finish with lime on the top. It makes all the difference. It’s great without the beans as well. ***From Averie Cooks
- Roasted Cauliflower Soup: Skip the garlic roasting steps and just mince a few cloves. I didn’t use fennel but make sure to use extra rosemary and that it is finely chopped. This adds the perfect herby, warmth. I only used half of one can of beans as I wanted to taste the cauliflower more and it be a bit lighter. ***From Camille Styles
- Turmeric Cauliflower Soup. Cauliflower is really a versatile vegetable and perfect for thickening soups. I did not have any curry, so I did what the smartest thing I thought was to do: use turmeric because it looks like curry! I used about 2 tablespoons and skipped the potato. ***From NYTimes
- Chickpea Curry. This an be a versatile dish. I at first ate it as a thickened curry and as the week went on, I added chicken and more broth to make it more liquid and soup like. Add more curry powder and use cayenne if you don’t have chile powder. ***From Suruchi Avasthi for CS
- Thai Shrimp. I always use half a can of coconut milk when it requires a full can so I can taste all the other flavors more. I doubled the curry powder here, too. Then I use the other half of the can to make brown rice a little more flavorful. I cooked the rice separately in this case and ate it on the side as an accompaniment. Don’t overcook the shrimp, and add spinach. *** From Damn Delicious
- Thai Chicken Curry Soup. You know the drill, half a can of reduced fat coconut milk, add spinach and serve with a side of coconut rice instead of noodles inside. Always add more cayenne pepper. ***From Delish.com
- Butternut Squash & Red Lentil Soup. I got this recipe from The New York Times’ columnist Melissa Clark’s book called “Dinner Changing the Game.” I could eat this once a week.
- Coconut Quinoa and Lentil Curry with Mango. My friend Amira made this for me when I first moved to Austin last year. Let’s just say this sealed the deal for our once a week cooking dates, and we made something with curry for the first two months. This is from one of my favorite blogs and the author Tieghan just came out with a new cookbook. ***From Halfbaked Harvest
- Joshua McFadden’s Cabbage Soup. This is from his latest book called “Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables.” See recipe below or on page 337 in his book.
Ingredients:
- 1 cabbage
- olive oil
- 1 onion
- 3 garlic cloves chopped
- 1 sprig of rosemary
- 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
- 2/3 cup farro
- 4 cups chicken broth
- 1 lemon
- fresh parmesan
Directions:
- Don’t let this step scare you. It’s exactly how it sounds. Cut out the cabbage core and finely chop it. Pull the leaves off the cabbage core now and roll them up into a cylinder like you are rolling a joint or the paper you remove from a straw. Slice them crosswise into 1/8 inch which Joshua calls ribbons.
- Heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a pot over medium heat with the onion and cabbage cores. Add salt, pepper and garlic and cook for about 10 minutes until onions brown.
- Add the shredded cabbage leaves and rosemary and cover the pot. If you see the onions about to burn, add more olive oil and stir the pot. Cook covered for at least 30 minutes. Then add in vinegar with more salt and pepper.
- Meanwhile, start cooking the farro. Follow the directions on your package and then ad to the soup pot. Simmer for another 20 ish minutes. Add lemon juice and parmesan as a final step before serving.