Making Soup

The quick answer: A warm bowl of soup makes a perfect winter dish.  It’s also healthy, tasty, economical, and filling (plus low in calories).

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Canned Soup

I spent two and a half years in Central America when a young man, living with humble people and eating their food.  It was a seminal experience that influenced my life.  I didn’t fully appreciate the wisdom of their diet at the time, but it was affordable, minimally processed, and mostly local.  I still remember the first soup I ate—homemade chicken vegetable.  It stands out because I discovered the chicken’s foot in my bowl.  I thought my Mom was a frugal cook, but these people were world-class in waste reduction.  Water-based soups were a regular part of lunch and even dinner.  I regret that it never occurred to me to collect a few recipes   

Later, the soup most familiar to me was Campbell’s.  The Campbell soup can, artfully copied by Andy Warhol, is an American icon.  The Napoleonic Wars caused the invention of canned food in the early 1800s.  There was a double benefit to the can:  It fit the needs of wartime eating, plus in-can cooking sterilized the food, eliminating spoilage.  Indeed, consumption of canned foods (like other bad habits) increases during wartime.  The Campbell Soup Company got its start following the Civil War based on one improvement—a condensed soup cut costs.  The user could add water or milk when the soup was heated, which at least gave the appearance of cooking.

The health complaints against Campbell’s soups have been the sodium content (lowered for a time, but recently increased when sales continued to drop), and concerns about high levels of Bisphenol A (BPA is a human endocrine and nervous system disruptor, a cause of obesity, and a suspected carcinogen).   There is a movement away from canned foods, though they’re useful when you don’t have time to cook dried beans, or don’t make your own tomato sauce.

Campbell soups played a role in the rise and fall of casserole dishes, I believe.  In the post-WWII emphasis on convenience, casseroles rose in popularity as a single-dish meal.  Recipes often included a can of Campbell’s soup.  Unfortunately, taste and wholesomeness were lesser considerations and there is a generation now who distain casseroles.  This is unfortunate as casseroles have a place in traditional cooking—think of ratatouille.  We should have a post on tasty and healthy casserole recipes.

Homemade Soup

Two things:  First, it’s cheaper to eat traditional home-cooked whole foods than buy modern processed foods (even before you consider the cost of healthcare for the diseases of the modern diet).   That’s our position—healthy home food is cheaper than factory food.  Second, Marie Antionette, wouldn’t have lost her head if she has just said, “Let them eat soup” and then cooked up a big pot to mollify those hungry protestors. 

Leah Widtsoe, a formidable advocate of healthy eating, wrote a 1943 book titled How To Be Well: A Health Handbook and Cookbook.  Widtsoe spoke of traditional soup making:

“A soup kettle is a wise possession for every family.  In it should go every scrap of meat, bone, cooked meat, chicken and turkey bones.  If a rolled roast or shoulder of ham is ordered, insist that the chopped bones are sent also for soup or gravy.  In the vegetable soup kettle go all clean vegetables parings, outer leaves or lettuce, celery, pea pods, chopped parsley, and all bits of good food that should not be wasted.  The basis of the soup of the day should be found here. . . . One must never waste good food.”

Soup is more a winter food and in Widtsoe’s day the wood-burning kitchen stove often heated homes.  So the stove would be hot often enough that bacteria wouldn’t get established in the soup kettle.  The soup kettle was displaced by modern heating, which led to the success of Campbell’s soups.   

It's time to reinvent soup making.  The soup kettle is no longer practical but a plastic container with a closable lid, placed in the freezer, could take its place for saving scraps.  Another innovation is slow cooking using a crock-pot.  Set the crock-pot on low for 8-hour soups, or on high for 4-hour cooking.  Or you can just simmer a pot on the back burner.

What are the most popular soups?  Tomato, followed by the chicken soups.  Other favorites include potato, onion, split pea, and clam chowder.  (For our split pea soup recipe go here.)  

There are established patterns to soup making.  Meat flavored soups, with the exception of the chowders, traditionally have four ingredient groups:  meat in some form, stock, mirepoix (chopped onion, carrot and celery), and herbs (typically bay leaf, thyme, and parsley, plus salt and pepper).  Some may include a carb, like egg noodles, rice, or perhaps orzo. 

Chicken Soup

If you read through enough chicken soup recipes, you’ll see a pattern.  The chicken is either whole, cut up, or pre-cooked & chopped.  The latter is the quickest to make, you can be done in 40 minutes.  Recipes using cut up chicken usually call for browning of the chicken with the mirepoix in a frying pan. 

For raw chicken—cut up or whole—plan on 2+ hours cooking time, but there’s a benefit—you can make your own stock by cooking the chicken with mirepoix, and the traditional herbs (bay leaf, thyme, and parsley).  Or you can slow-cook by using a crock-pot. 

To make chicken noodle soup simply follow the basic recipe and add ½-1 cup of egg noodles (preferably whole grain) per pound of chicken plus extra water.  For chicken and rice soup, substitute a cup of rice for the noodles, with extra water, adding it as needed to meet the cooking time of the rice.   For cream of chicken soup, replace the stock with milk and puree after cooking.  These are well-evolved, simple recipes. 

The approach that makes the most sense to me begins with the carcass of a roasted chicken.  After you’ve enjoyed a meal of roasted chicken (you may be buying them roasted, but a future recipe will feature home roasting) you’re left with the carcass.  I confess to throwing these in the garbage in my prior life.   The recipe below starts with stock; if you have a carcass see note #1.

Skip’s Chicken & Rice Soup Recipe

Ingredients:

1 lb. meat scraps (about 3 cups)

6 cups liquid (I used 4 cups homemade stock and 2 cups water.)

3 cups mirepoix (roughly equal amounts of chopped onion, celery, and carrot)

1 cup of mixed wild rice, or brown rice (If you like more rice, add another cup plus 1-1/2 cups additional water.)

2 each bay leaf

2 T chopped parsley

½ tsp ground thyme

1 tsp each, salt and ground pepper

Directions:

Combine ingredients in a large pot, bring to a boil, and simmer 40 minutes.  Let cool, add salt or pepper if needed.  If too thick for your taste, add a little water.  Homemade bread or cornbread makes a nice side.  Could this be any simpler?  For the small family, this makes 2-3 meals.  Put a quart in the freezer for later use.

Note 1:  If you’re starting with a cooked chicken carcass, flatten the carcass in a pot, cover with 6 cups water, and add herbs (bay leaf, thyme and parsley).  Bring to a boil and simmer at least two hours to loosen meat and make stock.  Remove and discard the skin and bones, and chop up the meat.  Return the meat to the liquid (you can add extra meat if you have leftovers), add the mirepoix, rice, and salt and pepper, and cook per directions above.

Note 2:  If you want Chicken Noodle soup, replace the rice with noodles and reduce liquid by one cup.

Note 3:  We made this recipe with turkey.  We simmered the carcass of our Thanksgiving turkey for three hours with a couple of bay leafs to make a simple stock (no mirepoix).  When done, we gleaned the loose scraps of meat seen in the photo.   The stock and meat were refrigerated for several days before making the soup above.  Perhaps the turkey was content we wasted so little of his sacrifice. 

Please comment:  Share any favorite food blogs that follow the criteria noted above (Healthiness, Value, Simplicity, and Taste).  Contribute your favorite soup recipe.

Need a reminder? Download our Healthy Change reminder card. Print and fold, then place in your kitchen or on your bathroom mirror to help you remember the Healthy Change of the week.

Comments

[Anne]

One of the first purchases we made here in Mongolia was a pressure cooker! It has made cooking from scratch so much easier! Most beans can be cooked in 25 minutes + cool off time. Today we made black bean chipotle chili that is making our house smell simply amazing! I only spent about 30 minutes in the kitchen. I believe soups to be one of the healthiest, low cost and convenient meals around. We have a new soup or chili on the stove nearly every day!

[Jenay]

One of our favorite soups is Butterbean and Bacon Soup, which you can find on our blog, www.simplepeasantfood.blogspot.com It's only a little bit of bacon (:

[Liz Anderson]

I've adopted the advise that every good recipe starts with an onion, and probably a full 90% of every dinner meal starts that way. For chicken soup, I also add in chopped garlic and matchsticks of fresh ginger to increase the healthful properties. I top it with a heavy hand of chopped fresh Italian parsley adding not only eye appeal but a fresh herbiness to the taste. Nothing warms the house or soul like a good soup!

[Jeanette]

Oh I love soup! My recipe collection fro soups has grown over the years. Here are a few I have blogged:

Zuppa Toscana
Mexican Chicken Soup
Cheddar Broccoli Soup
Tomato Basil Soup

I actually have that "How to be Well" book I got if from my mom who had found it cleaning out my grandma's house. I told my mom I had to have it! It is very interesting to read.

[Jeanette]

Tomato basil soup link corrected:

Tomato Basil Soup

There it is--though it is out of season now around here.

[Lindsay]

I love a good, old-fashioned homemade soup! I simply am not interested in cooking meat that doesn't include a bone now that I know how healthful and delicious bone broths are. Thank you for the recipe.

I have had an interesting experience this year I wanted to share. When my great grandmother Rowena died years ago (at the ripe age of 107), my mom inherited her recipe boxes. I was thrilled to get my hands on them this year because Grandma Rowena was known as an excellent cook and I wanted to type and copy her recipes for my extended family. I was crushed when I started reading and typing the recipes. Almost all of recipes were probably created by modern food processors and manufacturers! When I began this process I was expecting to rediscover some time-tested recipes handed down through the generations. I feel that the food processors of the 19th and 20th centuries robbed our family of our true food tradtions, from the time when mothers taught their daughters recipes and methods of cooking passed through the centuries.

I am now trying to rediscover those traditions and implement them in my own kitchen, I am just sorry it couldn't have been through my own family line. I don't blame my grandmothers for switching to more convenient products, recipes, and methods. Their lives were so hard doing everything from scratch and by hand without our handy household machines. I am so grateful for the resources I have found like your blog. I hope to teach my children and start new or I guess rediscovered food traditions that will be healthier for our posterity.

[Lindsey]

Lindsay, that is an interesting comment. In talking to my grandma (who cooked a lot of processed food) I think there was a sense of pride in the 40s and 50s in being "modern" and well enough off to buy the processed food and not have to make your own food from scratch. I'm glad that now I feel very supported by friends who want to return to healthy food for their families; the trends have reversed.

My mom recently taught me how to make beef and barley soup from scratch. It is amazing! You just roast beef soupbones (I bought these at the grocery store for $2) along with some aromatics for about 30 minutes. Then add to a stockpot of water with a bay leaf and some peppercorns and simmer all day. Strain and salt to taste and pull the meat off bones and add back in (you can also add the carrots back in, they are just very soft). Add about a half cup of barley and simmer for about an hour and a half. Add chopped carrot, onion, mushrooms and potatoes and simmer until tender. Enjoy.

[Jamie]

Such a timely post...tonight I made the exact same soup! Although my cooking space appeared slightly less tidy than the picture. (Which may have had something to do with a crying baby and 8 dozen Christmas cookies??)

The past month or so, I've been buying a small chicken for Sunday dinner. I save the carcass in the fridge, and then make stock out of it on Monday. Then I use the stock and the leftover meat for most of my meals during the week. I think my pioneer ancestors are high-fiving each other.

I think that next week I'll try Lindsey's idea of beef and barley soup. It sounds fabulous!

[Brittany]

I didn't ever really like soup, but then I was introduced to some great recipes and it changed my life! We eat soup at least once a week now (which is really good for me!). I love soups because they are easy and I can put so many veggies in! My favorite recipe is from a neighbor--great for the fall (when people have zuchinni coming out of their ears!)
Cream of Zucchini Soup
2 medium Onions, roughly chopped
1-1/2 lb. Zucchini (or 1 large)
3 c. Water
5-6 tsp Chicken Bouillon (to taste)
1/8 tsp. Nutmeg
1/8 tsp. Pepper
1/8 tsp. Salt
2 Tbsp. Butter
1 c. Half & Half (I just put in milk)
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Slice zucchini and onion in kettle with water and bouillon. Cook about 15 minutes, until tender. Add seasonings. Put in blender and puree. Add half & half, pinch of cayenne pepper, and butter. Heat and serve. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top if desired. Enjoy!

[Ann]

I, too, spent time in Central America and remember the soups. I wish I had also learned how to make their beans and rice. I did learn how to make tortillas! I wasn't really fond of the soups when it was 90 degrees outside, which was most of the time. I'm going to try more soups this winter, I think.

I'm remembering the casseroles mom cooked. I've only kept a few of those recipes and over the years have experimented with eliminating the canned soup for something better. Mom says the same thing grandma said about her own children and that is, "You learned to cook in self-defense." Both mom and grandma would rather be in the garden than cooking. Dad's mom was a great cook, but I didn't learn nearly enough from her. Her legacy is bread and over the years I've found some good recipes that come close to hers.

[GIgi]

Have you not yet discovered Beautiful Broth ?! (I thought I had found your blog via WAPF connections)
The chicken foot is a very valuable ingredient for a nourishing soup; it is a potent source of gelatin. MAD has forgotten its value as thoroughly as the idea of eating something that looks like it did when it was alive.
a current post I've seen: http://nourishingyourfamily.blogspot.com/2011/12/tis-season-for-chicken-broth-fa-la-la.html

As I was telling my hubby just the other day - gelatin and the minerals of bone broth are part of this super food - bone broth - add the veggies and herbs/spices and you've hit an all around amazing :)
Bone broth soup is the ultimate health maintenance and medicine. As medicine, the gelatin's soothing and calming effect and the pH of the minerals are an instant effect on an upset, tumultuous, or heavy situation.
I prefer broth w/ butter or coconut oil if it didn't already have enough of it's own fat..
Now that the gut is soothed and even able to even think about digesting, it can start utilizing the amino acids and minerals and nutrients (such as glucosamine)
As digestion improves, the herbs, spices, onion, garlic can also go to town now with all their nutrient and phytonutrient strengths and individual traits.
Add a HUGE pile of greens to wilt down like collards, kale or bok choy w/ a bit more butter and you have one of my favorite meals that really give me strength, especially when trying to keep up with growing a baby and ahead of being drained. (or for a hubby who still is to acid from sugar (and too high fruit to veggie ratio) and as a part of a meal that has little or no raw foods - the gelatin really aids in digestion and absorption of nutrients)

I do say though that I get a very solid gel (gelatin) from whole chicken bones without using feet
and when we can get them - almost as rare these days unless mail ordered with my grass fed beef, I don't mind that we eat the heart, liver, etc before we ever get to making the broth.

[GIgi]

One of the other foods I buy from the bulk herb companies is dried mushroom powder. It is a fantastic ingredient for sauces and soups - That and sometimes kelp powder (smaller amount but as it cooks, it loses flavor) - are blended in and cooked in to deepen and intensify the flavors. They are from the fifth flavor category that MSG is trying to copy and are a definite bonus for individuals that miss their canned and packaged foods' taste but gives nutrients instead of damaging our bodies.

[Melissa]

Hi Skip! I just came across your blog two days ago and since then I have spent endless hours pouring over all of your wonderful information and tips! My husband and I are young students studying at a University in Utah with our baby boy and trying to find where our life's road will lead us to. Being in the generation that we are, I have recently felt lost in an endless sea of contradicting and false information when it comes to properly nourishing our bodies. Despite all the popular diets and "latest findings", I knew that the Word of Wisdom was going to be my best bet of finding the real truth. It was such a blessing to have came across your blog after typing "Word of Wisdom diet" into my search engine :) I can't thank you enough for your efforts and this, literally, life-changing blog you have created.

Anyways, in answer to your request for blogs that follow in line with what you stand for, here is another one I have stumbled across that perhaps you and your readers might find something helpful in: http://www.myhumblekitchen.com/

Thank you again *SO* much!!!