Recipes for Soups and Stews

The Perfect Cold Weather Food

Feb 06, 2024

SOUPS AND STEWS

In the Fall when the temperatures drop, my salad meals give way to hearty soups and stews. This deeply nourishing food carries me through the long winter months. Soups and stews are an excellent way to get more vegetables, legumes and broth into the diet. They are also an easy way to get greens into us - a handful of baby greens, fresh herbs, steamed kale or a spoonful of a green herb sauce accompanies many soups and stews very well. Soups and stews make great leftovers and tend to freeze really well. When you make a batch, double it up so you have extra to enjoy at another meal.

SOUP RECIPE BASICS: A Few Notes on Tweaking Recipes

Any of the following shared recipes can be tweaked according to your taste buds, what you have on hand, and your body’s metabolic needs. Most soups are incredibly versatile and endlessly forgiving when it comes to swapping ingredients or adding in a few extras. In the past, our grandmother’s soup usually included whatever bits of vegetables were on hand that needed to be used up. Don’t shy away from a recipe if you are missing an ingredient or two, or if a recipe includes an ingredient you can’t eat. Think about how that particular ingredient is contributing to the overall soup. If you think it’s significant, add in something that may have a similar flavour or texture effect in the soup

Use the best quality broth you have access to. Even if the recipe calls for water, sub in broth if you can get your hands on it. It adds so much nutrient value to your soup. If you don’t have broth on hand, it’s fine to use a high quality bouillon cube, bone broth powder or even water. Adjust the amount of broth or liquid in the soup based on how “soupy” or “stewy” you want it to be.

Upscale the listed recipes by using healthy fats and if you need more fat in your diet add more to the recipe
If the recipe calls for flour to thicken and you are avoiding flour, blend some of the soup and add it back into the pot to create more body, or consider these gluten-free thickener options
If a recipe calls for seasonings that you don’t have on hand, no need to ditch the recipe. Consider other flavours that you like and add them in. If a recipe calls for curry powder and you are not convinced you are going to like it…. start by using just a very small amount of the spice. You might be surprised at the complexity it lends the dish without overpowering it. Even a pinch of something in a dish can be interesting to the flavour profile without going overboard. The same is true when a recipe calls for chilies or cayenne. Go slow. Incrementally. You can always add more, but can’t remove it once it’s in there. Honour the palate of others at your table. Some people don’t do well with heat. Consider hot sauce on the side.
When cooking from scratch, salt is an essential component of the final flavour profile. The amount you use will depend on your taste buds and whether or not the stock you are using is salted. Standard salting of stock is about 1-1 ½ tsp salt per quart stock. Add bit by bit to taste. Oversalting will ruin the soup. Under salting and the soup does not taste right. Use high quality salt. I prefer Himalayan and Redmond. A small percentage of the population is salt sensitive. Most people are not. Here’s an interesting look at dietary salt intake. And here is an overview on salting food that you might find helpful.

RECIPES FOR BLENDED VEGETABLE SOUPS can be found HERE

RECIPES FOR LEGUMES BASED SOUPS AND STEWS can be found HERE

SOME GREAT VEGETABLE SOUPS

Broccoli Cheese Soup

Low Carb Vegetable Soup

Detox Vegetable Soup

Caramelized Onion Soup with Pastured Bone Broth

Clean out the Fridge Soup

COLD SUMMER SOUPS

Mediterranean Gazpacho with Avocado Cream

Greek Cucumber Yogurt Soup

Cooling Cucumber Avocado Soup