Favorite Soups

I like cooking soup. Please share with me favorite recipes for soups you enjoy cooking. Looking for stuff that can be a meal unto itself.

So far I've had great results with: chicken soup, potato leek soup, and clam chowder. I've enjoyed how relatively easy these are to fix, especially for how much they produce. I do have an immersion blender.

Split pea and ham is a great winter comfort soup. Especially with leftovers from a holiday meal. I don't really have a recipe to share - it's a mishmash of green peas, butter, celery, potato hunks, garlic and so on - then a big assed ham bone and chunks of meat.

The only things I do special are NO ONIONS and make it thick so it sticks to my ribs. The rest is whatever is handy.

Smoked Sausage, Butternut Squash, and Wild Rice Soup is really, really good on a cold day. Prepping the squash is a minor PITA, but worth it. Serve with a lightly toasted slice of tasty bread.

This may belong in "Minor Confessions", but I occasionally make a variant of TACO SOUP in the crock pot. Simple, easy, cheap, and tasty. Watch the sodium if you have issues with it. If the wife's not around, it goes toward the hot side.

I think that celery is the key to good soups and stews. Not a lot, but at least a little.

Yesterday I made this pretty easy Italian Soup, right no on the stove is a batch of Black Bean Soup; it's 10 degrees outside.

1 lb. Italian Sausage

Splash of Olive Oil

1 clove garlic

(2) 14 oz. cans Beef Broth

(1) 14.5 oz can Italian Stewed Tomatoes

(1) 14.5 oz can White Cantonelli Beans, drained

(2) small Zucchini, diced

2 cups Spinach, rinsed, packed and torn (I used 1/2 pack of frozen spinach cut into cubes)

1 Red Bell Pepper, diced

1 cup sliced carrots

1/4 tsp Black Pepper

1/4 tsp Basil

1/4 tsp Oregano

Sprinkle of Crushed Red Peppers

Brown sausage in olive oil in a Dutch Oven type pot. Cut half the Sausage into slices, remove skin and crumble the second half. Return to pot with garlic and saute' until garlic is soft.

Add the remaining ingredients and bring almost to a boil. Simmer 20 minutes.

Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary. Add 1/4 cup of Parmesian and serve.

I need to find my recipe for sausage, kale, and potato soup.

One of my favorites is the Bulgarian tomato soup with dumplings from the Sundays at Moosewood cookbook. You'll even get to use your immersion blender!

EDIT: I just found the recipient online for you: Linky link

Chicken is one of my favorites.

I usually start with a leftover carcass when we bake one, boil it until it falls apart, add leftover meat, add whatever veggie is left over in the fridge. A little celery, oregano, salt and pepper to taste, a carrot of two for color, then noodles of some sort or potatoes for substance. Good stuff.

A French Canadian style pea soup with ham is nice and easy.

Bake a real ham, use the bone and some leftover meat, a mirepoix (google it, it's really nothing serious) and split yellow peas. Crock pot it all with adequate water to make the peas reconstitute and cook.

In reply to 914Driver:

No celery?

914Driver wrote: Yesterday I made this pretty easy Italian Soup, right no on the stove is a batch of Black Bean Soup; it's 10 degrees outside. 1 lb. Italian Sausage Splash of Olive Oil 1 clove garlic (2) 14 oz. cans Beef Broth (1) 14.5 oz can Italian Stewed Tomatoes (1) 14.5 oz can White Cantonelli Beans, drained (2) small Zucchini, diced 2 cups Spinach, rinsed, packed and torn (I used 1/2 pack of frozen spinach cut into cubes) 1 Red Bell Pepper, diced 1 cup sliced carrots 1/4 tsp Black Pepper 1/4 tsp Basil 1/4 tsp Oregano Sprinkle of Crushed Red Peppers Brown sausage in olive oil in a Dutch Oven type pot. Cut half the Sausage into slices, remove skin and crumble the second half. Return to pot with garlic and saute' until garlic is soft. Add the remaining ingredients and bring almost to a boil. Simmer 20 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary. Add 1/4 cup of Parmesian and serve.

SWMBO builds a similar soup but throws a parmesan cheese rind into the pot. It does amazing things for the flavor and consistency of the soup. It doesn't completely melt, and if you're lucky it winds up in your bowl and you get to eat it!

Chili counts as soup right? If so it's Chili. If not all soup sucks.

Just kidding we have a very good summer squash soup recipe. Also egg drop soup is yummy and easy. I will see if I can find any of our recipes.

I don't really have a lot to add here. I just want to make this topic easy to find as the delicious recipes roll in.

I think GRM needs to add a recipe of the month to the Magazine. What's more GRM than delicious homemade food.

A recipe from my now-departed aunt:

Manhattan Soup

1 lb ground round 2 big carrots 1 stalk celery 1 large potato 1 large onion 2 cups coarsely shredded cabbage 1 10-oz can beef broth (or 2 beef bouillon cubes) 2 cans water 1 8-oz can tomato sauce 1 lb can tomatoes 1 tablespoon dried parsley flakes 1 10-oz package frozen peas 1 1/2 teaspoons salt 1/8 teaspoon pepper

Brown ground meat; drain if needed. Add all ingredients except peas. Simmer until vegetables are tender. Add peas; simmer for 10 minutes.

Lentil soup is a favorite of mine. Need some fat in it. Alton brown had a decent recipe:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/lentil-soup-recipe.html?ref=amp

And now that it's winter I should make a batch!!

Dave's Market (only in RI) proprietary chicken or Italian wedding soup in a plastic snap lid bucket.

And the snap lid bucket is great for holding car parts after the soup is gone.

In for soup. I'll have to dig up my chowder recipe. The best part about it is that at a critical point, you can split it and make half potato bacon chowder and half clam chowder.

This is my wife's favorite. Sausage with cabbage. Fry up 3/4 to a pound of ground sausage and skim off the grease. Add 3 large sliced carrots, cook for a couple of minutes, add about 1/3 of a cabbage sliced so it makes 3" or so long strings, cook for another couple of minutes until carrots and cabbage are getting tender but not soft. Add dried oregano, fresh garlic, pepper and or hot sauce, beef stock, chicken stock, water, and one can of stewed tomatoes. Bring temp up close to boil and keep cooking until veggies are soft enough to eat but not mushy. Serve with your favorite bread. One of the few soups that taste good as leftovers. My kids love taking it to school in a thermos the day after we make it. My favorite is corn chowder with egg/flour dough balls, or as my kids call it, super ball soup.

I've used this one pretty successfully with every member of the family which is a major accomplishment. I add more potatoes than they said, added some corn and carrots. http://allrecipes.com/recipe/29798/ham-bone-soup/

I love asian style brothy spicey stuff. As such, I eat alot of ramen.

Wonton soup is probably my favorite soup, unless my Mom makes her Chicken Corn Noodle (with alphabets), then it's that, everyday all day.

Wait... is pulled pork a soup? I start it with 4lbs of tenderloin, a can of lager, salt, pepper in a crock on high for an hour then 12 on low. Mixing in the vinegar, Worcestershire, brown sugar, chunks of cherry peppers, and other "secret" (read: E36 M3 I think is a good idea at the time) ingredients as I remember to during the day.

Then, cool. Sit over night, turn on low for an hour... serve.

No recipe, but Maryland 1/2 and 1/2

1/2 Maryland crab soup, extra spicy

1/2 Cream of Crab made properly with lump crab and touch of sherry