Nothing satisfies during the winter months like soup…and nothing could be as simple. Homemade soup is also satisfying, nutritious, and makes great leftovers! An hour (or less) of simmering can result in several days’ worth of meals that can be savored for the next 2-3 days. You can also freeze individual portions to enjoy when you don’t have time to cook.
Soups require three basic ingredient types: a liquid, aromatics/flavors, and the starring items. The liquid can be any type of stock: chicken, vegetable, beef, or fish. (Water works, too, but the soup won’t be as flavorful.) A splash of vinegar or wine enhances the soup’s overall character–I like to use a bit of balsamic vinegar in mine. The aromatics/flavors can be onion, garlic, leeks, spices, herbs, etc. “Starring” ingredients are whatever you have on hand: beans, diced tomatoes, leafy greens, corn, stewing meat. Grains can round out the soup and give it more depth and heartiness.
Basic steps for creating custom soups:
-Have your aromatics and your main ingredients ready to go (cleaned/rinsed, diced/chopped, etc.), then do a sniff test to see which spices/herbs would compliment your featured items. Choose the broth that best suits your overall dish.
-Cook all ingredients in a large soup pot. Better to have too few ingredients for the pot than not enough pot to hold the soup!
-Begin the base by sauteéing the aromatics in some oil over medium heat. If you’re including meat in your soup, brown the meat along with the onion/garlic/leeks. If you’re using mushrooms (or any other ingredient that would benefit from advance sauteéing), add them just before the onion turns translucent. You may want to splash in a tablespoon or two of vinegar/wine to deglaze the pan and bring out the caramelized flavor of the onions. [Note on meat: for tender cuts, remove them after browning and set aside. Re-add towards the end of the overall cooking time. If it's a tougher cut, it may be suited to the full cooking time.]
-Add the stock and stir. When stock is simmering, add your main ingredients and spices. If you are including grains or anything else with a specific cooking time, take this into account–you don’t want to overcook the grains and make them mushy. The same applies to soft-fleshed vegetables like potatoes. Beans can simmer along happily for quite some time; so can tomatoes. Bell peppers stand up well to continued cooking. Leafy green vegetables–spinach, arugula, kale–do not. Add these towards the end of your simmering. If you’re planning on having leftovers, you may want to leave the grains and last-minute vegetables a little bit firm to allow for increased tenderness after re-heating.
-A good rule of thumb is to let the stock, aromatics, and non-time-crucial ingredients simmer at least 20 minutes to let the flavors meld before you add last-minute ingredients. Fresh herbs should be the very last thing to be added–in fact, you may want to sprinkle them onto individual servings. Creamy ingredients (dairy milk/cream, coconut milk, soy milk, etc.) should also be added towards the end of cooking time to minimize the chance that they’ll separate. And depending on the saltiness of the stock you use, you may want to taste the soup halfway through its cooking time before adding any salt of your own.
For this the soup below, I used garlic and onions for the aromatics, then added a dash of balsamic. The chicken stock was the perfect foil for the diced tomatoes, quinoa, Brussels sprouts and baby spinach. (I added the last three in descending order of how long it takes them to cook: quinoa at the 12-minute mark, the Brussels sprouts about 2 minutes after that, and the baby spinach after I’d taken the soup pot off the heat.)
See what I mean? Whether you’re vegetarian, omnivorous, or vegan, soup is a (healthy) snap!
Spinach, Quinoa & Tomato Soup
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