Healthy Soup Recipes

The best healthy soup recipes use seasonal ingredients.

Right now, It's December and it's cold outside! Cold enough for some warming soup, with lots of fresh ginger and garlic. Soup in the winter can be a thick stew, made with beans, meat, roots, burdock, parsnips, beets, cabbage, and other hearty winter vegetables.

In summer, a lighter soup tastes refreshing. Summer vegetables enter the soup pot, and I use cucumbers, avocados, basil, tomatoes, mushrooms, green beans, and light noodles for soups. Summer soups include tomato soup, tortilla soup, corn chowder, and more.

The Simplest Soup

Soup is a great way to use up leftover meat, beans and grains. Use these to add thickness, and add in plenty of seasonal vegies. You can saute onions and vegies in good quality olive oil or butter, then add water or stock, and beans or grains to thicken. There you have it, a simple seasonal soup.

Soup is a good way to get sea vegetables into your diet. You can add in a bit of wakame which adds nutrition and a salty flavor. Kombu is a flavor enhancer that I add to long cooking bean soups.

Soup is good medicine. Most culinary herbs like rosemary and oregano, turmeric, ginger, cumin and garlic stimulate digestion. Shittake mushrooms strengthen immune system. And chicken broth is soothing and healing.

Here's some healthy soup recipes to play with. These recipes are simple and vegetarian; they can be embellished with meat if you wish.

Healthy soup recipes: Vegetable stock -

A simple stock is a good base for all soups. It will keep up to 3 days in the frig.

1. Collect your vegetables: onion, parsley stalks and stems, garlic, celery, carrots, bay leaf

Optional vegies: asparagus stalks, scallions, potatoes, mnushrooms, corn and corn cobs

Avoid the brassica vegies, they are too strong: kale, collards, brussel sprouts, turnips, broccoli

2. Cut vegetables into bite sizes and saute in oil or butter

3. Add in water to cover and simmer about an hour.

Alternatives to homemade stock

I have a secret ingredients that I thinks works as well as stock. It's Herbamare, an herbal infused sea salt made by A. Vogel. Herbamare makes everything taste good. Use it anywhere you would use salt. You can usually find it in a health food grocer.

Another product I use is Pacific Natural Foods Organic Vegetable Broth which is gluten free. They also make a chicken broth.

Beware of most bullion cubes, they usually are full of MSG and other chemicals.

Healthy soup recipes: Three Sisters Stew

The three sisters are beans, corn and squash, which are often planted together in Native American farming methods.

I like to serve this in the fall when winter squash is in season. If fresh corn is not available, use frozen corn kernels.

serves 4-6

1 cup aduki beans (soak overnight)

5 cups water or stock

1 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, diced

1 stalk celery, sliced

1 small butternut squash or 1/2 large squash, cut into bite size pieces. About 3 cups.

1 inch piece kombu

1 tsp dried cumin

2 cups fresh or frozen corn kernels

1 clove garlic, minced

1/4 cup cilantro or parsley (optional)

1/2 tsp sea salt or to taste

lemon juice or zest

cayenne pepper, if you like the heat

Directions:

Wash the aduki beans and let soak a few hours or overnight.Throw out the soaking water. Heat oil over medium low heat in the soup pot and saute the onions and celery, about 5 minutes, until onions start to be translucent. Add in beans, kombu, water or stock and winter squash. Bring to a simmer and cook one hour or more. Beans need long cooking.

When beans are soft, Add cumin, salt, garlic, and corn. Let simmer 10 minutes or so. Stir in cilantro and lemon juice or zest.

Variations: you can use black or pinto beans instead of adukis.

Healthy soup recipes: Millet potato soup

serves 2-3. good year round.

3 new potatoes

1/2 - 1 cup cooked millet (or add in 1/4 cup uncooked millet)

1/2 onion, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tsp dried tarragon or rosemary

1 carrot, diced

1 bay leaf

3 cups water or stock

1/2 tsp salt or to taste

Directions:

Saute the onions, garlic and herbs for 10 minutes on low heat. Add in new potatoes and carrot, saute a bit, then add water and millet. Bring to a boil, then simmer, about 25 minutes. For a creamy texture, blend some of the soup in a blender then return to soup pot. Ready to enjoy!

More healthy soup recipes are listed below!