Vegetable Soup

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Everyone needs more vegetables in their life, but they can be hard to find a spot for in your diet. Why not make it easy with this tasty Vegetable Soup?

Why not make your own Italian Seasoning to use in this vegetable soup recipe? For even more great soup recipes you can try this Cream of Potato Soup!

Vegetable Soup

Looking for a quick, healthy, wintery dish that the whole family will love? This vegetable soup recipe is sure to tick all of your boxes!

Not only is this vegetable soup recipe quick to prepare, but it also packs in everything that you want on a cold wintery night. It is full of vegetables, it requires almost no prep time in the kitchen, and is super warming.

As an added bonus, you can also make a large batch of soup and store some of it in the freezer ready to be reheated when you need it.

Using Fresh Vegetables Vs Frozen Vegetables

If you happen to have fresh vegetables in your kitchen that need using before they go bad you can use them in place of frozen vegetables when making your soup. You will just need to make a few adjustments to account for the fact that fresh vegetables take longer to cook.

Unlike frozen vegetables, your fresh veggies will require a little prep before they can be added to the soup, so make sure to factor this in when timing everything. After cutting the onion you can use the same chopping board to wash and cut your fresh vegetables. The main advantage to using fresh vegetables is that you get to decide the size and shape that you cut them to.

Once the vegetables are prepared set them aside while the onions cook. Rather than adding the vegetables towards the end of the cooking process as you would when they are frozen you are going to want to add them much earlier as they take longer to cook.

The best time to add fresh vegetables is normally around the time that you add the potatoes, although, this will depend on your chosen vegetables and how long they take to cook. For example, carrots take a lot longer to cook than corn or peas.

Using frozen vegetables is definitely the easier option when making vegetable soup and the end result will be almost identical.

How Adding Tomatoes Affects The Cooking Process Of The Other Ingredients

A common problem that people have when making any tomato-based soup is that the raw tomatoes bring down the overall temperature of the pot preventing the onions from cooking fully. The sudden temperature change can also affect how other ingredients cook.

You are always going to want to make sure that your onions are fully cooked before adding other ingredients as this sets the foundations for the rest of the flavors within the soup. Equally, no one wants to bite into a half-cooked potato when eating soup.

To avoid this problem, try adding the tomatoes when you add the frozen vegetables as they will also alter the temperature of the pot.

The vegetables are also added much later, by which point the onion and potatoes should be fully cooked. The potatoes will cook in the broth and the end result should not be any different than if you had added the tomatoes earlier.

Could You Blend Your Soup?

Having chunks of vegetables in your soup is always nice and somehow makes it feel even more healthy than it is. However, there is something cozy about a blended soup that is hard to beat. It can also be nice to vary things up sometimes while not having to come up with completely new recipes.

Prepare and cook your soup in the same way that you would if you weren’t blending it. Then just before serving take it off the stove and use a stick blender to blend the soup to your chosen consistency.

You might want to only blend the soup a little leaving some of the chunks of vegetables for that satisfying bite. Or you could thoroughly blend it for a smooth, creamy soup.

Once you are done blending pop the pot back on the stove for a few minutes to make sure that it is piping hot before serving.

What Should You Serve With Your Vegetable Soup?

• Bread Rolls

Bread is often served with soup to add carbohydrates to the meal and bulk out the calories, especially in soups that are vegetable based.

The bread adds a lot more than just carbs though, in fact, every soup should be served with some kind of bread product that you can use to dip into the soup that you can coat in a thick layer of butter and dip into your soup. Nothing says comforting meal more than a thick piece of bread soaked in soup and butter!

• Homemade Bread Bowl

Looking to take your vegetable soup to the next level why not try making your own bread bowls to serve it in?

There is something about bread bowls that makes eating even the most plain of soups seem fun. Being able to tear off the sides of the bowl and dunk them into the soup as the liquid levels of your soup goes down never stops being fun and delicious no matter how many times you do it.

• Rice

Rice is a good way to bulk out your soup and keep those feelings of hunger at bay for longer. There are two different ways that you could work rice into your vegetable soup.

Firstly, you could cook your rice in the same way that you could when preparing rice for other dishes. This could either be in a pan on the stove or in a rice cooker. Once your rice is cooked serve it using an ice cream scoop to give it that restaurant-style appearance alongside your soup.

Alternatively, you could cook your rice in your soup making it a part of the soup rather than a side dish. This way you get a small amount of rice with each spoonful. If you decide to blend your soup the rice with add creaminess and richness to the dish.

Looking for more delicious Soup recipes? Try these out:

• Broccoli Cheese Soup Recipe

• Chickpea & Edamame Pumpkin Soup

• Creamy Yellow Bean & Potato Soup

Happy Cooking

Love,

Karlynn

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