Vegetable Soup Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What can I add to my vegetable soup to give it more flavor? ›

Dried herbs and seasonings: homemade seasoned salt, black pepper, Italian seasoning, and dried bay leaves lend flavor to the soup.

Tips for Flavorful Vegetable Soup

Flavor the base: We add Italian seasoning and tomato paste to the aromatics and warm them up to bring the seasonings back to life. You could use fresh herbs like thyme or rosemary, or even add a Parmesan rind for more flavor.

It may sound a bit strange and unusual for some, but vinegar is a common ingredient in some soup recipes, and there is a good reason for it. If you think about it, vinegar is really a flavor-enhancer (umami). That's why it is so often used in cooking, sauces, and salad dressings. The same is true with soups.

For clear, brothy soups, stock is your most important ingredient. If you want to make a good soup, you need to use an excellently flavored stock — otherwise, the entire pot could be tasteless.

Add flour or cornflour

Put a tablespoon of either into a small bowl and stir in 2-3 tbsp of the soup until you have a smooth mixture. Stir this back into the soup and bring it to a simmer. Cook for a few minutes to allow the starch granules to burst to thicken, and to cook out any flour flavour.

Depending on your taste pallet, you can boost your soup in a variety of directions. Onion powder, garlic powder, garlic salt, Italian seasonings, Mexican seasonings (or any other cultures). Don't overcook your vegetables, either. They lose their flavor and turn to mush if cooked too long.

A dash of vinegar enhances flavor

The Kitchn concurs that vinegar is a "one ingredient" fix when your soup does not meet your taste bud's expectations. But don't overdo it. A little vinegar goes a long way. The Kitchn suggests just "half a teaspoon or more" of vinegar can punch up the flavor of your broth.

All soups and stews must have three major components in order to be tasty: an undercurrent liquid, aromatics, and volumizing ingredients.

It can provide polyphenols (can boost digestive and help protect again disease) and fiber and that may have prebiotic like effects, supporting the growth of good bacteria in our gut. Celery can also support our adrenals as a medium stalk contains around 30 milligrams of sodium.

Should you cook carrots before putting them in soup? ›

While certain vegetables can work just fine added directly to simmering soups and stews (say, carrots and celery), other vegetables (onions, garlic, and the like) will almost always need at least a brief sweat in a fat-based liquid before adding the remaining ingredients.

What vegetables go first in a soup? The aromatics of onions, carrots, and celery get sauteed first followed by the garlic, making them first in the soup. Once the broth goes in, so too do the tomatoes, potatoes, parsley, and bay leaves. Then you add your frozen veggies.

A squeeze of citrus, a dollop of yogurt or a drizzle of cream, a dusting of cheese or a good chile powder, a sprinkling of some herbs or croutons — all can take a perfectly fine soup into the realm of the delectable. Even a spiral of good olive oil to finish and some coarse sea salt can do wonders.

Brown or Sear the Meat

If you are adding meat to a soup, sear or brown it in a sauté pan before you add it to the soup. This adds a deeper savory flavor to the whole soup. This trick is especially useful for things like chicken and sausage, which can sometimes get bland and rubbery while floating in a brothy soup.

Apple cider vinegar

A few quick squirts will also add balance to your soup or stew. Made from fermented apple cider, this vinegar will bring a fruitier, slightly sweet flavour to whatever it is added to. It's light brown in colour and can be found as a clear liquid or in cloudy unfiltered versions.

Depending on what kind of soup you have, there are lots of things that add flavor. Black pepper can give an “after burn" to any recipe. Worcestershire sauce, Maggi sauce, tomato paste, fresh herbs, mustard, vinegar, bouquet garni, garlic, hot sauce, soy sauce.

You can extract a clean, strong broth from a combination of water and several pantry ingredients. It's all about layering powerful flavor-enhancers that you probably already have on hand—bacon, tomato paste, herbs, peppercorns, a Parmesan rind, and, of course, kosher salt.

A pinch of seasoning can make all the difference to freshen up the flavors in a ho-hum soup. Most canned soups have plenty of sodium, so skip the salt and stick with spices like cumin or curry powder or try dried herbs like basil or rosemary.