So, I’ve got pneumonia and am the only one who can cook in my household. I was told strictly to stay in bed and basically not do anything, but I’ve gotta eat and I’d like some good veggie soup. Any suggestions for how to make something quick and easy? I’ve got some good veggie stock already in the freezer thankfully but how can I quickly add to it to make it more filling? Are frozen veggies a good option? Egg noodles? It doesn’t have to be delicious, just easy and edible
Canned beans: Healthy, filling, cheap, and convenient
Beans, broth, and salt wouldn’t be amazing, but it could get you through a few meals. Add some black pepper and it might actually be pretty good.
Add carrots (frozen or fresh), onion, celery to step it up a notch.
Best experience? Miso soup with winter veggies dropped in.
Easiest? Mirepoix and just throw in whatever you like. Start or finish with a dry, yeasted cooking alcohol, and top with some some fresh herbs.
What is a dry yeasted cooking alcohol? I’ve got nutritional yeast and baking yeast, but I’ve never heard of dry yeasted alcohol
Salted rice wines specifically made for cooking by fermenting with yeast. Salted Mirin, Shaoxing Wine, some types of Sherry, or what might be labeled as “Salted Wine”. Don’t get the sugary crap called Mirin in the US. It’s gross.
Oh, I’ve got Shaoxing wine and some sherry. Had no idea that’s how they were made. Thanks for sharing!
The easiest is probably tomato soup. Just some tomato purree, salt, oil, pepper will already get you something decent. Adding some vegetable stock will, of course, make it better.
The easiest soup I know is a “throw whatever is about to expire to the pot, fill it with a water add herbs and boil until veggies are soft”. A little bit more organised version is cauliflower (500g), potatoes (400g), carrots (200g), onion (150g). Cut everything into 2-3 cm cubes, cover with 1.5 liter of water, add handful of chopped fresh parsley. Boil for 20-30 minutes (until veggies are soft), season with salt and pepper. And that’s it. you got yourself a basic veggie soup.
Few variations:
- replace water with chicken stock
- add peas/leek/celery/parsnip/whatever you like in a soup
- at the end of cooking you can add cream for better taste and to make it more filling
- you can blend it and make the cream instead of soup
- you can add good quality sausage (for me the german white bratwurst, aka weisswurst works best)
- add more herbs and spices, nutmeg works for me, as well as lovage and bay leaves
You can use frozen veggies for this recipe.
Frozen veggies work great for low effort soup. Use the ones you have as I’ve found most veggies work with most other veggies flavor-wise, especially in soup. If you want more bite, add beans and/or mushrooms. And root veggies/potatoes add more substance, texture, and starch for natural thickening if you want something that’s not just broth and bits. You know what flavors you like so just go from there. Consider adding soy sauce or liquid aminos if you’re looking for more umami and salt.
A quick and easy one I do all the time for lazy days is: boxed broth, frozen carrots and peas. Celery (easy to chop even when sick), chop an onion into quarters (they soften and break apart, no need to slice and dice) some kind of root veg like turnip (quarter it, or if you get baby turnip just throw in whole) and mushrooms (get them pre sliced for minimum work) then a couple of tablespoons of Italian dry spice blend, salt, pepper.
And yeah as I mentioned, if you can get someone to shop you baby versions of the veg you gotta chop, you can skip that and just throw them in whole~
And for those of you that eat meat, just add chicken to that above recipe instead of mushrooms (or both!) and boom, chicken soup .
Edit: one thing is don’t use frozen soft veg like a Brussels sprouts, they get gross and mushy very fast. Stick to harder veg like carrot, potato, etc. Leafy greens (except Kale because it’s leathery when raw) almost always turn to mush when cooked in liquid.
Hot Mushroom soup is the best!
