We Love Soup and You Should Too

Whenever anyone asks “What’s your favorite dish to cook?” my answer is soup. I know that sounds broad. They’re probably wondering whether I do a killer mac & cheese or have a special way with roast chicken. But I answer soup, because no matter what type it is—whether it takes 20 minutes or 2 hours, whether it’s light and velvety or hearty and chunky, warm and comforting or chilled and refreshing—I love them all. If you’ve picked up this book, perhaps you already agree with me that soup has an awful lot going for it. Here are some of the highlights.

To start with the obvious, it’s a comfort food. With most comfort foods, though, if you packed them with healthy ingredients—whole grains, vegetables, beans—they’d feel like, well, health food. Soup is different. It feels rich and indulgent. Maybe it’s the way it fills you up or the savoriness of the broth. Think of a bowl of tomato soup. You can make an easy one with canned tomatoes, onions or garlic, chicken broth, maybe a little thyme or basil (see our recipe). Puree it, sit down to a bowl and taste. It’s tangy and savory. The texture is smooth and creamy. It’s intensely flavorful … rich even. But it has just a few good-for-you ingredients. That’s the alchemy of soup.

Soup is easy and forgiving. There’s not a lot of stressful multitasking in soup-making. On occasion, you might have two pans going at once, say a batch of beans simmering while you sauté vegetables to add later. Usually, though, it’s all in one big pot (less mess at the end) and can be left alone to bubble away without much oversight. I’ll put one on and head out to walk my dog. Or if it’s in the slow cooker, go to work for the day. It’s that easy.

Soup’s also a perfect vehicle for improvisation. Got a recipe for vegetable noodle soup but don’t feel like noodles? How about rice instead? Maybe potatoes. Don’t have a bunch of kale for tonight’s recipe? Throw in a bag of frozen spinach. Want to make something vegetarian? Swap the beef or chicken broth for vegetable broth. The bottom line is you’re probably not going to mess it up. And you will end up with a delicious meal. (If you need a little guidance on how to start improvising, check out the Soups by the Formula.)

When it comes to feeding a crowd or a family with a hectic schedule, soup is there to bail you out. You can eat a soup right when it’s done, and that same soup can just as easily hang for an hour until a kid gets home from practice. I love to make soup for a casual get-together. I can make it before guests arrive, then its flavors can meld until hunger strikes. And leftovers rule—I package up individual servings to have ready-to-go lunches throughout the week. Plenty of soups take well to the freezer too. I like to stockpile quart containers of frozen soup so I have something for dinners when I just don’t have time to cook from scratch.

Why These Soups?

There are a zillion soup cookbooks (judging by my bookshelf, I may own half of them) and a bajillion-zillion soup recipes online. So what makes this one special? This book is different because it’s an EatingWell collection of soups. We’re a magazine brand based in Vermont, dedicated to helping our fans eat delicious food that happens to be good for them. We believe cooking meals, made from whole ingredients, with plenty of flavor and lots of love is one of the essential joys in life. And it doesn’t hurt that when you eat the EatingWell way, you feel awesome too.

All year long our editors dream up new ideas and consult new contributors. That makes this a very different kind of book from one by a single author. It is a tapestry of sorts, reflecting the best soups we have tested, tasted and published over the years. It includes cuisines from Mexican to Singaporean. Recipes range from Ribollita by celebrity chef Lidia Bastianich to Matzo Ball Soup with Fresh Dill from James Beard Award winner Kathy Gunst. Southwestern experts Bill and Cheryl Jamison have shared their Grilled Tomato Gazpacho and prolific Indian cookbook author Raghavan Iyer teaches us how to make Paprika & Red Pepper Soup with Pistachios.

We’ve also sprinkled essays throughout the book. In each, contributors share their thoughts on soup-making. For example, Anna Thomas, a screenwriter and cookbook author, explains how she became obsessed with what she calls green soups, those that are jam-packed with green vegetables. Anna’s recipes converted us into green soup devotees. Along with her essay, you’ll find many of Anna’s recipes, and some new EatingWell ones inspired by her, in the Green Soups.

You can be sure when you choose a recipe from this book that it’s going to work. Each one has gone through the EatingWell Test Kitchen. That means it’s been tested multiple times to make sure it’s easy to follow and delivers delicious results. At least two people test each recipe because what makes perfect sense to one cook may be unclear to another. We also use different equipment, for example both gas and electric stoves, to make sure results are consistent. Once we’ve vetted a recipe so we know it’s going to turn out great for you, we run it by our team of nutrition experts. They provide nutrition analysis and health tags to indicate which recipes are heart-healthy, low-calorie, etc. (Look for health tags on the top of each recipe page.) For more on how we test and analyze.

What Does Healthy Mean, Anyway?

When it comes to what we consider healthy, you won’t find fads or fuss. We’re not into elimination or deprivation. There are no single “bad” foods that must be banned. We do believe in following the best science-backed nutrition advice available today. To that end, we have a team of registered dietitians on staff and a board of health advisors that includes some of the leading experts on everything from weight management to heart health. We aim for a balanced overall pattern of eating. We help people get excited about the good stuff—fruits, vegetables, lean meats, seafood, whole grains, nuts, beans, healthy oils. We believe if you get more of that good stuff, you’re going to end up with an overall healthy diet.

So what does healthy mean for our recipes? You’ll find that EatingWell soups have a few things in common. Often they are loaded with vegetables. See the Eat More Veg! and Green Soups for some clear examples. There are plenty that are low-calorie yet totally satisfying if you’re looking to manage your weight (see Slim-Down Soups). When our soups include grains, they’re usually whole—barley, brown rice, bulgur, etc. We’re liberal with beans, which bump up fiber. Smallish amounts of meat add flavor and satisfying protein.

We steer clear of the typical soup stumbling blocks. Plenty of recipes would have you ladling up soups that are half butter and cream. While there has been some significant new science on fats, the best advice today is still to choose unsaturated fats (olive oil, canola oil and nuts are all sources) over saturated. There’s plenty of evidence that unsaturated fats are connected with healthier, longer lives. Not so with saturated fats. The hitch is that butter, cheese and cream taste delicious. So we have developed ways to use just a bit of these ingredients (which research now suggests are fine in moderation) and still get delicious results. Turn to the Kindersoups chapter, devoted to kid-friendly soups, and you’ll find cheeseburger soup and a creamy chicken enchilada soup to name two tasty examples.

The other big hurdle for many soup recipes: sodium. Getting too much salt in your diet can lead to high blood pressure. The problem is, you need salt to bring out the flavor of all the ingredients in your soup. In fact, salt may be the single most important ingredient for making a soup that tastes amazing. Try a store-bought chicken broth without any added salt or even a homemade one without salt, and it’s like listening to the radio with earmuffs on. You get a hint of chicken flavor, but it’s dull and hard to discern. Add salt, and suddenly the broth comes to life, tasting rich and chicken-y. Luckily our Test Kitchen team is packed with experts who know how to navigate the line to get a balanced, flavor-packed recipe that’s not overloaded with sodium. (A relevant aside: All of our recipes specify what kind of broth to buy at the store. You can make any of the recipes with homemade, but will need to adjust the seasoning accordingly. Turn to Stock (or Broth) Up! for more on broth.)

Get Cooking!

Now that you’ve made it this far, you’re ready to cook. Flip through the pages and you’ll see the organization reflects the fact that it was put together by a team of editors. So it showcases many points of view, showing off all there is to love about soups. Some of the chapters are based on occasions—soup-swap parties, make-aheads or starter soups. We also organized a few chapters by cooking techniques, as in soup formulas (for chicken soup, chowder and vegetable soups, Soups by the Formula) and how to make jars of homemade cup o’ noodle soups (Just add water). And we’ve thought about how we can help you eat more vegetables, get more beans in your diet (Beans, Beans), cook soups kids will love (Kindersoups) or slim down (Slim-Down Soups). We’ve peppered in some accoutrements, including ideas for crostini, breadsticks and toppers. Finally, in the back of the book (Resources) you’ll find a soup-making toolbox of broth recipes, tips for buying broth and a guide to stocking a soup-ready pantry.

What are you waiting for? It’s time to get out the soup pot!

—Jessie Price, editor-in-chief