Georgia winters are often cold, wet and gray. During these frigid months, we have visions of pots of soups simmering on the stove for hours, steaming up the windows and filling our homes with delicious and tantalizing aromas. While that sounds rewarding, it’s not required. Homemade soups have developed a reputation for being all-day affairs that require huge time commitments. The reality is that you can also have a pot of cozy comfort ready to ladle into a bowl in less than 45 minutes.
Undoubtedly, there are soups and stews that require long cooking times, but many vegetable soups like the ones we’re featuring here are almost as simple as bringing the ingredient to a boil in stock, reducing the heat to simmer and letting it cook for a short period of time until the vegetable is tender and slightly broken down. Add a quick pulse with a blender and you have a rich and creamy soup — without the cream.
First, you want to start with the soup base. In its simplest form, the base of a soup is usually onion. In some recipes, it’s the trio of onion, carrot and celery. In these recipes, I’ve trimmed the prep time and chopping by using onion alone or pairing it with celery.
All bases are cooked in a small amount of fat to concentrate the flavor of the vegetables and evaporate the moisture, creating a full-flavored building block. In this trio of soups, I use nonstick cooking spray to minimize the fat and calories.
We incorporate starch in some soups to slightly thicken the mixture once the liquid is added. Longer cooking recipes might use rice or a white potato but you can speed things up by using all-purpose or gluten-free chickpea flour as a thickener. Soups with starchy ingredients, like the Spiced Sweet Potato Soup featured in this collection of recipes, may not require an additional thickener.
Next up is the main ingredient, the vegetable, then the stock or broth. (If you want to save even more time, you can opt for pre-chopped vegetables from the produce department.) Once the vegetables have been added, simply add just enough stock to cover the veggies. You don’t want the vegetables swimming in stock. And remember, you can always add more liquid, but it’s not as easy to take it out.
Simply let the vegetables cook until tender, then blitz the mixture with an immersion blender, ladle it into a food processor or even use an old-fashioned potato masher, and you have a creamy soup ready to enjoy.
If you are pureeing the soup in a blender or food processor, the heat and pressure can literally blow the lid off. To avoid a soup explosion, fill the blender jar no more than halfway with soup and use a clean kitchen towel over a loosely fitted lid to cover the top and protect your hands (and kitchen ceiling).
While this trio of Tomato Soup, Cauliflower Parmesan Soup, and Spiced Sweet Potato Soup is plant-forward, they are still hearty and filling, perfect for taking the chill off a cold winter’s night. And, the best part is that you can have a bowl of nourishing, homemade wholesome soup in minutes.
RECIPES
Tomato Soup, Cauliflower Parmesan Soup and Spiced Sweet Potato Soup are warm and wonderful, certain to brighten even the coldest, dreariest winter day. All freeze well and can be doubled if you want to make a batch and tuck some in the freezer.
Credit: Virginia Willis
Credit: Virginia Willis
Tomato Soup
An immersion blender makes quick work of the whole tomatoes, but you can also use cans of diced tomatoes or even tomato puree if that is what you have on hand. And of course, the classic partner for tomato soup is a grilled cheese sandwich.
Credit: Virginia Willis
Credit: Virginia Willis
Cauliflower Parmesan Soup
This is a creamy yet creamless soup made with real, recognizable ingredients. It’s true, cheese can be high in fat, but it’s also packed with protein, calcium and vitamins A and D. Parmigiano-Reggiano, an Italian dry-aged cheese, and Parmesan, its less expensive cousin, are actually lower in fat compared to many other cheeses. Lastly, if you use cheeses that are full of complex, strong flavors, like Parmigiano-Reggiano, you’ll find that a little goes a long way.
Credit: Virginia Willis
Credit: Virginia Willis
Spiced Sweet Potato Soup
Curry powder and garam masala are both intensely flavored Indian spice blends, found in the spice aisle of most supermarkets. The blends vary widely, but the most common spices used in garam masala are cumin, coriander, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, black peppercorns, nutmeg and mace. Curry powder often contains similar spices to garam masala, plus a heavy hand of golden orange turmeric. Either fragrant blend will balance the sugary sweet potato with warming, aromatic spice.
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