Soup Season, Soup Ideas, Tips for better Lazy Soup

 Soup Season is officially upon us. Last week we had snow, now just a dusting, but snow that covered stuff, made driving fun, but was pretty to look at if you weren't contending with it. 

Temperatures had been dipping for a bit, but this was the full-on alarm ringing it is now soup season. There are so many ways to look at soup season and so many types of soup. What I want to do in this post is make you more adaptable to take on all the soups! I have some examples of things you can do to make sure you soup game is up to par this season. The other great part about soup, there is always leftovers. I love to cook.  I work in food, I watch food shows, make content for food, but I'm just like everyone else, sometimes I just want to heat and eat. 

So, let's get started!

Broth 

If you're going to make good soup, you need to start with the broth. Now if you want to go completely from scratch, by all means let's do it. If this is something you intend to do start thinking of you purchases to save a little bit of time and money.

Thoughts on Making Your Own

• Should I buy a whole chicken? Yes, making your own chicken stock can be the base for so many soups. Those bones you're going to throw away, or what organs it may come pre-packaged with will be a crucial part to your stock. Also, there is real savings to buying a whole chicken vs just chicken breast.

For quick reference there is so many saving buying a whole chicken vs let's say just chicken breasts

One whole chicken is over $1 cheaper, and you have the ability to make so much more. Just food, or chicken, for thought!

• When you're cutting up vegetables, don't throw away those ends you were going to throw out, yes those can be used in your stock as well. These can be used on their own or added to other stocks to give a better depth of flavor. Maybe the recipe only called for half a stock of celery and you're not sure what to do with the other. Great news, freeze it or throw it in with your stock. There is always a way to use up those veggies. 

• Friends with the butcher? If you have a local store you frequent and they are ok with it, a lot of times you can go to your butcher for scraps for next to nothing. This isn't liquid gold, but you can certainly turn it into gold!

Boullion, Premade Base, or Ready to-go Stock?

• Let's start with the Boullion most of us know. Sure, simple to make but I personally think the flavor is lacking in overall flavor and serves as more of a salt bomb. 
• If you buy the powder form instead of the cubes however, you can use it for other things such as dips or a flavoring agent. Overall, for the cost you have a pretty versatile product. 

• Next, we have a premade base and my preferred base if Better Than Boullion. I think the name very much backs it up. I also think flavor wise this give you the best bang for your buck. 
• In terms of value, if you are going to use something to assist with your broth, I think this is where you get the most return, in terms of quality and price. 
• You can really stretch your dollar here as well, an 8-ounce Jar will get you around 9.5 quarts of broth. 

• Lastly, we have premade broth, and this is great when you want to throw something together quickly. The only caution I would give is that a box can run close to $3 and up. Often you will need at least two or three to make a nice pot full of soup.
• The downside is to is you don't have as much control of the flavor. With the above two options you add as much or as little as you'd like. With a premade broth other than adding water you are left with what you have. 

All of these are good options depending on what you are looking for. Whether you are going completely from scratch or wanting the quickest way to a broth, there are plenty of options and price points out there!

Making a Classic Your Own

Is there are more classic soup, than chicken noodle soup? Probably not, but how do you make it your own. 

There are several ways you can do this. The best part is none of these tips are crazy or outside the box. Just simple adjustments to give your soup more depth and more character. We talked about broth, let's talk about a few other simple ways to make this classic yours.

Build More Flavor

If chicken is the star, well, let's make it the star. How you season your chicken will greatly impact the overall flavor. We also want to start with the chicken in the pot before anything else. Why? We are going to build flavor. 

Start with seasoning your chicken with a neutral oil. Then apply a generous number of seasonings, here is my to go for my chicken noodle soup:

S&P

Garlic Powder

Onion Powder

Sage

Now I always slice my chicken breasts long way in half to make them a touch thinner for the next part. A little oil in the pot, with your burner just above medium heat, cook the breasts. You want a nice color on the chicken on both sides. Remove from the heat and let them sit. Even though its chicken we still want it to rest like we would a steak, not as long, but same concept. 

Now that you have all that flavor in the pan, now you sweat down your veggies with some butter, add your stock, add diced up chicken back, then let everything simmer for a while, bring to a boil and add your noodles!

Let's Use Our Noodles

Reames Egg Noodles will always be my go-to for chicken noodle soup. They make the soup instantly feel heartier and I love the texture. However, there are tons of different noodle options you can use, this is just one of them. Try different styles, shapes, whatever you would like. 

Mistake to a Favorite

Sometimes things don't work out like you want them to. I had built a great broth, made pork filled won tons, got distracted and they all broke in the broth. I was frustrated mainly because I was starving, trying to make content, and didn't know what to do. All the components were there though right? So I cleaned up the broth, cut down the won ton wrappers into strips, and there you have it, "Broken Won Ton Soup"

The part the takes the most time is making the dumplings. I removed that step and now I had an amazing soup I can put together rather quickly. Even when you make mistakes you can still turn soups around, and it's your soup, make it what you want. 

The next day I tried it again with some modifications, and it is now one of my favorite dishes to make!

Toppings, Garnishes, Stuff You Throw On Top

Potato soup is a great example of how you can take a soup and with just a few additions at the end make it essentially a different soup. Without all of the toppings above this would just be what I would call a potato chowder. However, with some bacon, cheese, sour cream, and chives we can officially dub it a loaded potato or baked potato soup. There are plenty of ways you can enhance any soup that you make. 

 One of my favorite additions so almost any Asian soup or broth would be Lee Kum Chili Garlic Sauce.

The depth of flavor with just a small spoonful of this in your soup is just amazing and an instant flavor boost. There are so many small additions to soups or broths you can do to enhance the flavor. 

There you go. Those are just a few suggestions of some quick and easy ideas for soup season. I will make sure to add some recipes for some of my favorite soups mentioned above. Until then you can always check out my Tiktok channel to see how some of my favorite soups are made!

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