Most soups are perfect ‘make ahead’ food. You can make large batches and freeze or keep in the fridge for a few days (unless stated otherwise), with no loss to texture or flavour, so they are ideal for a quick, nutritious lunch or a stress-free starter. From my straight-forward Fast tomato soup to the more sophisticated Thai coconut soup with prawn toasts, you’ll find a delicious soup for every occasion. Follow these general rules for making superb soup.
- Onions provide the base of flavour for most savoury soups. To get the best out of an onion, it needs to be slowly sweated before the liquid is added. You will see instructions for this in each recipe. Don’t be tempted to cut corners here – this is what will make the difference between a good flavour and a great flavour. (See for my notes on bases.)
- If you are going to blend the soup don’t spend time cutting the ingredients into perfect shapes – roughly chopped is fine.
- If the soup is not to be blended, take time to cut the ingredients up as you would like to see them when it is served. They will not change shape when they are cooking.
- Cook until the vegetables are soft. If you’re going to blend the soup, make sure all the ingredients are cooked until they are very, very soft. All the goodness and flavour will stay in the soup so don’t worry about over-cooking. Under-cooked vegetables will give your soup an unpleasant, granular texture.
- Have a stack of disposable cups to hand and freeze leftover soup in individual portions. Homemade ‘cuppa soup’ at your fingertips!
- Think about what you are going to serve with the soup. Ideal accompaniments include homemade herb scones, crusty bread or a bread local to the flavour of the soup, such as naan or flat bread with the Aloo gobi soup. The sides help raise a soup to something special.
- Blend a soup in a food processor or liquidiser (don’t overfill as it will spill out), or use a hand blender directly in the saucepan. One or two soup recipes ask you to sieve it – yes, it is dull, but believe me I would not tell you to do it unless it was necessary.
- Fresh, chopped parsley is often an addition to the flavour, not just a garnish to help it look pretty. If you buy a bunch of parsley, trim 1cm off the stalks and put it into a jar of cold water. Treat it like flowers and it will continue to live in your kitchen for a week or so. To chop parsley if you are not confident with a knife, put the sprigs of parsley into a mug and snip them repeatedly with a pair of kitchen scissors. You will have professional looking, chopped parsley in minutes!