Learning to make soup is not difficult. Try perusing your recipe box, food magazines, or some of your cookbooks, and you’re bound to come up with plenty of ideas for making homemade soup. The beauty of homemade soup is that you can literally take any basic recipe and modify it based on the ingredients you have on hand. You can make adjustments if you have specific nutritional requirements, such as reducing salt.
There are few foods you can prepare that are as inexpensive as soup. Most soups start with a broth or vegetable base. To that you can add small pieces of meat, chicken or fish, vegetables, beans, lentils or any combination of grains that you have on hand. Making a soup is also a wonderful way to use up leftovers. Soups are suitable for almost any meal or snack. They freeze pretty well, so here’s an opportunity to make meals ahead of time.
If you have little time to cook, but want to eat healthier, try making a pot of soup on your day off. A good plan is to make a large pot of a different soup every week or so. Keep enough on hand for a couple of meals during the week. Freeze the rest in smaller containers, preferably 1-2 serving containers. If you make a different type of soup each week, you’ll soon have a nice selection in your freezer to choose from for a quick lunch or dinner. You can take your single serving of frozen soup to work with you and you have a nice healthy meal just by heating it up.
When you make your own soup, you’ll likely have a more nutritious product that doesn’t contain added sodium or preservatives. Some commercial soups may be low in calories, but may have 1,000 mg (or more) of sodium per serving. Even many of the low-sodium varieties can have 450 mg. of sodium, and that can be too much if you need to watch your salt intake. When you make your own soup, you can control the amount of salt added to it without compromising the flavor.
If you’re really short on time, try using low-sodium broths as a base for a great soup. Adding vegetables, beans, lentils, or whole grains to the soup adds lots of vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Broth or broth based soups are generally lower in calories and depending on what you add to the soup you can create something quite low in calories.
Soups provide a feeling of fullness and can help control hunger. People who regularly incorporate soup into their eating plan tend to eat fewer calories at their meal. Consider homemade soup for a snack or an appetizer for dinner. This could help you avoid overeating at dinner.
There are few things that can go wrong when making soup. Try using a slow cooker or just simmer over low heat on the stovetop; Give it time. The more you make soups and broths, the more skillful and creative you will become with the task. An investment of a little of your time can produce something satisfying, healthy and wonderful. Proof!
