Hit me with your best recipes to make thick, tasty and filling soup!

[Muchtoomuchtodo]

Just that really.

I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve never made soup.

I’m off work next week for half term and I want to put that right!

Chicken noodle or rice soup. I boil carrots and any other veg you want . Soy sauce , garlic powder . Chilli optional . Chicken and veg stock pots , season then poach the chicken in the stock, then remove chicken and shred and add noodles or rice

I make veg soup from whatever is lurking in the veg drawer.

Be sure to sweat your veg for a good period. Some recipes say 20 minutes before adding your liquid.

Leeky sausage soup. About an ounce/25g butter. One large onion, chopped, two or three large leeks, trimmed and sliced. Some oil to hand. Boiling water. A decent size potato (one out of the baking size bag usually does nicely), chopped skin on to about an inch/2 cm chunks. Bay leaf, sprig thyme, or bouquet garni if you've got one kicking about.

To serve, continental smoked sausage like bockwurst, sliced; grated cheese for the vegetarian child, crusty white bread and butter. Salt and pepper to taste.

Melt butter in a big saucepan. Add onion and leeks. Stir around until they're starting to go translucent. Add a bit of oil if it looks like they're going to burn instead. Add the potato chunks, stir around a bit, add boiling water to cover, add herbs/bouquet garni, stick lid on, turn to very low simmer, set timer to 10 minutes, bugger off and do something else.

When timer goes off, give it a good stir, add a bit of boiling water if it looks like it's going to burn dry, turn oven on if you're doing part baked bread. Set timer for another ten minutes.

When timer goes off, give it another good stir, put p/b bread in oven if using, set timer again for whatever it says on the p/b bread instructions or ten minutes. Chop up the sausage and/or grate the cheese if you haven't done it already.

To serve -
For the meat eaters, place a handful of sliced sausage in bottom of a big bowl each and give it 30 seconds in the microwave. Then a dollop of soup.

For the veggies, big handful of grated cheese on top of the served soup.

For me, that loves both, both...

Both cheese and sausage have their own salt, so only offer salt (and pepper) if they ask for it, after tasting it.

*This rule applies to pretty well everything!

Soup is simple...but not easy to necessarily get a really good pot made

I always use frozen diced onion and crushed garlic for the base, celery too if I have it in. Most of the time a carrot based soup but potatoes, lentils, tomatoes and other root veg work too and of course stock.

Then you can add whatever veg you prefer or that just needs using up, soup is a great dish for using up veg that are past their best.

I'm veggie but you can also add most meat and even fish to soup.

Herbs and spices and other flavourings all help too. Things like marmite, Hendos relish, soy sauce even sweet chilli sauce

My "sticks to your ribs" recipe is

spiced butternut squash and carrot.

I'm afraid I struggle to remember exact quantities. I use my biggest pan, slice butternut squash in half without peeling, deseed with a spoon, drizzle with oil and roast in a hot oven for 30/45 mins (depends on size of squash), meanwhile I start the rest on the hob, soften onions and garlic and spices in oil on a low to medium heat. Spices are personal preference I use chilli, cumin and coriander and black pepper.

Once they're softened add stock, carrots (use same amount roughly as squash so again depends on size of squash) and bring to boil, squash should be done by this point, remove from oven, scoop out the flesh and put that straight in the soup give it a good stir to mix it in. Once it's up to boil turn heat down and simmer for about 20-30 mins (again depends how big a pot, but go on when carrots are soft enough to blend but not mushy)

I like my soup blended so that's the next step, at the moment I don't have a blender that can handle hot liquids so I have to let it cool and then blend it and then I reheat the soup when I want some.

Freezes lovely and will keep in fridge I think max 3 days (I've never tested this as it tends to get scoffed before then!)

I only use enough liquid/stock to just cover the veggies so it's quite a thick soup. Very hearty. Serve with toast or whatever bread/rolls you like.

Soup (and stews) are the things that we've been cooking the longest, putting on my Ancient History and Archaeology hat... although we may have discovered that sticking meat on a stick over a fire made it tastier even earlier than that. One of the things we found most often when field walking when I was a shiny little first year undergraduate was burnt flint and other stones. Most like usage? Heat in fire, then throw into wooden pot of food to warm it, because obviously you can't put a wooden pot over a flame. Only way to do it when no-one had discovered metal working or pottery yet.

Creamy brocolli and cheese soup is my ultimate favourite, served in a bread bowl ❤️