Student Soup

[Changeismine]

My daughter is off to uni in September. I want to teach her how to make some great soup before she goes so she can make it at uni. She loves soup but won't be able to afford fresh, commercial soup which is what I buy. Your best recipes please!

How about getting her a book ?
I recommend the New Covent Garden "Soup for Every Day: 365 of Our Favourite Recipes".

Amazon has 2nd hand copies for c.£4, You can use the "Look inside" function for the complete index.

Leek and potato soup is the greatest soup. I also rate the blog Cookie and Kate for soup recipes, especially as she uses butter over cream which works for me as I always have butter, but leftover cream is just an obligation.

It might be worth seeing if you can pick up a cheap second hand soup maker. Just add ingredients, press go and when it beeps there’s soup ready. No faffing with immersion blenders which are messier and don’t produce an end result as good as a proper blender.

Soup is onion, oil, stock, salt and whatever else you have in the cupboards.

This one can be made using mostly storecupboard ingredients and is surprisingly nice:

zenhabits.net/recipe-best-soup-ever/

I think the joy of soup is that you don't really need a recipe. It's the perfect use up dish and some of the best soups I've made have come about through chance. May be write down for her some flavour combinations that work well together and encourage her to experiment with herbs, spices and different flavourings. Get her thinking about adding different stocks, coconut milk, pasata, cream for different results.

The trick with soup that nobody taught me , is to sweat the onions in a little bit of oil first, even if using a soup maker. I remember as a young mum trying to make veg soup from a cheap and easy cookbook, and it was all about just chopping vegetables and simmering them. A tasteless waste of time as nobody would eat it.
Later my mum bought me 'Peckish But Poor' by Cas Clarke, and I found that very useful. I finally gave it away after 25 years because I know the recipes I use regularly by heart.

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes is excellent too.

@SatinHeart I'm a zenhabits fan too!

Lentil and carrot soup is a good option as you get protein from the lentils, and it's very cheap. Recipes are around but basically fry off some onion and some spices, then whack in chopped up carrots, some red lentils and stock, cook and blitz with a stick blender.

My son liked to watch, pause and copy these recipes as a youngster. I chopped the veggies and my 6yo did the cooking. He loved it and the soup this chap makes is a good starting point for learning basic cooking skills.

This curried red lentil soup is great. It's very simple, cheap and healthy and apart from the fresh herbs (which are optional) it's mostly made of store cupboard ingredients. Plus it involves very little chopping of ingredients and no blending.

www.taste.com.au/recipes/curried-red-lentil-soup/e8c35c50-fbbf-446e-81fa-3b13a1be8544

First catch your student....

Rose Elliot has some dead easy, simple, cheap soup recipes.

I second the recommendation for this book. Simple recipes and every one I've tried had been delicious. I'm not even really a soup lover.

The best soup on the whole wide world is lentil.

onion, celery, carrot
lentils
stock
seasoning

Thats is. Thick and hearty. Freezes and with a cheese sandwich is a nice and filling meal.

Buy her one of those soup makers... mine had a basic recipe booklet to get the inexperienced started.

It's quick, easy and no cooking skills required!

The base to most great soup is onion, carrot and celery gently fried together with the lid on for 20 mins and then add your main flavours. Could be lentils and veg stock or potatoes and chicken stock or chopped bacon, tinned tomatoes and chicken stock. The variety is endless…

Freezer veg for soup is dead cheap.

Cauliflower cheese soup made with frozen cauliflower and potato. Cook with a mix of milk and stock and add cheese.
Vegetable soup - frozen generic veg base, top up with whatever you want it to taste like (controversially I like sprouts), chuck in some red lentils, lots of salt and pepper and stock.