Soups glorious soups!

[TallisHay]

Can I gather some opinion here?
I love tomato and lentil soup, even better if it contains celery, peppers and carrot.

My fave supermarket soup from Marks has just the right kind of seasoning, and very decent ingredients - apart from the high salt.

One serving contains almost 1.60g, which seems very high?

Would you bother creating your own due to this, or should I just buy it and enjoy? Obvs my own would be 'healthier' in many ways, but the original is quite unprocessed and so tasty.

How bothered would you be by this, and what would you do?

www.ocado.com/products/m-s-spicy-tomato-lentil-souper-soup/516560011

I always make my own soup from scratch as I’m a bit fussy and don’t like store bought but also I get more of the best bits (e.g. chunks of chicken) and less of the salt and UPFs.

I always make my own soup from scratch as I’m a bit fussy and don’t like store bought but also I get more of the best bits (e.g. chunks of chicken) and less of the salt and UPFs.

I make litres of soup and freeze in sistema mug take to work frozen and defrost on arrival
Home made soup is just so much nicer than shop bought and cost effective

.

It doesn’t seem healthy to me: only 7% lentils and rapeseed oil? No, thank you!

It’s so easy to make your own. Here’s my version:
Chop onion, garlic, peppers, carrots, sweet potatoes, and celery, then roast them in the oven.
Once they’re ready, transfer them to a pot, add real chicken stock (not stock cubes) or just water and lentils. Simmer until the lentils are cooked through.
I usually blend it up (you can leave it in chunks) then stir in some double cream. Season it with salt, pepper and chilli.

You can add or swap the sweet potatoes to tomatoes and you will get similar to the M&S soup.

How do you make the chicken stock?

The reason you like it OP is that is properly seasoned, aka, it has enough salt in it rather than too much

You could make your own. Personally with ingredients like that, that I would simply recreate in the kitchen and no nasties in it, I wouldnt bother.

Are you veggie? I would add chunks of chicken to it personally but it looks gorgeous.

I would make it myself, not so much because of the salt content but because it tastes nicer. You can buy curry powder rather all the individual slices, which makes it easier.

I wouldn’t be bothered by eating that at all but if you do want a recipe, this is the nicest soup I've had and I’m not a huge soup fan!

@Ladedahlia https://www.riverford.co.uk/organic-meat-and-fish/chicken/chicken-stock-carcass?src=product-grid-10

I order these chicken pieces from Riverford.
I’ve got a large slow cooker (9L), so I usually order 2kg and cook them for 4–6 hours with some vegetables.
You can also do this on the stove.

It gives me plenty to freeze; usually enough to last a couple of months.
My kids don’t really enjoy eating meat, so I add this into soups, pasta, rice water, and most dishes I cook. That way, they still get the collagen and all the healthy vitamins from the meat and bones.

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1027173-slow-cooker-creamy-tomato-lentil-soup?smid=share-url

This is absolutely lovely. I just made it. I put 50g coconut cream in instead of the actual cream because I didn't have any, and I didn't use a slow cooker, just did it all in a big pan.

I bought a soup maker. Love home made soup. Esp lentil and bacon or Stilton and broccoli. Yum! I also use the sistema mugs.

I'm a soup from scratch person because I love veggie soups but I don't want high calories. The current one we're working our way through is carrot soup because I needed two carrots for a dinner recipe but had to buy a 1kg bag.....

Long winded description and recipe below but honestly this stuff is like catnip for me at the moment.

It's essentially two ingredients plus S&P:

• Bag of carrots chopped and peeled
• Couple of onions chopped

Then spend at LEAST 20mins (preferably 30!) just warming them through in a nice big pot with a smidge of oil so they are NOT going brown or burning, just lightly cooking and developing some mild caramelisation while you stir them. Takes ages but it's worth it, just don't let them catch or it'll taste bitter.

Add plenty of boiling water to the pot - quantities aren't too important as you can reduce it down if it's too watery.

Boil up the carrots and onions until cooked through, then blend blend blend. Add salt and both black and white pepper to taste.

Ta da - amazing carrot soup. And no excess salt as you don't even need stock cubes.

Variations:
Chuck in a handful of chopped coriander at the end if you like it - DH hates it so I don't use it.
Chilli if you fancy it being a spicy soup, that works well.
So does some curry powder if you like it - that's best added to the carrots and onions towards the end of the first stage so it doesn't burn in the pan but the frying off will release more of the flavours.

Add cream if you want it higher in calorie/creamier, but it's astonishing how creamy it is with literally just carrots, onions and water.
Sprinkle with toasted almonds, roasted pumpkin seeds before serving if that's your bag (I eat it plain!).

Shit I forgot it's THREE INGREDIENTS!!

It needs a potato or two to thicken it. What a twit.

Add a couple of chopped raw potatoes (skin on is fine!) or even half a tin of tinned potatoes to the pan when you're boiling up the carrots and onions.

Gah, I can't believe I missed that, I only made it 2 days ago 😂

As for a lentil based soup, I make a vegan variation on a scotch broth style of soup which amounts to "chuck it all in and see what happens ".

• Shop bought soup mix (dried split peas, barley, yellow lentils, green lentils, red lentils)
• Marigold Vegan low salt bouillon as your stock (I'm not vegan, it's just a really tasty soup base!)
• Any veg you like - I usually chop and chuck in anything that looks a bit old and buy in very little especially for soup but this tends to include leeks, tomatoes (ideally remove the skins or use tinned peeled tom's), onions, carrots, potatoes (remember the starch will thicken any soup it's in, skin on is fine IMO), parsnips, peppers - anything that's loafing in your fridge / cupboard or cheap at the supermarket.

Gently simmer off the chopped veg - the longer the better for developing the flavours.
Chuck in a few tablespoons of the stock powder and add plenty of boiling water to the pan and mix until it's all dissolved.
Boil up the veg until its cooked through.
Partially blend - personally I like chunky veg but DH doesn't, so we compromise 😂
Add the soup mix - better to add too little than too much because it swells during this process and I have been known to make soup you can stand a spoon in its so stodgy but I cannot recommend that consistency....
Boil up gently for at least an hour for the dried peas etc to be cooked through.

Serve with bread etc, but if you've never had scotch broth with salt and vinegar crisps instead of bread, you're missing out. It's fab and they dip beautifully 👌

Add curry powder at the end of the fry stage again if you want it curried. Chilli etc if you want the heat.

I much prefer my own soups. Much better flavour. I have no idea about the salt content as it’s not something I limit in cooking or give much thought to.

No offence but seriously sod that.
I eat a very healthy diet with mostly roast veg, salad and a small amount of carb and meat.
I can't be arsed with the hassle of 'perfect soup' since i don't eat it all that often

I have made homemade soups in the past and unless I add a shit ton of salt, regardless of other seasonings and herbs, it tastes flat.

I assume rapeseed oil is the latest fad we are told to avoid? It's difficult to keep up they change so quickly.

Rapeseed and other seed oils are highly processed, hence the advice is to stick to olive oil, coconut oil and butter (if you’re not vegan)

so are we going to have a shorter life via oils?

Advice.

Its utter nonsense.

Oh I don't make perfect soup, I just chuck it all in and adjust to taste!

Seriously though, if salt is your nemesis and you're looking to reduce it, start by adding a lot less to the cooking process of any dish and adjust it at the table.

@soupyspooni am surprised that you don’t know that rapeseed oil is highly processed. It’s like saying that avoiding upf’s is utter nonsense. Anyway, you asked a question which I answered. Do with it what you will 🤷‍♀️

To be honest I think the new-found evangelical avoidance of upfs IS nonsense.
Obviously it makes sense to eat a diet as unprocessed as you can, but to see people tying themselves in knots trying to avoid minute traces of something in eg a loaf of bread is really silly imo.
It really is just another fad. I can remember when butter was the enemy, then coconut oil and rapeseed oil was the recommended oil. What goes around comes around

Sainsbury’s Lentil Dhaal soup is a very nice, fresh, ready made soup.