Health Fitness

Slurpy soup can lower your grocery bills

The soup doesn’t get the attention it deserves. In fact, many of us barely give a thought to soup. But serving a sorbet soup before the main course helps fill you up. Over time, this can lower your grocery bills because family members eat less. If you serve a large bowl of tomato soup, for example, you can serve a smaller burger.

Notice I said “slurping soup.” This does not include expensive cream soup like lobster bisque. Grocery stores carry hundreds of types of soup, but they tend to be high in salt. They may also contain additives that you don’t want to eat. When you make homemade soup you can control the salt and other ingredients.

Weight Watchers’ “Fast Fabulous Cookbook” has a great section on soup. “Clear soups can also form the base of a hearty soup,” he explains. “To make a hearty and delicious soup, simply add barley, meat or poultry, pasta or rice to plain broth.”

According to Weight Watchers, high-quality ingredients are the key to a delicious soup. While leftovers add flavor to the soup, a soup based entirely on leftovers won’t have as much flavor. Soup is one of those foods that tastes better the next day. But you should be careful when freezing flour-thickened soup, warns Weight Watchers, because the ingredients can separate when you heat them.

The United States government recommends seven servings of fruits/vegetables a day. I’m trying to meet this recommendation with soup. I have made spinach, artichoke, broccoli with cheese, fresh tomato and mushroom soups. All of them are delicious and abundant. For me, making soup is a way of experimenting and some of the best soups I’ve ever made have come from ingredients I have on hand.

“The Healthy Cook,” published by “Prevention” magazine, contains many variations for tomato soup: creamed tomato with low-fat milk and nonfat sour cream, spicy tomato with chili, cumin, turmeric, and cardamom, rice with tomato, and tomato-paste. Instead of adding cream for a thicker consistency, “Prevention” says you can puree some (not all) vegetables in a food processor and add this creamy mixture to the soup.

There are three basic types of soups, clear, cream, and soup. Clear soup is made with meat, fish or vegetable broth. Cream soups contain milk, cream, and butter. Fish soup is actually a cream soup, with pieces of fish, meat or vegetables. Cold soups are in a separate category.

I live in Minnesota and when the thermometer drops below freezing the house gets drafty and food gets cold quickly. Before serving the hot soup, I heat the bowls in the oven on the lowest setting. I also heat dishes for dinner. If family members don’t come to the table right away, I cover the food with aluminum foil. These tips will help you make a hearty, delicious, and hearty soup.

  • Use the freshest ingredients you can find.
  • Make your own broth or use unsalted commercial broth
  • Compare hot soup to something cold: a cold sandwich or salad.
  • Refrigerate the soup for a day to allow the flavors to marry.
  • Experiment with soup recipes.
  • Season the soup with herbs instead of salt.
  • Turn soup into a meal by adding bread and a salad.

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