Versatile Vegetable Soup Recipe for Customizing A Great Pot of Soup as You Like It All Year Long
Use this stress-free recipe as a template for making a big batch of richly flavored vegetable soup. Use the template to customize the ingredients to suit your taste, according to the season, and what’s in your pantry, refrigerator or garden. With this Versatile Vegetable Soup recipe in hand, you now have a guide for preparing vegetable soup throughout the year. In a little over an hour your kitchen will smell wonderful, you’ll have a great pot of soup and a meal-in a bowl on the table.
Change up the grains, lentils or other legumes
Cooking brown rice, quinoa, barley, farro, wild rice, lentils or legumes, etc. in some of the soup stock makes for a richer flavored and velvet-textured broth. When cooked, stir them into the soup about 5 minutes before adding the greens.
Make Versatile Vegetable Soup your own
Other than the members of the onion family and garlic, carrots, celery and tomatoes, vary the ingredients including both long-cooked and quick cooking vegetables.
Stir in fresh greens for both color and nutrition. A spoonful of optional soft goat cheese or labneh added to each bowl adds a bit of creaminess. A dollop of pesto brings freshness along with a bit of summertime.
From my husband: “A great soup. With the pesto, excellent.”
For the best soup, use the best stock
If you’ve been collecting your vegetable peels and trimmings in a bag in your freezer, now’s a great time to make your own stock.
Along with your frozen items, add some fresh vegetables, a stick of kombu seaweed, dried mushrooms, smashed garlic cloves, and some spices. Here’s the recipe I’ve been enjoying this fall and winter for Homemade Umami Rich Vegetable Stock.
Versatile Vegetable Soup – A Template
-
-
- This recipe makes a large batch of soup, giving you leftovers with perhaps a quart for the freezer, too. The recipe can easily be halved or quartered.
- I prepare this soup using Homemade Umami Rich Vegetable Stock. Remember, stocks are unsalted. Broths are salted. If you are using commercially-prepared broths, taste your soup before adding any additional salt.
- Noodles are an option as well. To keep them from absorbing too much liquid, precook them and toss them with a little oil. Then, either add the noodles to the pot of soup, or to individual bowls before topping them with the hot soup.
- Naturally Gluten-free and Vegan
-
Yield: about 6 quarts soup Printer-Friendly Recipe
Total time about 1 ½ hours. 2 ½ hours if you make your own vegetable stock
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- ¾ cup brown or wild rice, quinoa, barley or farro OR 1½ cups brown or green lentils
- 3 + quarts homemade vegetable stock OR commercially-prepared vegetable stock or broth, divided
- ⅛ teaspoon sea salt
- 3 + cups ¼ – inch diced or sliced onion, leeks and/or shallots
- 2 cups carrots, ⅓ – inch dice
- 1 ½ cups celery, ⅓ – inch dice
- 2 large garlic cloves, peeled, pressed in a garlic press
- 1 ½ tablespoons sea salt
- 12 twists freshly ground pepper
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- 6-7 cups ⅓ – inch diced longer-cooking vegetables, such as unpeeled sweet potatoes (my favorites), other potatoes, and/or peeled winter squash, turnip, rutabaga or celeriac
- 1-2 cups additional faster-cooking vegetables such as ⅓ – inch diced fennel or summer squash or sliced mushrooms, green beans or florets of broccoli or cauliflower
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 teaspoon fennel seeds
- 1 teaspoon dried OR 1 tablespoon fresh Italian herbs such as rosemary, oregano, basil or your favorite herb(s)
- ½ teaspoon dried thyme OR 3-4 sprigs fresh thyme
- 29-ounce can whole (roughly chopped in a food processor) OR diced fire-roasted tomatoes with their liquid
- 6 cups packed (5 ounces) thinly-sliced spinach, chard leaves or power greens. If using chard, ¼-inch dice the stems and add them with the herbs
- Optional: frozen, defrosted corn or green peas (especially when fresh vegetables are scarce)
- Adjust salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Optional Garnishes:
Any variety of pesto
Thinly-sliced scallions
Coarsely-chopped parsley, cilantro or other fresh herbs
Coarsely chopped fennel fronds
Grated Pecorino or Parmesan cheese
Crumbled goat cheese or labneh (strained yogurt)
Preparation
- If you are going to make your own vegetable stock, prepare it first thing as it requires 1 hour of simmering.
- Cook your choice of grains or lentils in a quart of your vegetable stock seasoned with 1/8th teaspoon salt. Note: as quinoa is quick cooking, add it raw or toasted in step 6.
- Heat the olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-low heat. When hot add the onion. Cover the pot and cook 7 minutes.
- Raise the heat to medium. Stir in the diced carrot, celery and pressed garlic. Sprinkle with the salt and freshly ground pepper. Sauté for 5 minutes. (Note: if using seasoned broth, stir in half the amount of salt at most.)
- Move the vegetables to the side of the pan. Place the tomato paste in the center of the pan. Stir for 5-6 minutes until the tomato paste has darkened in color and become dry.
- Stir in your choice of harder vegetables. If using fennel and mushrooms, stir them in now along with dried and/or fresh herbs. When well mixed, stir in the chopped or diced tomatoes along with their liquid. Then stir in 8 cups of stock.
- Note: With raw or toasted quinoa, add it to the pot along with an additional 2 cups of stock.
- Bring the soup to a boil and lower the heat. Simmer, partially covered, for 15 minutes. Stir in the cooked grains or lentils along with then chard stems, if using. Continue simmering the soup for another 5 minutes.
- If you would like a thicker broth, purée one-quarter to one-third of the soup in a blender.
- Stir in the sliced chard, spinach or power greens mix. Cook until tender, 3-5 minutes.
- Adjust the salt and pepper to taste.
- For variety, you could also include optional frozen, defrosted corn or peas. If your soup becomes overly thick with vegetables, add additional stock to thin it out to soup consistency.
- Garnish each bowl of Versatile Vegetable Soup with an optional dollop of pesto, and/or a sprinkling of fresh herbs and scallions, etc.