Vegetable Soup Recipe (2024)

FAQs

How to make your vegetable soup taste better? ›

Dried herbs and seasonings: homemade seasoned salt, black pepper, Italian seasoning, and dried bay leaves lend flavor to the soup. Stock: I much prefer chicken stock over vegetable stock in terms of flavor, though if you want to keep this soup vegetarian, feel free to use vegetable broth or stock instead.

Worcestershire Sauce

Similar to the fish sauce, Worcestershire Sauce adds umami to soups and stocks. It's because of the anchovies in there. It doesn't taste like anchovies, just like good rich meatiness. Give it a whirl in Vegetable Soup or a Beef Stew.

Boosting Flavor

For more flavor add in more dried herbs (or even triple the amount of dried thyme). Other good herbs to add include basil, oregano, rosemary, marjoram, or Italian seasoning. Another option to add more flavor is to use a homemade chicken stock or vegetable broth.

For clear, brothy soups, stock is your most important ingredient. If you want to make a good soup, you need to use an excellently flavored stock — otherwise, the entire pot could be tasteless.

You could add red pepper chili flakes, cayenne, Herbs de Provence or curry powder for more flavors. The caramelized onions add a lot of depth to the soup but you could also add in tomato paste or even miso or soy sauce.

You can also go with more heat and spices. "Ground paprika, turmeric, nutmeg, ground ginger, and other powdered spices add a touch of color and spiciness to broths," she says. As a general rule, use fresh herbs at or near the end of cooking and dried herbs and spices early on.

Roast or caramelize your vegetables before adding them to your soup to bring out their natural sweetness. Add ingredients like mushrooms, tomatoes, soy sauce, miso, or seaweed to enhance the flavor of your soup. Use fresh herbs like parsley, cilantro, basil or thyme to add fresh flavor to your soup.

To make a good soup, you have to build flavours as you go. Vegetables like onion, garlic, celery and carrots — referred to as "aromatics" — are part of most soup recipes for this very reason, sautéed in oil or butter as a first step of flavour-making.

Add Flour Or Cornstarch

You can thicken soup by adding flour, cornstarch, or another starchy substitute. For the best results, never add flour or cornstarch directly to your soup. If you do, it will clump up on top. Instead, ladle a small amount of broth into a separate bowl and let it cool.

What are the best vegetables to put in soup? ›

For most vegetable soup recipes, this means the carrots, onions, and celery. Add the garlic just before adding the broth, so that it can infuse the whole soup as it simmers. Tender veggies with a higher water content, like green beans and zucchini, should be added towards the end of cooking and simmered briefly.

According to the Taste Atlas Awards, the international food database, the Filipino favorite, Sinigang, is hailed as the best soup in the world.

Upgrade Vegetable Soup

Add protein: Leftover shredded chicken, sliced smoked sausage, and canned beans are all great ways to add protein to vegetable soup.

Add bright, fresh flavor to vegetable broth

Just warm up the broth, toss in some parsley, cilantro, tarragon, sage, thyme, or a combination, and let the broth steep like tea for several minutes before fishing the herbs out. Don't boil fresh herbs in broth, though, or they could make the stock bitter.

Add sweet vegetables like carrots and beets. They will sweeten the broth and deepen its color. You might also add a bit of miso (or salt) and/or a squeeze of lemon juice. Sweet, salt and acid balance bitter flavors.

Go green: Add some spinach or chopped kale or pesto. Get zesty: A squirt of lemon juice or zest could brighten up an otherwise flat soup. Starchy things: Homemade croutons, crushed tortilla chips, or oyster crackers. Clean out the fridge: got cooked beans or rice, a dollop of sour cream, or a splash of heavy cream?