January 2025 – SOUP: Let’s Gather Our Favorite Recipes

Team Sweet (Suzi and I) madly bake our way through the December holiday season each year, but there is still dinner to be made and baby, it’s cold outside. Suzi asked me and Team Savory (Kristin and Peg) for some soup guidance, though she makes her mother’s chicken noodle soup, which is exactly what a chicken soup should be, golden and rich broth, heaped with delicate shreds of chicken, and thick with noodles, she wanted a few more recipes and tips for more soups.

I called out to my friends who love to cook to see if they would share their cherished soup recipes. Right away, these lovely cooks got back to me with their time-tested or new favorite soup recipes. My dear cooking friends are so generous with their time and soup talents, inspiring me to call out to you, our wonderful readers, to share your soup recipes, too. I’m imagining an old-school packet of “xeroxed†recipes and notes we can share.
Merlina started off the soup recipe gathering with her much loved Condiment Soup recipe:
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I love the clipping mounted on the lavender index card, with the homemade tab to easily find the recipe in the recipe card box. I can’t wait to make this soup.
When I asked my brother for a soup recipe, he said he doesn’t usually use recipes and free-styles his soups. As I had a cold in mid-December when I was working on this blog, he went ahead and made me a turkey soup from frozen turkey stock, made after Thanksgiving. He sent me photos of the cooking steps, which I put together in this collage:

As you can see in the upper left photo, the chilled shredded turkey and stock is gelatinized, which is completely normal and to be expected when meat and poultry are simmered with skin and bones included. When reheated, the natural gelatin melts and contributes to the richness of the finished soup. In my January 2018 blog, I give a detailed account of the way I make stock here: Link to Kathleen’s stock method  You certainly don’t have to make your own stock, I like to have a few boxes of beef or chicken stock on hand so I can throw a quick soup together anytime.
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And as my father reminds me, “Not all soups start with stock.†Some great recipes start with water such as my dad’s signature soup:

Kristin would swap out the ginger for a few cloves of garlic but both versions are delicious, and the Joy of Cooking method is spot-on. This soup is easily made vegan by choosing the vegetable (or olive) oil and using vegetable stock.
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If you are in a beefier mood, I would advise you to make either The Fannie Farmer or Joy of Cooking recipe for beef barley soup. I love to make beef stock, and my beef barley soup is my most requested soup recipe. I also use beef stock for borscht, which is my very favorite soup. I love beets, including the “dirt†flavor which some folks term to disparage them. I will not try to talk you into liking beets, if you profess to not like them. More borscht for me. Borscht does not need to be made with beef stock; I just prefer it that way. It can be very successfully made with vegetable stock or even water. Though I prefer my borscht warm, it is lovely served cold in the summer, with a cool topping of Greek yogurt or sour cream and a sprig of dill. Cold borscht works best with vegetable stock because it is smoother at low temperature with no fatty meat feel.
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Rose shared a fantastic vegan soup recipe from vegetable pro, Yotam Ottolenghi:
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Rose and I were served a truly outstanding lunch at her friend Joan’s house, all recipes from this book. This meal was so good, Rose and I both bought the book.Another extremely popular Team Savory recipe is Peg’s version of Sandra Lee’s semi-homemade Greek Avgolemono, lemon chicken and rice soup. Peg added sauteed onion and carrots which gives even more depth of flavor to this hearty though very fresh tasting soup. Starting with cans of Campbell’s condensed chicken and rice soup and a rotisserie chicken, this recipe is fast enough for a wintery weeknight dinner. The recipe scales up very well for big parties, as you can see the notation made it times 8, in a giant stockpot! Both Teams Sweet & Savory have this soup in their dinner rotation.

One of the quickest and most satisfying soups starts with Trader Joe’s organic tomato soup, a bag of spinach, and some crumbled feta. I have not found another brand of packaged soup as good as theirs, but maybe you are not as picky as I am. Anyway, in a large saucepan, heat up tomato soup on the stovetop, over medium low heat. Chop up a bag or half a bag of spinach (it is important to not just toss the spinach in whole, as it will not disperse through the soup well.) Stir the spinach into the tomato soup. Stir in feta, stirring occasionally until feta is slightly melted, the spinach is wilted, and soup is nice and hot. Serve immediately. This soup tastes great and you only have to remember to buy three things at Trader Joe’s which is my limit if I don’t write it down.Kristin reminded me that this soup is a simple version of a soup her friend Rhonda serves in her Rochester, New York deli, Lacagnina’s Italian Deli. Along with traditional Italian subs, Lacagnina’s is known for Rhonda’s house made soups. We are hoping that Rhonda will write a cookbook with all her wonderful soup recipes.

This is enough soup recipes to get us through January, and I will add more next month. Do send us any you would like to share. For next time, I’m considering these: my Italian meatball soup, an old clipping of white chili, ginger-scented chicken soup, Rudy’s Pozole, and Isaac’s albondigas, which is Mexican meatball soup.
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As a little bonus, Isaac III recommended a lentil soup recipe from colorful personality and soup maven, Crescent Dragonwagon. Though I loathe lentils, I checked it out: Crescent Dragonwagon’s Recipe and Story, and found it a hilarious read. If you like lentils, you will love the recipe, and to be fair, it does look quite a bit better than your average, old sock-smelling lentil soup recipe.