Why soup is my favorite food.

We’re BIG soup eaters around here. We eat soup at least once a week year round. We love soup so much that frugal kid #2 eats cheddar broccoli soup on her birthday by request (her birthday is in AUGUST).

So why am I waxing so poetically about soup? Well it also happens to be super frugal and can be super fast to get on the table. I made soup tonight and from start to finish had it on the table in 20 minutes.

So here are my soup recommendations. First here is my favorite über frugal soup to make (pictured above). This is less of a recipe and more of a method. The only thing you absolutely NEED is about 32 oz. of stock (veggie, chicken, or turkey), from there I add about 2 cups of shredded chicken or turkey. The following optional ingredients can be added:

2 cups pureed tomatoes

1 cup of cooked leftover rice

1 cup (dry) egg noodles or 1/2 a cup of another kind of pasta.

1 cup of cooked dice carrots

1 head of roasted garlic (this is my favorite!!)

1 tsp of rosemary  (or cumin)

A couple of bay leaves ( I think this gives soup a slow cooked taste)

1 can of green beans ( or left over fresh green beans or home canned)

1/2 cup of diced celery

A can of rinsed white beans ( or lentils or black beans)

A splash of cream or a pat of butter

The possibilities are endless! I LOVE making this soup with turkey left overs. We make stock from the turkey carcass in the crockpot and then I use the left over turkey meat in the soup.  We double the above recipe if we have a crowd coming over and will make drop biscuits to have on the side. You can feed several hungry people on this soup for very little money.

Some of the tools I like to have for soup are nice deep bowls, a good ladle and a stick blender. Stick blenders are great because they save you from having to move the soup into a food processor or blender and you can still control how “blended” you want your soup. This is the one we have and it’s perfect.

When we got married I asked for a few different soup cookbooks on my registry and I have to say my all time favorite is the New England Soup Factory Cookbook . I don’t use it as often anymore because I make a lot of my soups based on what we have on hand, but the kindle edition is only 4.99, the soups are all fantastic, and the recipes make a gigantic amount of food! Another book that has changed how I think of food in general and made me more adventurous when making soup is Tamar Adler’s book An Everlasting Meal it’s a little more pricey but beautifully written and makes me excited to cook with what I have on hand.

Sick of hearing about how much I love soup?? Well here are my top 2 most favorite soup recipes (that aren’t mine):

This one is great for left over ham (I’ve used the ham bone in with the water when starting the soup. ( Shout out to my sister who shared this gem with me about 7 years ago).

This one  is quick to the table and delicious! We make it every other week.

Ok I hope I’ve inspired you to try your hand at incorporating soup into your weekly or monthly meal plan. There are so many amazing soup recipes out there (hello pinterest!), try making soup once a week and watch how much easier it is to stay within your food budget. Bonus points go to soup made out of last nights leftovers!!