Monday, January 16, 2012

A Tip for Making Yummy Soup...

Soup is a staple at our house, especially this time of the year. I usually make some sort of soup at least once a week. And it's usually just a mumble jumble soup - a creation of my imagination. Which usually turns out quite delectable according to my critics (aka my husband and kids). The bad thing about making soup this way is that I often can't duplicate it. I have written some of my recipes down, but I often don't take the time to do this.


However, one thing I do is save all liquids that could be potential soup bases. Anytime I boil chicken, I freeze the broth. I save and freeze leftover gravy which is great for giving soups a rich, tasty flavor. When I make roasts in the crockpot there is always a prolific amount of yummy juicy goodness leftover which I freeze.


And here's another thing I do... I usually make my soups extra brothy. My first reason in doing this is because I'm not keen on a real thick, gummy soup. I like a bit of liquid in my soups. But another reason I make them extra brothy is because I then take the yummy, seasoned, rich leftover broth and freeze it for a base for a future soup. It's a great way to give extra yummy flavor to soup. (I just realized how many times I've used the word "yummy" in this post!)


Since I've been doing this over the last couple of years, I've really cut back on the amount of chicken and beef stock I have to buy from the store. I still buy it to add to roasts and occasionally
I have to buy it for a soup, but most of the time I have an ample supply of beef, chicken, or borscht soup base right in my freezer.


I just run the containers of frozen soup starter under some hot water from the spigot and pop it into the pop with the meat and water. Then bring to a boil on the stove before adding any veggies or rice/pasta/beans.



A big bowl of piping hot soup and a piece of crusty bread = one happy family at the dinner table.


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3 comments:

Wendi said...

I save my beef and chicken broths, but had never thought to save the soup broth. Great idea!

Laura said...

sounds....yummy! once you have made homemade broths...its hard to go back to the can!

Anonymous said...

We make our chicken and beef broth too. Like you, I often throw a bunch of stuff that needs to be used up into a big pot for soup. Today I have some with rice, carrots, chicken and cabage cooking (with chiken broth from the freezer). It smells yummy, I hope it tastes good.