15 Quick and Easy Pantry Soup Recipes - Nibble and Dine (2024)

FAQs

What gives soup the best flavor? ›

"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. This helps you get the flavors you're looking for in the right balance.

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.

A bit of fat, usually in the form of butter and olive oil, is essential to making a robust soup. Fat is also a vehicle for flavor, and helps to brown vegetables.

Add aromatics.

Celery, carrots, and onions are standard soup starters, but you can also add fragrant ginger and garlic to a simmering pot of store-bought broth. When deciding whether to add the aromatics in whole parts or finely chopped, keep the final flavors and texture in mind.

It may sound a bit strange and unusual for some, but vinegar is a common ingredient in some soup recipes, and there is a good reason for it. If you think about it, vinegar is really a flavor-enhancer (umami). That's why it is so often used in cooking, sauces, and salad dressings. The same is true with soups.

Vinegar – A spoonful of vinegar is a quick fix when you find yourself with a bowl of dull, flat-tasting soup. Just a small amount of acid will brighten up the flavors. 2. Soy Sauce – Soy sauce is another item that's ideal for brightening up and adding depth of flavor to an otherwise dull soup.

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

"Soups and stews really need to simmer for long periods to allow the ingredients to meld together. Taking that a step further, most soups and stews are better if you prepare them the day before serving. Allowing them to cool and then reheating them really helps bring out the flavors and textures."

A common technique used in the Mediterranean, thickening soups with bread is an easy way to add texture and bulk – it turns a simple bowl of broth into a full meal. The best part about using bread as a thickener is that depending on how you use it, you can control the thickness of your soup.

Why put olive oil in soup? ›

In addition to enhancing the flavor of your soup, olive oil also has numerous health benefits. It is high in healthy monounsaturated fats and antioxidants, which can help reduce inflammation and improve heart health. By using olive oil in your soup, you're not only improving the taste but also boosting the nutrition.

While certain vegetables can work just fine added directly to simmering soups and stews (say, carrots and celery), other vegetables (onions, garlic, and the like) will almost always need at least a brief sweat in a fat-based liquid before adding the remaining ingredients.

You can extract a clean, strong broth from a combination of water and several pantry ingredients. It's all about layering powerful flavor-enhancers that you probably already have on hand—bacon, tomato paste, herbs, peppercorns, a Parmesan rind, and, of course, kosher salt.

Perk up a Bland Soup With Simple Pantry Staples

Chances are, you could use a little more salt. Go ahead—it's ok. Salt perks up flat flavors and helps balance out bitter-tasting ingredients. Some freshly cracked pepper helps, too!

To season it, we recommend starting with our Vegetable Soup Mix. It contains celery salt, parsley flakes, garlic powder, sea salt, summer savory, marjoram, thyme, black pepper, turmeric and sage, which are all excellent with root vegetables, so you can incorporate things like carrots or potatoes into the soup.

Herbs and sources add flavor, aroma, and intensity to the soup broth. You can pick fresh or dried herbs like basil for tomato-based soups or fresh parsley for clear broths. You may also add more spices like turmeric, ground ginger, ground paprika, or nutmeg for a touch of spice and color to your soup broth.

Also consider adding extra salt (possibly in the form of bullion) and pepper (any type -- crushed red, black, paprika). Add miso paste to boost the savory (umami) flavor. I have had success with "white" miso in carrot and lighter, brothy vegetable and pork soups; red miso in beef soups.

Bring everything to a boil, reduce the heat, and let simmer for at least 30 minutes. The longer the stock cooks, the more flavorful your soup will be.

Use umami-rich seasonings

Using umami-rich seasonings such as ketchup, molasses, tomato paste, fish sauce, soy sauce, oyster sauce, Worcestershire sauce, Marmite, or miso paste will give you a quick fix of umami.