Top 5 – Best Vegetables for Soup

It’s slowly warming up here as we approach Spring, but not so warm that soup isn’t still on the menu.  I am hopeful of moving into salad territory soon, but before winter leaves us completely I thought it only appropriate to give homage to that most wintery of dishes – soup.  These are my top 5 vegetables to use in soup.  Some like pumpkin are the primary ingredient and other like leeks often play supporting roles but all make fabulous, fabulous soups.

Pumpkin  – Is there a better soup made from a single vegetable than pumpkin? (Well I do add onion to my pumpkin soup but as onions are in practically everything I make it doesn’t really count does it???)  Pumpkin Soup is deliciously creamy even without adding any dairy, great with curry spices through it and fabulous topped with grated cheddar cheese.  It warms you up and gives you a lovely glow all day.  What more can you ask from such a humble dish.

Leeks – Leeks and soup go together brilliantly.  Not only are they fabulous in stock, not only can they be used as a flavour base in practically any/every soup you care to mention but they are also an intrinsic part of one of the worlds great soups: Leek & Potato or Vichyssoise.

Tomatoes – Growing up one of my mothers fall back lunches was opening a can of tomato soup.  I think every Anglo Australian child of the 70s would have had tinned tomato soup at least once a week – well I did and I reckon most of my friends did.  I even remember it being the standard ‘starter’ course at school sausage sizzles.  I can’t remember the last time I actually ate tinned tomato soup but I do remember the last time I used tomato in soup.   From minestrone to gazpacho tomato makes for great soups, and maybe just maybe the canned stuff tastes good too????

Carrots – One of my favourite soups is carrot and white bean, its a really lovely combination.  But even without that soup the contribution carrots make to soup is huge.  I grew up eating soups made from meat stocks, barley and vegetables.  The vegetables in these soups were inevitably carrots.  Now carrots feature in most of my mixed vegetable soups.  Whether I’m roasting them to puree with sweet potatoes & parsnips, cutting them into chunks for minestrone or throwing a few into my stock they are virtually indispensable in many recipes.

Something Green – Yes I know something green isn’t a vegetable in itself, but I love soups that taste of green.  The watercress soup pictured below is a case in point, but its not just watercress that can gives you that lovely green flavour, parsley works too, as does silver beet, spinach, or even kale.  The flavour varies a bit with the vegetable or herb but all taste unmistakably green, and delicious for it.

I know that you’ll be able to come up with many more – I would love to hear what your favourites are.

This week The New Goodlife has Top 5 Quick & Easy Vegetarian Dishes, definitely worth a look.

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43 Responses to Top 5 – Best Vegetables for Soup

  1. Barbara Good says:

    I vote for dried beans and celery, other than those I agree with your choices entirely. Pumpkin soup and leek and potato soup featured in my list this week too.

  2. I love soup and have been making at least one a week this winter. I’ve not thought of doing carrot and white bean. Sounds good. I must see if my leeks are ready for soup soon, thanks for the reminder. I think you can’t go past celery in a soup. Oh and cauliflower.

    • Liz says:

      I really enjoy the carrot and white bean I tend to puree half of it so you get a smooth base and then the texture of bits carrot and bean.

  3. Daphne says:

    Celery, onions, dried beans. The first two go into almost all of my soups along with carrots. Not 100% but close. I do make a few soups without dried beans, but not many. One is cabbage soup. I don’t use cabbage in many soups, but I do that one.

  4. L says:

    I’m hosting a soup luncheon on Sunday and on the menu is chicken and sweet corn (the kids’ favourite) and cream of celery. So I totally agree with your selections, but would add corn and celery to the list.

    • Liz says:

      Its been far too long since I had celery soup – I really must eat it soon or I may explode…patience is not really my thing…..

  5. I have to have onions in my soups. And most of my soups have dried beans, as Barbara Good said.

  6. Dave's SFG says:

    I like your choices, but I often substitute butternut squash for pumpkin or carrot (talking cream of … soups here). I also used to make a lot of lentil and dried green or yellow pea soup, in which onion, celery and carrots play a big supporting role.

    • Liz says:

      I make lentil soups like yours a lot too and always enjoy them. We generally consider butternut squash to be a pumpkin and you differentiating it has reminded me that I really must look up why.

  7. Patsy says:

    They all look lovely and I will have to expand my repertoire and try some of them. Borscht is popular in this household as a way to enjoy beets.

  8. Balvinder says:

    I love soups and make it through out the year. Celery and onions are two things that I use more often in my soup and sometimes I add cauliflower paste to thicken it. You have shown some incredible soup pictures.

  9. Ian says:

    Pumpkin with leek. Yum
    Tomato and lentil is a good standby soup in our family. (and that has carrots as well)

    It goes without saying, that onions go pretty much in everything! So should it be on the list?

    • Liz says:

      I make tomato and lentil soup too – great isn’t it? And yes you’re right about onions – sometimes I think I forget they are a vegetable too.

  10. Louise says:

    Love your suggestions, especially the importance of the leek. But my all time favourite vegetable soup is one that is predominantly made of parsnip with a little carrot and cooked with half a whole lemon and the lemon removed before blending. You have to be very very careful that you don’t leave a lemon seed in the lemon!

  11. Does mushroom soup count even though it is a fungus? I also like French onion soup and any sort of mixed vegetable but without the addition of pearl barley!

    When I was teaching one of the boys told me that he had been to his friend’s for dinner. He said you won’t believe it but ‘his’ mum made soup by cooking real tomatoes. He said she couldn’t have known that she could buy it in a tim and what’s more it wasn’t proper tomato soup as it wasn’t red!

    • Liz says:

      I reckon fungus can count – why not? Except I don’t really like them, but then again my 2 year old does – they are the first thing he eats out of his noodle soup when we go out for soup and dumplings. You don’t like pearl barley? I love it. We really must find some food common ground one day… Love the soup story I can imagine quite a few kids saying something very similar.

  12. Louise says:

    Oh , I forgot Mullagitawny ( sic) did I spell it right? I guess it falls outside your criteria – veg soups, but a good ‘Mull’ is heavenly. All those little puy lentils in a spicy soupy chickeny broth … yum

  13. Nina says:

    French onion soup is a favourite, though I don’t make it often, these days. I use a recipe from the 70s (of course!) when it, along with vichyssoise and gazpacho were the ‘soups de jour’. Oh, I haven’t made vichyssoise (potato and leek) for a loong time. I really should, we all enjoy it.

    Other than that, ‘fridge soup’ is a great standby and a way of using up all those bits and pieces hiding in the crisper. It never tastes the same twice, which is half the appeal!

    Though it doesn’t meet the criteria of being a vegetable soup – I have to mention cannellini, chicken and bacon soup. Yum!!

    • Liz says:

      Cannellini are veg so I reckon you could get away with it….assuming your guests aren’t vegetarian that is…. I must dig out my 70s cookbooks (Op shop acquisitions) its ages since I looked at the ‘classics’.

  14. Sri Ranjani says:

    My favorite is the sweetcorn soup. I love the way the corn adds its sweetness to the broth. So wintry and warm…!

  15. mac says:

    Yum~ your soups look delicious, I make lots of soups but not creamy version, I should give it a go someday.

  16. Bek says:

    I’m with you on the leek and carrot. I would have to add, like a few others, celery and parsnip – can’t be left out of chicken soup or it’s just not right, and so useful in lots of other soups!

  17. Dave says:

    Canned tomato soup was a staple my mom made for this American kid too! It made for many a great meal. I love pac choi or broccoli for a ‘green’ soup also.

    Since we are blessed with a lot pf pumpkin here I will be trying your version of pumpkin soup when it cools down a bit. I like the idea of the Indian spices with the pumpkin.

    • Liz says:

      I hope you enjoy the pumpkin soup, I like it best with grated cheddar cheese on top but I’m not sure whether that is because its a taste from my childhood or it is actually nice…

  18. Jody says:

    A perfect top 5 list! I could only add butternut to make it a top 6 list.

  19. Mark Willis says:

    I vote for pulses of all sorts – beans, peas and lentils. A favourite of ours is red lentil soup, mildly curried. It uses Swede turnip for bulk too.

    • Liz says:

      I really like lentil soup too, but I;ve never grown a lentil so wasn’t sure I could include it – ridiculous self imposed rules I know….

  20. My dad made the fatal mistake of showing me the can of Rosella tomato soup to me when I was about 5 and said that they made it from the blood of the bird on the tin…. Couldn’t eat that soup for a long time.

    I love all your soups made a broccoli soup with cheddar cheese the other week to use up some of the garden supplies

    • Liz says:

      Oh know – sounds something me partner would do to my almost 6 year old and her reaction would be exactly the same as yours… Great way to stop someone from eating canned foods though…

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