Erin Mylroie - 101 Greatest Soups on the Planet

GREATEST
SOUPS
ON THE
PLANET

Every Savory Soup, Stew, Chili and
Chowder You Could Ever Crave

ERIN RENOUF MYLROIE
Author of 101 Greatest Cookies on the Planet
and 2-Ingredient Miracle Dough Cookbook

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To gentle Shane, who always puts his family first.
He even had to wait in line to get this cookbook dedication.

Good soup is one of the primary ingredients of good living.

Louis P. De Gouy

When I was in third grade, my Brownie troop held a stone soup activity. On the appointed day, each girl brought a single can of soup from home. Our troop leaders combined all the soups in a giant pot along with a schoolyard rock that we had polished (mostly) clean. The concoction bubbled and brewed and toiled and troubled, while we all waited expectantly. Finally, we ladled the murky soup into steaming bowls for hearty eating except that after one dreadful bite, no one wanted anymore. Stone soup sounded like a good idea, but in execution, it was perfectly dreadful.

This was the nadir of my soup-making experience, and this book, 30-something years later, is the apex. Here you will find 101 great soups, chowders, broths, bisques, stews and chilis to love, with nary a stone in sight. These are the soups that I love, shared with you in the hopes that they will become your favorites, too.

Why is it that we all love soup so much? Humans have been making soup for agesas far back as 20,000 BC as far as we know. (Sorry, Im a history teacher, and I cant help myself.) But maybe we modern people need soup now more than ever. We head home from stressful days on the job with the weight of the world on our shoulders, and when we get there, everyone is hungry. Ah, but then there is soup, the greatest of all comfort foods. Its healing to make, its lovely to eat and its powerful to share. Thats as good as medicine.

And really, soup is as good for the soul as it is for the body. Its a way of eating vegetables without really thinking about eating vegetables. Think of all those disease-fighting nutrients that can be packed into one bowl! Or waitdont think about it at all. Thats one of the chief virtues of soup. You dont have to pay any attention to the fact that what youre eating will make your dietician (and your mother) very happy.

Thats because soup is for everyone, everywhere. All cultures, as far as we know, have some version of soup. (Sorry, I teach World Civilizations, too.) You dont need expensive ingredients or any fancy equipment to make soup, although I do recommend a good quality immersion blenderespecially if you dont like washing extra dishes. Most, if not all of my soups, can be made in a single pot on the stovetop (or in the slow cooker or Instant PotIve got instructions for those, too) with very minimal cleanup. The one-pot style of soup making translates into easy meal prep, too. You dont have to think very hard if everything slides off the cutting board into the same simmering pot. It takes a lot of mental work out of the process.

All right, all right, lets stop thinking and talking about it. Theres nothing standing between you and a bubbling pot of delicious, soul-warming, homemade soup, except deciding which one of my favorite 101 soups to choose first. Lets get cooking!

A FEW NOTES

Soup really is for everyoneeven those with dietary concerns. Ive added notes on many of my recipes for adjusting them (when possible) to make a soup vegetarian or vegan, or vice versa, to add meat when the soup naturally has none at all. There are so many outstanding vegan dairy substitutes now, so feel free to swap cashew cream, vegan butter, vegan sour cream or vegan cream cheese for the originals. If youre making soup for gluten-free eaters, my favorite flour substitute for thickening soup is sweet rice flour. It can be used as a one-to-one substitute for all-purpose flour in any of my soups.

Some of the recipes in my book are light and low-calorie, but just as many are not. If you want to trim a few calories or some fat, you can always reduce the butter and oil in a recipe with good results. If you want to substitute cream for a lower-fat option, such as milk, evaporated milk or fat-free half-and-half, be sure to add it at the very end of cooking, and then, dont boil the soup again. Low-fat dairy products can break down when boiled, so never go above a faint simmer after theyve been added.

Anyone can make soup, yes, but there are a few tricks to making truly delicious soup. The best soups build flavors right from the start with a basic vegetable saut and are seasoned throughout the cooking process. Use a light hand with salt, since soup will naturally condense as it cooks. You can always add more salt, but once its in, youre stuck with it.

Some soups are better after they sit in the fridge for a day or two, especially any soup that has some tomato and is not cream based. Some soups are ideal to prep early and store in the freezer, and othersespecially the ones that have a lot of dairy or potatoesdont spring back with as much flavor. Ive noted the recipes that are freezer friendly, and even the ones that could be freezer friendly with a couple of adjustments.

Broths are arguably the most important building block in any soup. They are generally easy to make, fairly hands-off in the process and freeze beautifully. While homemade broths are undeniably tastier than purchased broths, the canned and boxed varieties are there for you when you need them too. Look for brands that are lower in sodium for the best results.

While this is certainly good enough to eat on its own, its also delicious in any of the recipes in this book that call for chicken broth. It takes a little bit of time, but its a pleasant, mostly hands-off process. Once you make homemade broth, you may just find yourself ditching the cans and cartons for life. One of the greatest advantages of homemade broth is the ability to control the level of sodium. This recipe has no salt, so its versatile in case you want to reduce the broth for any recipe. By the way, I still buy canned broth in a pinch, but homemade is far superior.

Yield: 8 cups (2 L) Freezer Friendly

3 lb (1.5 kg) bony chicken pieces (wings, legs, neck, etc.)

4 carrots, coarsely chopped

2 onions, coarsely chopped

2 celery ribs

1 head garlic, halved

4 rosemary sprigs

2 bay leaves

10 whole peppercorns

tsp turmeric

10 cups (2.4 L) water

In a large pot, combine all of the ingredients. Simmer over low heat for 3 hours, stirring the broth and skimming off the foam from time to time. Remove the chicken from the pot. (You can collect the chicken meat from the bones to use for other recipes.) Strain the broth through a sieve lined with a cheesecloth. Store in glass jars. The broth is ready to eat plain, but dont forget that there is no salt, so youll definitely need to add some.