Soothing, Delicious Soups Are What We’re Craving

These recipes make the most of your pantry, delivering comfort that nurtures

Persian herbs and bean soup | Photo by Leslie Brenner

Step away from the Instant Pot. Looks like we’ll all be spending much more time at home, so might as well make the best of it by embracing the pleasures of slow, luxuriously lazy cooking. And nothing soothes the soul more than simmering soup.

There are so many reasons to make soup right now — or tonight, or tomorrow, or this weekend or next week:

• You’re stuck at home, so you can put a soup on to simmer in the morning, and you have perfect lunch, and dinner. And lunch tomorrow. And dinner the next day.
• It’s the perfect thing to make for an elderly friend, relative or neighbor who needs to stay home and can’t cook. They can eat some now and freeze the rest for later. It’s easy to double a recipe so there’s plenty to go around.
• It’s the ultimate comfort food for a scary, upsetting time. The act of soup-cooking is therapeutic (sweating an onion, stirring in spices), and the scents and sounds are soul-sustaining — while you’re working, or playing with your kids, or binge-watching or video chatting.

Classic split pea soup | Photo by Leslie Brenner

• If someone in your household is under the weather, chicken soup is certainly in order (and my mom’s is the best in the universe). Keep chicken in the freezer just in case.
• If you want to celebrate spring without leaving home, you can fool yourself with a vibrant minted pea soup made with frozen peas.
• A fabulous, dairy-free cream of vegetable soup takes less than half an hour: Simmer broccoli or cauliflower in a quart of boxed chicken broth till very tender, then blitz it with an immersion blender (or in the regular blender) till velvety.
• If someone in your household is under the weather, chicken soup is certainly in order (and my mom’s is the best in the universe). Keep chicken in freezer just in case.
• Our master Super Soup (method follows), which is hearty, rich and vegan, tells you how to turn whatever you have in the pantry and fridge into something delicious in about an hour.

HOW TO MAKE A SUPER NUTRITIOUS, VEGAN SUPER SOUP

1. Sweat onions (and other allium) with aromatic vegetables: Heat two or three tablespoons of olive oil (or grapeseed, canola or sunflower oil) in a large soup pot till shimmering, add chopped or diced onion (as much or as little as you like), carrots, celery and any other aromatics you like and have handy (leeks and turnips are nice additions). Toss in garlic (as much or little as you like, or leave it out) — smashed cloves, chopped, sliced, whatever — chopped ginger (if using) and cook another minute or so. You can also add chopped or sliced fresh mushrooms at this point; if you do, let them cook a few minutes till they start to give up their water.
2. Add ground spices such as turmeric (1 to 3 teaspoons is a good range; 3 makes it pretty turmeric-heavy), cumin, coriander seed, nigella seed. For best flavor use whole seeds and grind them yourself; toasting them in a small pan first adds depth, but isn’t necessary. You can also use pre-ground spices; nigella seed is generally used whole. Don’t know how much? Try a teaspoon of each you’re using (you can always adjust up or down next time). Stir in and cook two or three minutes.
3. Add lentils, water and tomato. Use green, black, red, brown, or yellow lentils, or any combination. I love the green and black ones, which keep their integrity, so always include one or both of those. Red and yellow lentils break down quickly into a soupy texture, so it’s nice to include one of those as well. But any lentils are fine. Two cups is a good place to start (that’s enough for a big pot), but the anything between one and two cups (or more) is fine. Rinse them well and toss them in, along with water (6 to 8 cups) and a can of chopped tomatoes (including the liquid). What size can? It doesn’t matter — just depends on how tomatoey you like it. During tomato season, of course, you can use fresh ones, if you like. Now’s the moment to add a bay leaf or three and/or dried mushrooms, if you’re using them (They are optional). You can pause for a cup of tea now, or take the time now to survey what else is in your fridge that you might want to add, and cut it up.
4. Add (optional!) longer-cooking vegetables. If you want to use harder cruciferous vegetables such as Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, rapini, broccolini and the like, you can cut them up and toss them in just after the lentils, or wait 5 or 10 minutes to toss add them. If you’re using very thick, tough broccoli steams, you might want to peel away the tough part on the outside before dicing. If you have cauliflower rice, that can be added now or closer to the end. Also add eggplant (peeled and diced), green beans, scallions, diced potato or sweet potato — anything you’d want to simmer for 20 or 25 minutes or so.
5. Assess liquid, and add salt, pepper/chiles. Check and see how your liquid is doing, adding a cup or two (or more) of water as necessary to get the soupiness you like. You can make it pretty soupy, or keep it thicker, like a vegan chili. Add salt (I start with about two teaspoons for a big pot and adjust up from there) and some kind of chile if you like (such as Aleppo pepper, cayenne, chile powder, Espellette pepper, etc.) Taste and adjust (you’ll adjust later again, so don’t worry if it’s not perfect — just don’t over-salt).
6. Add leafy greens, tender vegetables and herbs. What kinds of greens are cluttering up your crisper drawer — when we last made this soup, we had a quarter-head of napa cabbage, half a bag of arugula that had seen better days and a few escarole leaves we had deemed too ugly for a salad. Slice up larger greens (as we did the cabbage and escarole), and toss in things like arugula, baby spinach or baby kale whole. Other greens that would work great here are bok choy. When we make this soup and we don’t happen to have tired greens sitting around, we usually pick up a bag of baby kale, arugula or baby spinach, and dump that straight in. This would also be the time to add quick-cooking vegetables like zucchini (diced or sliced cut into half-moon slices), along with any leftover cooked vegetables, chopped up or cut into bite-sized pieces. Add chopped parsley (including stems), dill, mint, basil or whatever other fresh herbs you like at this point as well.
7. Taste, adjust seasoning, add water if necessary, stir and serve!

Here’s how to stock your larder for a soup-forward near future.

THINGS TO (TRY TO!) KEEP STOCKED

Dried legumes: lentils (French green, black, red); split peas; white beans (cannellini, limas, navy); kidney beans; black-eyed peas (for good luck, which we all need!)

Canned tomatoes

Jars of roasted peppers

Fresh ginger, which keeps refrigerated a long time

Spices: Coriander seed; cumin seed; cayenne; turmeric; powdered ginger; dried chiles/crushed chile pepper; Aleppo pepper; black pepper

Salt

Herbs: Now’s the moment to plant some herbs, if you can. If not, stock up on dried thyme, oregano, rosemary, herbes de Provence, bay leaves, etc.

Boxes of chicken and/or vegetable stock (if you want to make easy purées of fresh vegetables)

Rice and soup-appropriate pasta (small elbow macaroni; all those really tiny shapes like orzo, ditalini and stellini; egg noodles)

Onions and other allium-family members: garlic, shallots

Aromatic vegetables like carrots, celery and turnips (they last longer than you might think)

A mix of fresh and frozen greens and other veg to throw into soup (spinach, peas, broccoli)

If you eat meat, meats you can freeze if you don’t use them right away: ham hocks, whole cut-up chicken, cut-up lamb shoulder, beef shanks and such.