I Need Some Healthy Soup Recipies

I do a soup with half chicken broth and half my homemade canned tomatoes - but you could use store bought whole/halved tomatoes. Then add whatever veggies you like! I usually use......carrots, onions, green beans (fresh or my frozen from my garden), diced cabbage or kale, 2 types of canned beans - I like kidney and a white bean or garbanzo........fresh herbs etc. Kind of like a homemade Minestrone??? Super yummy and really healthy. I make it in the winter and eat it for a whole week for lunch!
Remember to put the veggies in the order of how long they take to cook - so carrots and onions and cabbage/kale would take the longest and then fresh/frozen green beans wouldn't be that long or would the canned beans. Herbs can be in the whole cooking time.

Let the kids pick out a variety of organic veggies at the store. Then add some onion and garlic and a box of vegetable broth, maybe some quinoa or barley or rice or cubed potatoes... Make some garlic bread. Kids love soup and garlic bread, mine always did.

I made one up yesterday. I had seen some ideas on The Chew and expanded it to fit my needs. I had never used celery root before and we really liked it. I had went to Sprouts where you can get spices in bulk so I could try coriander without paying through the nose for it. I needed to double the chicken so I would have left overs to make chicken salad. I made this in the crock pot on high.

In the bottom of the pot,
1 chopped onion
1 celery root chopped
1 cup chopped carrot
3 cloves garlic sliced thin
Mushrooms
1-2 cut up potatoes. All this is really whatever your family likes.
Sprinkle with 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper, 1 tsp oregano.
Add 8oz of water
Place your raw chicken on top, at least 2 chicken breast worth. More if you want to double cook. I sprinkle mine with creole seasoning but what ever you like.
Cook on high about 2 hours till chicken is done. Take out what you want for another purpose. Break up the rest.
Pour in a can of chicken broth Or till it has as much liquid as you like.
1 can diced tomatoes
1/2 tsp basil
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2-3/4 tsp coriander.
Cook on high for about an hour on high or longer on low.

Don't know if the kids will like it but H and I really did. The celery root gets pealed and cut up like a potato. It has A very mild celery taste.

I make the easiest veggie soup in the world and my kids love it. I don't even really have a recipe. It usually goes something like this:

cauliflower, onion, couple garlic cloves, butternut squash maybe or sweet potato, mushrooms maybe, whatever veggie you have handy, cut up in chunks into a soup pot. cover with organic chicken stock (or veggie stock, whatever), bring to a simmer, simmer for maybe 20 or 30 minutes, til the veggies are soft and mushy, add salt and pepper to taste or whatever spices you like. then puree the whole thing with a stick blender right in the pot, or use your blender til it's super creamy and smooth. If you have to, strain it to get it *really* smooth (sometimes I do, sometimes I don't). My kids LOVE this (even the one who "hates" vegetables).

I also have made a ground turkey, kale and chickpea soup (I found the recipe online somewhere, you'd have to google it) which turned out fabulously.

I just made one tonight similar to Kristen C's. It has onion, butternut squash, carrots, sweet potato, turnip, Granny Smith apple (about a cup of each, adjust based on what you like and what you have). Chop up and cook in some olive oil for 5 minutes or so. Add 4-5 cups of veggie or chicken broth and simmer for about 30 mins. Puree with immersion blender or regular blender. Add a little cayenne pepper (to taste, it doesn't take much, less than 1/4 tsp), a sprinkle of cinnamon, and if you like, a drizzle of maple syrup.

If you have time, you can do this recipe by tossing the veggies in olive oil and roasting in the oven first. Add several cloves of garlic to the roasting pan and leave out the cayenne pepper. Drizzle with balsamic vinegar in the bowl when serving.

I love tomato soups, but most contain milk, which I cannot tolerate. (lactose issue, that.) I also have some other issues with onion and garlic, so feel free to add them to this veg/tomato soup:

First, I'll just say this: tomatoes often cost a fortune and are out of season this time of year. So I do use canned tomatoes. You can buy good organic canned ones from Muir Glen, which I really love, and I'm sure there are other brands. I often get their chopped tomatoes with basil. They also have whole, peeled ones.

I dice up a peeled carrot, a red bell pepper, and a stalk of celery or two. Then, sautee them with some olive oil (actually, if you are doing garlic and onion, sautee those first). Add in the tomatoes and then stir and cook for a bit. You might decide to add in some stock as well, a bit at a time, until you feel like you have enough liquid. I tend to buy my stock in the box these days. Add herbs to taste. Italian herb combo is fine, or basil, thyme, a bit of oregano and marjoram, the last of which adds a lovely lemony scent. I usually use dried herbs and crush them in a mortar and pestle with a little bit of salt to help get the flavors out.

Cook for a while, but not too long, then let cool to warm and puree. This is my all-time favorite recipe for this.

I really like this one (I used chicken stock, and already cooked chicken. I have never tried the water and raw chicken route.) Oh, I also add mushrooms! http://www.wowyouarereallylucky.com/healthy-recipes/17-mi...

I always make my own soups without recipes.
Fresh ingredients will be a part of any soup that you make yourself from scratch.

I always just start with using chicken broth, and season it with whatever seasonings I have on hand. Salt/pepper/cumin/garlic/ginger/onions etc. All fresh.
And I add in pasta or macaroni, chicken or beef, ong choi, choy sum (which is common in my State), kale, squash, and whatever else I have on hand.
My family always likes it.

The secrets to good veggie beef soup are:
1. Good stew meat or nice chuck roast
2. A tomato-y base, so add O. large can of sauce.

And add EVERYTHING and ALWAYS add some cabbage.
And barley.

Yum!

African peanut soup. there are so many variations. I make mine vegetarian.

http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/african_chicken_pean...

I am not a great cook. I eat lots of veggies, organic rice noodles, chick peas, lentils, etc...

The other day I wanted to make soup. I found Rachel Ray's recipe for soup on herwebsite: Chicken Rice w/ greek meatballs. My family was shocked that I made it. It was that good !

PS--It took a while tp prepare it ! It was well worth it.

The most important part of any soup is the base.

This is done by
- searing the meat in the beginning
- adding bones to leech out the minerals from them

OR

By using pre made stock which has already done that step for you. (ESP with veggie soups... Unless you want to spend 10 hours boiling 1 gallon down to 1 cup. That's a fun winter house smell good thing, though! Lots of stock & demiglazé recipes out there. To substitute for onion family allergies, you'll need to substitute some perky herbs or bitter greens).

OR

By using a roux

AND

occasionally all 3 (like with gumbo)
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I'm the kind that wings soups together... But for truly phenom soup recipes (not to mention some of the best recipes, anywhere, ever)... May I suggest

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0714862568

Its the italian "bible" of cooking. The English translation used to be over $100. Amazon has it now for 30, bookstores for $50. Almost no pictures, and over 1,000 recipes, most with 3-5 ingredients. BEST cookbook ever. Period.

Bean/lentil soups are very filling and there's SO many ways to make them.
Split pea soup with left over ham bits in it is a favorite.
I like a good oyster stew (butter, oysters, milk, salt with just a slight sprinkle of celery seed on top of your serving).
I also like mushrooms in a chicken broth.
I haven't made czarnina in quite awhile (you can't get the blood anymore at the butcher's unless you have your own duck butchered) - but it is so good - I especially love the raisins/fruit in it.
I make a pretty good/simple French onion soup.
borscht (beet soup).
pumpkin/butternut soup.
shrimp bisque.
lemon grass/coconut milk/chicken soup (it's a great Thai soup).
Or...
Actually I could go on for quite a long while thinking of all the soups I like/have made.
Take a look at this soup site - it's got great recipes for every soup you can think of and quite a few you never though of before.

http://www.soupsong.com/index.html

You said healthy, so you might like this - I make bone broth with grass-fed beef stock bones, just cook them for 8 to 12 hours in a crock pot. Strain the broth and when it cools it's like jello and very good for you. You can also do this with chicken bones, or...? After it cools in the fridg you can remove any extra fat off the top. It's a start...

To me, my soups became better when I focused on the stock I used. We buy our meat from a local farmer, and have gotten compliments on our chicken in particular. When I roast a chicken, I put an onion and garlic into it (sorry) and then a spice rub; it's a rotisserie chicken recipe I found on allrecipes.com. When we're done with the chicken, we take the bones and skin and everthing and toss it in a big pot. I throw in the leavings of celery that I've chopped for other purposes (I put it in the freezer in a bag so it's ready when I want it) along with the ends and tips of carrots. My mom got me a great jar of seasoning from Penzeys spices, a bouquet garni. You could mix up your own, but I'm not that ambitious. I simmer as long as possible to get as much as possible out of it, usually a minimum of 3-4 hours, but preferably 7-10. I strain it through a colander and put it in big bowls to freeze it (then pop it out and put it in a ziploc when I need that container) or I put it into ice cube trays to add for a little more flavor. I do this pretty much any time I have meat or chicken bones. If I have carrots and celery, it does make a big difference, but if I don't, I just cook the meat up and make broth without quite such a robust taste. Then, when it's time to make chicken soup, I use a new chicken with those seasonings for my chicken, add carrots and celery and cook up my noodles in the broth--and it's very flavorful. I just did ham bean soup, and made ham broth the other day. I had a ham hock from the pig we bought and I boiled that up with the bone from the ham and some carrots and celery. Chilled the broth. The next morning I soaked about 2 c of beans for the day. We needed potatoes, so those went into the fridge after they'd soaked for a day. The day I wanted the soup, I put the beans and my (quite gelatinous) stock into the crock pot on low early in the morning. Midday, I added carrots, celery and potatoes. Right before we ate, I cubed up the ham and threw that in. If you are away from home during the day, you could certainly add everything at once; to me, ham bean soup tastes best on day 2 anyway. I would recommend saving the ham for last, though, (obviously, use a ham that you cooked previously and have leftovers of) because otherwise soaking the ham all day, on top of ham stock, can make your stock really salty, and your ham really tasteless in the soup itself. My husband and I love this soup, and our kids did when they were little. Now they've learned to not like food that looks like that, but really, it's ham, potatoes, carrots, celery, and beans. Not fussy at all, but nutritious (I do skim some fat off the stock before cooking with it) and easy.

Here is a recipe for green soup that I made up using a few baby food recipes that my son loved when he was a baby as my inspiration. I played around with the ingredients and herbs and spices for awhile, and we finally settled on this. My five year old loves this. It is healthy and so easy to make. Chopping up all the veggies takes the most time, but if you have a food processor it should be quicker.

As for the lentils, I usually spoon them out while dry on a piece of alluminum foil to check for any rocks or dirt that could get mixed in with dry beans. Then just rinse the lentils a few times. They are so small that they don't require soaking the way other beans do. Just rinse and use. They do tend to stick to the bowl that I wash them in, so I use a spoon to scrape them out of the bowl and a little water.

D.'s Green soup

2 onions, chopped
1 celery stock (chopped) plus leaves (finely chopped)
2cups cabbage, chopped
5-6 bundles of spinach (only use the leaves), finely chopped
1 head broccoli (about 4 cups)
1 cup split red lentils (rinsed)
2.5 cups green peas (puréed into a paste)
4 cups sweet potatoes, cubed
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 cubes chicken bouillion with no added salt (or you can use your own stock)
2 Tbsp freshly ground ginger root
2 bay leaves
2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp coriander
1 tsp sweet basil
Black pepper to taste
1/4 tsp salt
Pinch of salt for cooking spinach
400g cooked chicken (legs, thighs, breast meat), optional

1. Wash spinach well. In large pot ( mine is 4.5L), boil water. Add a pinch of salt. Boil spinach for 2 minutes. Remove from water and rinse with cold water. Put cooked spinach in a bowl of ice water for 10 minutes. Cooking the spinach in salt and soaking it in the ice water will keep it a nice green color.
2. (I just rinse out the pot I used to cook the spinach and dry it.) In a large pot, lightly brown onion and celery stock in olive oil.
3. Add the cabbage, sweet potatoes, lentils and broccoli. Fill to about 3.5L with water. I usually heat some in a kettle to pour over immediately after browning the onion and celery stock. If you are adding chicken, do so at this time. Bring to a boil and remove any scum (starch from lentils and potatoes) from the surface.
4. Add the bouillion, celery leaves, ginger, bay leaves, garlic powder, cumin, coriander, basil, pepper, and salt. Cover and cook over medium heat for about 20 minutes or until the potatoes are cooked through, stirring minimally so as to not have sweet potatoes turn to mush. The lentils and broccoli will practically disappear forming the stock of your soup, along with the puréed green peas and spinach.
5. While the sweet potatoes are getting tender, drain the spinach. Remove the stems. Finely chop the spinach. It should look like a fresh herb when you are finished.
6. Purée the green peas into a paste. I use frozen peas.
7. Once the sweet potatoes are tender, add the chopped spinach and puréed peas. Bring to a boil, and serve. Freezes well. I can usually make this in about 40 minutes. To save some time the day you cook, you can pre-chop the veggies the night before. Rinse the sweet potatoes in a little salt water to keep them from getting brown spots. If you don't want to go vegetarian, you can add about 400g cooked chicken. If I add chicken, I usually increase the garlic powder and cumin a little.