What's your favorite soup recipe?

truelight_photo_craig

Cooking Light is my go to resource. Here's a link with 100 healthy soup recipes...

cookinglight.com/food/quick-healthy/healthy-soup-recipes

instantmartian

I make a ham and bean soup every time I have a ham bone. I just make one last week. It makes about four quarts of soup which is about 8 servings. I love thick, hearty soups, and this one works out to be almost a stew. It is so hearty, and it clocks in at around 280 calories per serving. It is a bit of a process, but the slow cooker does almost all the work.
1 lb of dried great northern beans
1 meaty ham bone
6 cups water
3 bay leaves
3 cloves garlic, minced
5 white potatoes, cut into about 1" pieces
2 carrots, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
salt and pepper to taste (salt all depends on how salty the ham is, really)

Pick through beans making sure there are no pebbles in there, and soak overnight, or at least 8 hours. (You can look up how to do the quick bean-soaking method using boiling water, if you choose. That'll take the process down to about 2 hours, I believe.)
Drain and rinse beans.
Add ham bone (and any additional bits of ham you'd like if you don't think there's enough meat on the bone) to a slow cooker.
Add beans, water, bay leaves, garlic, potatoes, carrots, celery, and onion. Cook on low for about 8 hours.
Remove ham bone, bay leaves, and any fatty pieces of ham floating around.
You can mash some of the beans if you want the soup thicker, though I have found that just poking around for random ham parts does a pretty good job thickening things up.

You can add red pepper flakes or other things to spice it up, if you'd like. I add a ton of black pepper, and that does a good enough job for me.

This soup is even better as leftovers, and it freezes really well. I usually freeze half of batch and keep the rest for a dinner or two and lunches for the week.

My grandfather used to make this after every Christmas and Easter. After he passed away, I started taking/keeping the ham bone to make it. He never had a recipe, so I improvised based on watching him and eating it my entire life. It might be a bit nostalgic for me, but my boyfriend, who did not grow up eating "bean soup" also liked this recipe.

IzzyBooNZ1

bump