Need dinner recipes for healthy home made soups!!

Does Chili count? I make this chili about once a month, and it's always a successful week at the scale when this is part of our meal plan. I wrote it up here: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/phocid/view/turkey-chili-151910

I also have a shrimp and corn chowder recipe but I haven't written it up yet. Let me know if that is of interest to you (I know seafood is hit and miss with some).

Check the Cooking Light Web site, as well as women's fitness mag sites, for great ideas.
You need a base-line concept, then work from there:
A great starting point is to cook off diced carrots, onions, garlic as your flavor base, in scant (tsp or so), over medium. You can also add a chopped chipotle pepper to bring some meaty smokiness into the pot, and/or allow a Tbsp or 2 of tomato paste to cook with the starting vegetables. Add your garlic a bit later to make sure it doesn't burn. You may also cook off some sweet bell with the vegetables - about a half cup of each veg ingredient (not counting chipotles) makes a nice base.

From this point, you can add water or low-sodium, low or nonfat boxed broth, and then add any number of variants, separately or together:
1.5 cups of diced zucchini, cook till soft, about 15 minutes, then puree (I STRONGLY recommend investing in at least a cheap immersion blender! SO useful for soup and smoothies without involving blenders and food processors!). Add a bay leave and another 1.5 cups of diced zucchini and cook till tender, 10 mins or so.

Potatoes and sweet potatoes - bring 'em on.

Cauliflower (allow to get quite soft, then puree, then add more cauliflower, as with zucchini).

You can also add a handful of farro, buckwheat, or other whole grain to the broth, and allow to cook for about 40 minutes till fully cooked. This is great to combine with lentils - try a cup of dry lentils and about a quarter cup of farro (also brown or black rice) for 4 - 6 servings. This combo adds really good complex carbs, protein and micronutrients. And of course you can always add more vegetables.

For a broccoli soup, get a couple of small/med yellow potatoes and allow to cook off about 20 mins (diced); add a cup of broccoli and cook another 10 mins. Puree. Add another cup of broccoli in small florets and finish cooking 5 - 10 minutes. You could stir a measured amount of cheese into this or top with cheese just before serving (about a half ounce). You could also stir some greek yogurt into this for body, creaminess and protein.

Of course, you could add ham, turkey, chicken, ground cooked beef to most of these for protein, too.

Salt your soup about 5 mins before you're finished cooking it. Use no more than 1/4 tsp for your whole recipe, then adjust at the table. Plenty of black pepper!

Your soups are also a great place to sneak in things like anti-inflammatory turmeric, which doesn't have much flavor and will make things yellower, and is good for you. Experiment with spices and spice mixes...

When you make a small pot like this

Some of my favorites... Lentil with tomato and sausage, minestrone, vegetable beef, chicken gumbo (any gumbo!), turkey noodle, split pea with ham, and beef barley. I make a large crock pot of soup, cool it down and portion it out into zip lock bags. That way I have 2-3 varieties in the freezer when ever I want some.

A cool site for recipes of any kind is supercook.com. You enter what ingredients you have and it will search the web for recipes that you can make from those items! Works great for those days between paydays when the cabinets get a little low and you have no idea what to make.

My FAVORITE is Mexican Chicken Soup

if you don't have a Trader Joe - you can use other brands - just try and go as organic/low sodium/fresh packed as possible

Mexican Chicken Soup
• 12 ounces of cooked Chicken Breast (I buy a roast chicken for dinner one night and use leftovers)
• 1 large can of Trader Joes Plum Tomatoes With Basil
• 1 large Onions
• 6 cloves of Garlic Clove - minced
• 1 TBSP Olive Oil
• 2 small stalk celery, raw
• 2 medium sized Carrots – (or ~15 baby carrots)
• 1 small can of Trader Joes Organic Diced Tomatoes
• 1 Qt Trader Joe Chicken Broth Low Sodium
• ½ cup Trader Joe Frozen Sweet White Corn
• ¼ cup Cilantro
• 1 can Trader Joe Black Beans
• ¼ tsp + ½ tsp Chili Powder –
• ¼ tsp + ½ tsp Cumin
• 1 lime cut in wedges
*If you can find Mirapox you can use that in place of the carrot/celery/onion – if you can find it layered easy to scoop out most of the onions

Directions
cut chicken into small pieces and coat with 1/4 tsp of cumin and 1/4 tsp of chili powder, salt and pepper to taste.

Puree plum tomatoes, onion and half of garlic. Heat oil in large pot over medium heat and add rest of garlic, celery, carrots, tomato, cumin , chili powder, salt and pepper and saute for 5 minutes.

Add tomato puree - stir for 10-15 minutes - add chicken broth and bring to a boil. reduce heat and low boil for 15 minutes. Add corn, black beans and chicken, boil until chicken cooked/warmed through about 5-7 minutes.

Pour 1 cup of soup into bowl, squeeze lime wedges over each, garnish with cilantro..

Add shredded cheese or tortilla strips - don't' forget to add them to your calorie count if you do
**Add more fiber by adding in a serving of Benefiber – add 15 calories…and 3 more grams of fiber


I put it in MFP and this is what I got as far as number

Serving size 1 cup (recipe makes about 10 cups)

Calories - 170
Carbs - 19g
Fat - 4g
Protien- 15g
Sugar - 6 g
Sodium - 491

http://hungryfatpeople.blogspot.com/2011/12/hot-soup-on-cold-night.html


feel free to omit and change to suit your diet needs.