I need healthy soup ideas!

I love making soups! In fact there is a lentil vegan recipe on the docket from these forums that is up next week.

I like to rotate the following:

V8 Magic Soup
In a crockpot add, 1 bottle of low sodium/high fiber V8 juice (48 ounces), then refill with water and add chicken base. Pour into crock pot. Then add any veggies you want (some of my favorites is a tex mex version with corn, black beans, carrots, peppers, celery, etc. and stir in cilantro after cooking). Cook on low until veggies are down to your liking, usually 4-8 hours.

Cheesy Veggie Soup
Chop onion (or buy frozen chopped onion) and place in crockpot, add bag or two of frozen california mix. Cover with water, stir in some chicken base (veggie or beef would work, too) and stir. Cook on low until veggies are soft. Before serving, stir in 8 ounces of reduced fat velvetta. Makes it like a 'cream based' soup without the calories.

French Onion
Carmelized sliced onions in a bit of butter and olive oil, then deglaze the pan with water, red wine and add beef stock/boullion/base, and add in carmelized onion. Bring to a boil and simmer until flavors meld and onions are soft and translucent. Top with homemade toasted croutons and a bit of cheese on top. To brighten up the flavor, stir in a few teaspoons of red wine vinegar at the end, before serving.

Italian Veggie Soup
Chop onion, carrots and celery (or whatever you like). Saute in a tablespoon of olive oil in a dutch oven. Meanwhile, chop zuchinni and roma tomato and add to the pan. Cover with water, and add veggie, chicken or beef base and italian seasoning (oregano is great here). Bring to a boil and simmer until veggies are done to your right texture. Stir in chopped spinach and stir until wilted. Season with salt and pepper. Great to serve with or without tortellini, for a more substantial meal. Last time I made this, a cup portion was only 56 calories.

There are a lot of good veggie based soups on the Veggie Venture blog (google it) and some great ones on SkinnyTaste.com, too.

mmmmm the shrimp and chicken sausage gumbo sounds great!! definitely trying that this week! thanks for sharing!

I personally love pumpkin/butternut squash soup! Really easy to make, healthy, low calorie and yummy. Just chop up a squash, 1 or two carrots, an onion and some garlic, chuck in a large pan and add vegetable stock (not sure about the amounts, but enough to cover the veggies). Cook until pumpkin is tender (probably around 15/20 minutes) and then blend it all together. You can blend it to be completely smooth, or leave some chunks - whatever you fancy. You might need to add some more liquid as the soup thickens a lot while blending! As for herbs and spices: I've used fresh coriander (add before blending) or you can make it a bit more spicy by adding cayenne powder, chilli, possibly some harissa paste and some eastern spices (you can just stir all of this in after blending). You could add some cream as well, but I've never found it necessary.

Check out the website skinnytaste.com. She has two soup recipes I really like - chicken pot pie, and baked potato - both awesome!