The Cottage Peach is reader-supported. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission at no additional cost to you. All opinions are our own.

“To feel safe and warm on a cold wet night, all you really need is soup.” — Laurie Colwin

We all know soup is good for you, and a great source of comfort. But have you considered that soup may be the best thing you can make for yourself when you are in the midst of a chronic illness flare, when you have no energy? Here is why soup is the best food to make for people with limited energy:

It’s easy to make soup, you can just throw your ingredients into the pot, set the heat and sit down while it cooks. You only need to get up every so often to stir the pot. You can easily modify it to substitute ingredients and save yourself a trip to the store, and using frozen vegetables (which contrary to popular belief often have a very similar level of nutrition as fresh produce) will save you the trouble of chopping everything yourself.
There’s only one pan to clean. Less dishes filling up your sink means less precious energy expended. And who really enjoys doing dishes anyway?
You can make a big batch of soup all at once and freeze most of it for later in individual servings to save you time on days when you really don’t have the ability to cook anything at all. This is also an excellent time saver if you’re planning for dinner guests - save your energy for conversation by thawing out your soup the day of and have dinner ready to go with the turn of a dial.
Soup is easy on your stomach. Because everything is cooked low and slow for an extended period of time, your gut won’t have to work as hard to digest it. The nutrients within the soup are also more bioavailable, meaning your body can absorb more of the benefits more easily.

A scent that brings us home

Name: Easy Vegetable Soup
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 40 min
Ingredients: 2 Carrots; 1 Yellow onion; ½ cup Peas; ½ cup Corn; 28oz Diced tomatoes; 8oz Tomato sauce; ½ cup Farro; 4 cups vegetable broth; Salt and pepper to taste

The way the smells of soup fill a house easily brings us back to our childhood, and the comforting knowledge that our bowls will be filled by our loved ones without fail. I almost exclusively make soup in the fall and winter, as I find the aromas to be the perfect way to bring warmth to your kitchen and home in the cold and gray months. Plus, a bowl of soup functions as an excellent hand warmer!

Why should you saute soup ingredients first?

Many soup recipes begin with instructions to saute the vegetables and aromatic herbs first. It can be easy to dismiss this step thinking that these ingredients will cook through just fine since the soup will cook a long time once the liquids are added.

Here’s what Serious Eats has to say about sauteing vegetables: “Vegetables contain many different aromatic molecules trapped inside their cells. But the aromas you get from raw vegetables are quite different from those you get from cooked vegetables. In fact, the aromas you get from whole vegetables is even different from those that you get from vegetables that have been finely chopped, grated, or have otherwise had their cells ruptured. This is all due to reactions that take place between chemical precursors inside the vegetables cells. When those cells are ruptured, these precursors come into contact with each other and recombine into new compounds. Heat and time can increase the rate of these reactions, and indeed cause brand new ones to occur.”

Can you freeze vegetable soup?

Yes, soup generally freezes very well. I prefer to ladle my leftover soup into mason jars for long term storage in the deep freezer. Make sure to leave at least an inch of headspace at the top of your jars since the liquid will expand as it freezes. You can store soup in the freezer for two to three months. Soups with dairy don’t always freeze as well or as long - about one month. To thaw, just move your mason jar to the refrigerator the night before you want to eat. Then you can pour your thawed soup into a sauce pan to reheat on the stove top.

How long will vegetable soup last in the fridge?

Soup can be stored in the fridge for five to seven days. I still prefer mason jars for storing soup in the fridge, since it’s easy to pour from. We have a large metal canning funnel that makes ladling the soup into the jars very simple. Be sure to label it too so you don’t lose track of it in the back of the fridge!

Can you make vegetable soup in advance?

Vegetable soup is great to have on hand for busy nights. You can meal prep your soup up to five days in advance and store it in the fridge for another time.

What kind of pot should you make soup in?

Soup is one of the larger batch meals we cook in our kitchen, and so I find myself reaching for our Caraway Home non-toxic 6.5 quart Dutch oven. It never fails to surprise me how quickly such a large pot can be filled once all your soup ingredients are added. Soup really is the best way to stretch your ingredients the farthest.

Is vegetable soup healthy?

There are many healthy soup recipes and vegetable soup in general is very healthy and a great vehicle for serving vegetables to picky eaters in particular. One thing that can make soup less healthy is when there is excessive sodium in the soup, which usually comes from the broth that has been used. Most processed vegetable broth as well as powders and cubes have extremely high levels of sodium to make up for the lack of other flavoring. You can make your own dry vegetable broth mix pretty easily by combining nutritional yeast, and powdered onion, garlic, tomato, carrot, salt and pepper and herbs. We personally use the Frontier Co-op Low Sodium Vegetable Broth Powder in all our soups including my vegetarian vegetable soup recipe and love it, but it is definitely more cost effective to make it from scratch yourself.

So what is the best way to make an easy soup recipe? The basics of soup making are the same, no matter what soup recipe you start from. You will heat your fat (I usually use olive oil) and add your toughest vegetables like carrots and potatoes first. Then your softer vegetables like onion and broccoli, peas and corn. Lastly, you’ll sautee your aromatics like herbs, spices and garlic for the shortest amount of time.

Once your vegetables are all softened you can go ahead and add any liquids - tomato paste, crushed tomatoes, broth. All this needs to simmer to allow the flavors to blend for thirty to sixty minutes depending on the specific soup recipe.

Really, once you understand the basic elements of soup making it is the best sort of recipe to begin experimenting with in the kitchen. Start with small modifications to a recipe you know and love, and move on to more complex changes. Once you’re comfortable with substitutions, you’ll probably have a good idea of what flavors go nicely with each other and can start developing recipes from scratch on your own. Soup is a fantastic first foray into recipe development for this reason.

My favorite easy soup recipe is my grandmother’s vegetable soup. Aside from the obvious nostalgia that comes with every spoonful, it makes a fantastic base from which you can modify and make the vegetable soup recipe your own. This is a tomato based soup, with grains for fiber and protein and a mix of vegetables that everyone will enjoy including onion, peas, carrots and corn. You can easily swap out the farro for a different grain of your choice, and add or subtract whatever vegetables you and your family enjoy. Plus, this is the perfect soup recipe when you are putting off making another grocery run because you can just throw whatever frozen veggie mix you have in the freezer in and call it a day!

My grandma always serves this soup with a big loaf of fresh challah bread, golden brown on the top and slightly sweet. Toasted with butter, I can’t imagine a meal that feels more like home to me. I can remember many cozy evenings as a child enjoying this soup with my family, and now that my grandma has moved to another country, I make this soup any time I miss her to bring her comforting and sometimes wild presence to our kitchen once again.

Since I’m always looking for easy vegetarian soup recipes and ideas, I wanted to share mine with you and encourage you to use it as a starting point to develop your own favorite vegetable soup! This is a modified version of my grandma’s recipe, made based on what we usually have on hand in our pantry on any given day. I hope you make this recipe your own, and share a bowl with the people you love this winter.

Grandma’s Easy Vegetarian Vegetable Soup Recipe

Yield: 8-10

Author: The Cottage Peach

Easy Vegetable Soup

This is a modified version of my grandma’s recipe, made based on what we usually have on hand in our pantry on any given day. I hope you make this recipe your own, and share a bowl with the people you love this winter.

Cook time: 40 MinTotal time: 40 Min