Want to boost your soup just a little more? We gave you our very best tip for livening-up a dull soup (it probably needs just one little ingredient), and now here are 10 more tips and ingredients for making your soup a little bit better. From Parmesan rinds to thyme stalks, these are simple additions to boost flavor and make your soup taste more satisfying.
- Cheese Rinds - Throw an otherwise useless cheese rind into your soup; it's pretty magical.
- Whole Sprigs of Thyme - Throw in whole sprigs of thyme; the leaves will come off on their own, and you just pull out the stalks.
- Poultry Seasoning - A good boost for vegetable soup.
- Shiitake Mushroom Stems - Don't throw them out! Put them in soup.
- Yogurt - A great way to make soup creamy.
- Greens - Stir in a handful of greens right at the end. They wilt and become a tasty part of the soup.
- V8 - Savory vegetable juice is a great way to perk up a soup.
- Roasted Garlic - I love whisking in some soft, roasted garlic.
- Good Meat for Stew - Some tips for choosing the very best (and tastiest) meats for beef stew.
- Slurry - Want to thicken soup without cream? Here's how to do it.
What are your favorite add-ins and flavor boosters for soup?
Related: Dull Soup? Fix It With Just One Ingredient
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one of my fave add-on before serving is ground white pepper, it adds that little extra zip but not as harsh as the more common black pepper.
Two of my favorite soups are all about the garnish:
1) Pho: OK, well the broth is really the star here, but adding cilantro, mint, basil, fresh chile, sriracha and hoisin are what make it pho, and it's the fresh herbs that really star here, plus the richness from the hoisin.
2) Tortilla: there's a pile of garnish here: avocado, tortilla strips, lime, cilantro, toasted dried chile, but the real secrets are the chile, lime and cilantro. Skip those, and you've got the sort of cheesy glop they serve at chain restaurants.
Fish sauce, tomato paste, lemon juice ... as appropriate to the soup, of course. Oh, and ditto on the garnishes. For thick hearty soups, nothing's finishes them off like a fried or poached egg, or fresh garlic croutons.
Vinegar. Balsamic or a lighter vinegar. Just add a teaspoon or two to an individual serving right before eating. It's doing the same thing as a bit of lemon juice. Except I don't have to stock fresh lemons in my kitchen!
I agree about fish sauce and also soy/tamari and worcestershire. Not necessarily a lot, but the first two don't have to be restricted to Asian recipes. Sometimes a little fish sauce or soy can add a lot to a soup.
I've also been wondering -- has anyone tried this? -- about using a dash of truffle oil. Seems like it would go beautifully with a lot of the soup ingredients I particularly associate with Autumn (mushrooms, root vegetables, grains, beans, greens)....
a spoonful of prepared mustard can give a soup or stew an acidic boost, as well as balance or 'round out' the flavors.
I love lemon in most soups, a bit squeezed in right at the end. The Kitchn's barbacoa beef recipe leaves you with a lot of leftover liquid, which I've saved and used to make soup (not with the beef though, there's never any left over). The barbacoa broth already has a lot of lime juice in it, but a fresh squeeze of lime and a little bit of yogurt or sour cream make it out of this world - I could seriously just drink the broth just like that without any soup goodies, but I serve it with chopped avocado, fried tortilla strips or blue corn chips, chopped red onion and a crumbly queso fresco.
I like beer as a base for crockpot soups, usually the last bottle of a six pack or and odd bottle from having friends over. Fair warning though, I woudl reccomend mixing the darker beers with the cheese rind, it is produces an unappetizing flavor of vomit (at least to me)--- I learned it the hard way, whole crock pot of beef stew down the drain.
Correction: I would Not reccomend the mixing of dark beer with cheese rinds