Soup

It's the best thing you can make in you Instant Pot.

One smart shortcut cuts the prep time in half.

And it's super fast, too.

Here's how to transform a few basics into a comforting bowl of goodness.

It's like a blanket in a bowl.

Dried mushrooms are about to become your new best friend.

Beef, turkey, chicken, vegetarian, and vegan!

This is the ultimate winter comfort food.

In terms of bang for your buck, you can't do much better than a bag of lentils.

A simple puréed soup is something I turn to often. Lately, I’ve been relying on a lightly spiced cauliflower soup to tide be over between the richness of the holidays. The nice thing about this recipe is that it takes very little time to pull together. You simply cook down the onions and garlic with cauliflower, broth, and warm spices and ready your favorite toppings (I like crispy parsley, toasty cashews, and spicy red pepper flakes — all with a dash of olive oil).

This vegan sweet potato chowder delivers everything you want in a warm fall soup. It has a velvety broth laced with seasonal spices, like sage and paprika, and chunks of tender root vegetables. It’s delicious the day you make it, but like most soups, it’s even better the next day. So make a big batch of this plant-based chowder and enjoy it all week long. We’re calling this soup a chowder, given the fact that potatoes are the key to both its velvety base and its hearty texture.

This lentil chili tastes like everything you love about chili — filled with smoky spices and lots of rich tomato flavor — but it goes lighter than the meat-filled version, thanks to the addition of barely sweet butternut squash and hearty lentils. Lentils are the perfect candidate for a meat-free chili. They cook up earthy and meaty, and there’s no browning or precooking necessary. This hearty vegan chili comes together easily with the aid of a slow cooker.

In this bowl lies every single thing I want in a really good batch of chili. A slew of pantry ingredients leave it with just the right balance of spicy, sweet, and bitter flavors, making this a plant-based pot of chili that will leave you fully satisfied. The chili gets its heft from red lentils and a duo of beans. As a result, it has a texture so meaty, I have to remind myself that there’s not actually any meat in the pot. It checks all the boxes, and then some.

Set it and forget it.

You may be thinking that a recipe for a thick, hearty soup is a bit odd considering that yesterday was the first day of spring. But this Spanish bean soup is not just any soup. Rather, it is a soup sent straight from the soup gods (if the soup gods took the form of my future mother-in-law). As I was walking out the back door of a recent family gathering, Tina (my future MIL) forced two large Tupperwares into my hand. This happens often, and I never quite know what I’m going to find inside.

It's everything you love about the classic stuffed vegetable, but so much easier to make.

Cook once, eat all week.

A classic bowl of comfort that needs nothing but good, crusty bread.

This soup comes with a memory: a bowl of hearty soup served by my mother-in-law one chilly fall afternoon many years ago. I remember the tomatoey broth being so complex yet so comforting, and the cheesy tortellini were a brilliant touch. I asked her for the recipe, but she, being the MacGyver of the kitchen that she is, didn’t have anything to give — it was a one-time-only melting pot of a week’s worth of leftovers. But I didn’t forget it.

Ribollita is the Tuscan soup that will cure your winter blues.

Around the World in 30 Soups: This month we’re collaborating with chefs, cookbook authors, and our own Kitchn crew to share a globetrotting adventure in soups from countries and cuisines around the world. Today’s stop: Jamaica. Here Michelle and Suzanne Rousseau, sisters and authors of the gorgeous Caribbean cookbook, Provisions, share their take on pinda stew. The creamy vegetarian-friendly dish centers around peanuts, which grow abundantly on the island.

Around the World in 30 Soups: This month we’re collaborating with chefs, cookbook authors, and our own Kitchn crew to share a globetrotting adventure in soups from countries and cuisines around the world. Today’s stop: Colombia. This amazingly flavorful soup comes from the kitchen table of Sara Kate, one of Kitchn’s founders, passed to her by a Colombian friend who shared the secret ingredient of this traditional soup.

As the weather gets warmer, I like to lighten up my family’s menu with fewer savory winter dishes and more recipes that show off the lighter tastes of spring. But there are still a few dreary, rainy days left, so we appreciate a nice soup somewhere in that mix. This white bean soup makes its own broth with some help from a Parmesan rind as it cooks in the slow cooker. It’s an easy dish for a busy weekday and manages to be satisfying without being too heavy or rich.

Part bread stuffing, part French Onion soup, 100% delicious.

"Where's the beef?" precisely no one will ask upon sipping this gorgeous soup, enriched with dried mushrooms and tender barley. A new vegetarian classic.

Served piping hot with a golden-brown grilled cheese sandwich, classic tomato soup conjures up memories of the crisp fall days of our youth. Most of us probably enjoyed the canned stuff as kids, but making a flavorful tomato soup from scratch isn’t much harder than opening a few cans of tomatoes, sautéing some aromatic vegetables, and blending it all together.

Turn on your oven, toss canned tomatoes in, roast them until they're caramelized and sweet, and you've got the base for a killer tomato soup that will warm you up all fall.

Cool weather brings on the craving for cozy comfort foods like steaming bowls of soups, stews, chiles, and chowders. Creamy tomato soup is the perfect seasonal soup to transition from the bright tomato flavors of late summer into the crisp evenings of October. The secret to creamy tomato soup isn’t in the preparations, but in the ingredients. Heavy cream is the best way to get that classic creamy flavor we know and love.

Imagine a recipe that combines the two things we love about cold-weather cooking: the toasty, caramelized notes of roasted vegetables and a steaming vegetable broth.

The slow cooker is a mainstay of modern American cooking — but it’s not just you and me firing up the Crock-Pot on a weeknight. Famous chefs and celebrities are not above its charms, and this week we’re bringing you five recipes from five kitchen stars that show off their favorite ways to put the slow cooker to good use. First up: Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman herself, with a classic broccoli cheddar soup that is kid-friendly and good for any cold night.

Potatoes are pretty perfect. My grandpa has been saying for as long as I can remember: “Did you know the potato is the only food man can actually survive on alone?” Well, he’s almost right — you would need to add a pat of butter or wash it down with a glass of milk, but then you’d be good to go. So not only does this soup taste amazing, but between the potatoes, kale, porcini mushrooms, and cheese you also might just be able to call this soup perfect.

As we move through the cold days of the new year, this is the soup you’ll want to keep on repeat in your meal plan. It is wholesome comfort food at its finest, with a taste and texture that’s equal parts hearty, bright, and completely nourishing. Slow cooking mellows the pungent, bitter bite of turmeric, and a dollop of yogurt partnered with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice lend a tangy twist to this vegetarian chickpea-based soup.

Plant-based and extra filling.

I don’t think the call of creamy, savory soup changes when you decide to change your diet. In my own personal experience, trying a Whole30 or eating a Paleo diet actually increases cravings for nourishing comfort foods like soup. This creamy coconut cauliflower soup hits all the high points of a warm, rich soup — smooth, a little nutty, perfectly spiced, all while being compliant with Whole30 and a Paleo diet.

If I’m completely honest, I have a really hard time getting behind the idea of green smoothies. Maybe it was the summer I spent blending smoothies at Jamba Juice. I love a smoothie, but I want it to hide the kale and spinach, not put it front and center. Green soup, though — especially this fresh take on broccoli soup scented with ginger — is a green sip I can get behind.

The herby, brothy, gorgeously green soup we cannot get enough of.

A bag of beans, a smoked meaty bone, and a slow cooker turn into a simple and delicious dinner.

From here on out, creamy chicken soup from the slow cooker shall be known as change-your-life chicken soup. Try to imagine all the goodness of chicken soup — moist, tender chicken, bites of sweet carrot and peas — but wrapped in a creamy broth flecked with black pepper. This creamy chicken soup is how you do comfort food from the slow cooker. It’s perfect for weeknights or cozy weekends at home.

The slow cooker makes easy work of this creamy, comforting classic.

With its long-simmered slices of tender beef and hearty broth, it's one of my absolute favorite comfort foods.

Around the World in 30 Soups: This month we’re collaborating with chefs, cookbook authors, and our own Kitchn crew to share a globetrotting adventure in soups from countries and cuisines around the world. Today’s stop: Palestine. Yasmin Khan’s deep research and cookbooks on the Middle East have become new favorites for many of us here, so we turned to her work on Palestine cooking and were really struck by the flavors and spice of this za’atar-flavored soup.

A couple of shortcuts and a trimmed-down ingredient list make it the easiest ever.

If you’re looking for a recipe to turn you into a soup person, here’s the one that did it for me. A surprisingly simple ingredient list — featuring sweet spring carrots and spicy fresh ginger — yields a silky-smooth, bold-flavored soup that’s perfect for these chilly early April evenings. The best puréed soups are rich and velvety-smooth (but stop short of verging into baby-food territory).

It's ready in 20 minutes, but tastes like it's been simmering away all day.

One of my favorite soups is hot and sour soup, and I was flabbergasted to discover that it’s really quite easy — and cheap! — to make. Who woulda thunk it? Called suan la t’ang in Chinese, it gets its tang from the addition of white vinegar. Let me share a secret with you — not only did this recipe mark the first time I made hot and sour soup, but it also marked the first time I tasted it. Trust me, no one is more surprised than me.

Studded with chewy whole farro and slivers of fennel stalks in place of celery, this is far from your average bowl of chicken soup. (But it comforts just like any good one.) I first made this soup by happenstance (a leftover roast chicken, a forgotten fennel bulb that was supposed to go into the salad), but since then I’ve cooked fennel many times in soups. I always love its wonderful aroma and mellow anise flavor. Don’t forget to save the fronds for garnish, too!

Have the spring blues seized you? It’s still chilly, still cold, and warm weather is still a ways off. But cheer up — I have a cure for your blues. It’s soup weather, and I want to share one of my favorites: a rich, savory turkey (or chicken!) broth, spiked with spicy chili peppers and lime juice, stocked with mushrooms, fragrant rice, and melting strands of cabbage. It’s hot and sour, delicious yet simple, hearty yet light — everything you want right now.

I was uninspired. “What do you want for dinner tonight?” I asked my eight-year-old, who always has an opinion. He thought for 30 seconds. “Celery and bacon soup, ” he said. Though I had never made it before, and I’m pretty sure he thought he invented it, it sounded like a fine idea. I even had everything but the bacon already in the fridge. I threw everything in the slow cooker — a perfect tool for inventing a soup — and hoped for the best.

If you thought chili mac was the most comforting thing you ate this winter, this recipe will be right up your alley. And it’s going to make you love that leftover chili hanging out in your fridge or freezer like never before. Chili takes a turn for serious comfort food when it’s topped with a layer of creamy potato mash, crispy potato skins, and toppings like cheddar, sour cream, and scallions that instantly make both chili and baked potatoes infinitely better.

This is exactly what you want to curl up to on a cold winter night.

My search for the perfect French onion soup is finally over.

One teaspoon is all it takes to make the soup taste infinitely better.

I was seriously underwhelmed.

I am normally the last person to look for leftover turkey solutions. I don’t usually cook a large turkey for Thanksgiving, and if there is any turkey left at the end of the meal, I send it home with other folks. But last week I was left with nearly half a leftover carcass, and after the bones and much of the meat were devoted to rich, savory turkey broth, I still had a big bowlful of shredded turkey on my hands.

The first time I had African peanut stew, I was 14 years old and staying with my aunt and uncle. They were currently living stateside, although for the last six years they’d made their home in the country formerly known as Zaire (it’s now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). It was the start of what would be known for years after as “African dinner” at Auntie Dee and Uncle Terry’s house.

This is the time of year when Dutch ovens come into their own. Even if you use your big, heavy Dutch oven year-round, as I do, it still seems to come down off its shelf a little more often in the fall. Today I want to show you my favorite Dutch oven — and a soup to cook in it.

I’ve recently moved from California to Seattle, Washington. And I’ve made many observations in these past few weeks, one of which is that the grey, wet rumor is true. According to everyone I speak to, it looks like soup and chili weather will stick around for quite some time. We were having friends over for dinner last weekend and sat down with some of our favorite cookbooks to decide what sounded fun to cook.

Full of chickpeas, potatoes, and cauliflower in a rich coconut milk broth.

The leftovers are even better than eating it the first time around.

This vegetarian chili is October in a bowl.

This turkey chili is one of my favorite recipes, and not just because I’ve made it a hundred times (at least). It was one of the first things I created on my own, starting with a version I made in my first minuscule apartment in New York City ten years ago. It has evolved over the years, but this is the recipe I’ve stuck with for quite some time — I just wanted to wait for the perfect winter day to share it.

I have previously shared a recipe for chile verde — a beloved holiday favorite at my house — and while this recipe for pork, poblano, and pumpkin stew is very similar, where the stew really veers off is with its aromatics: tomato paste; San Marzano tomatoes; and a fragrant blend of cumin, coriander, cinnamon, and brown sugar. This stew has a more Mediterranean vibe; a far cry from the Southwestern flavors of the original.

When you get a craving — especially if it’s for beef and barley stew when snow clouds are building outside — it’s best to just give in and make it. Stew is more of a technique than a recipe, so gather your ingredients and jump right into the kitchen. By late afternoon, you’ll have one mouthwatering pot of stew. Since we didn’t follow any particular recipe for this stew, feel free to modify it as you see fit.

Come home from work, take a bowl from the cupboard, and proceed immediately to the table without even needing to turn on the stove.

When the temperature drops in January, what we really want is food that fills us up and nourishes at the same time. So start your day with a hearty smoothie, but finish it with a wholesome stew. This is one of a series of stews designed to make you feel good in every possible way. Brimming with veggies and spices, each of these wholesome stews will support and reward your best New Year’s intentions.

With minimal effort and several hours of hands-off cooking, you're gifted with a robust meal that feeds a crowd.

A wholesome stew that depends on a glorious, meat-free Parmesan-garlic broth. (You're gonna want to double it.)

This 30-minute chili, featuring the flavorful power couple of chorizo and chicken, is what you make on Wednesday when you hit a wall on what to make for dinner. A change of pace from a beefy chili, this one-pot meal kicks up the flavor with spicy chorizo and seared chicken thighs. Smoky, fire-roasted tomatoes and two types of beans make up the sauce, with a few dashes of spices and herbs added in to give it a complex flavor.

Let me introduce you to the most winning weeknight dinner and game-changer for combatting the weeknight blues: dinner dip. It’s all the fun of Friday night dinner dates or Sunday game days for a regular ol’ dinner. The dip is made with tender chicken, jalapeños, and creamy, dreamy, melty cheese all cooked in a skillet. This white chicken chili dip is based off a family favorite recipe for white chicken chili that uses white beans, rotisserie chicken, and canned jalapeños.

Despite what some Texans believe, the best chili is one where beans take center stage and vegetables get some of the spotlight. So for this number, pinto and kidney beans kick things off by spending the day simmering in a warmly spiced tomato broth. By the time you lift the lid after a long day, you will find the beans tender and the liquid thickened.

This late-summer soup has all the components of your usual corn chowder, but adds a tantalizing twist with some of my favorite Thai flavors, like lemongrass, chili peppers, and coconut milk. While it keeps the comfort food nature of the original, the extra additions keep things interesting. This is also one of those meals I’m halfway through enjoying before I realize it happens to be gluten-free and vegan.