THE secret for great cabbage or bean soup (ingredients, chicken breast, celery seed)

[Mistermobile]

I found that if you just follow a recipe I often times would end up with near food. Not exactly what I was aiming for, but close. So I had many duty meals -since I put the time in cooking the glop- I felt I had eat it. Anyways, poor me, you get it. So I substituted trial and error to modify the recipes.


The ingredients. Actually just clean your fridge and panty out, and shabam! you made soup. So I use cabbage, carrots, potatoes, raw onions, celery, whatever.


A secret is to use actual veggies. So not instant potatoes, but potatoes. Why? You ask. There is loads of water in veggies so if you put just an inch of water into the pot, heat it with the veggies, you will find when you lift the soup pot lid, veggie water up to near the top. Veggie flavor is there (Yoda would say).


On to the proteins.


If you are making bean soup with ham, there is a "15 types of beans with seasoning packet" bean product available everywhere which is good or you can just use one kind of bean. These are dry beans. So pour water on them and set aside overnight to hydrate. Next day pour into a colander and run under water to wash debris away.


Bean soup secret. Put the beans, with seasonings (could be onions, salt, pepper), and ham bone or cubed ham into a skillet and cook until it smells good, then into the soup pot.



I prefer to cook the soup at a low temperature for hours and at the end of this process, season the soup to taste. Remember the ham is salty already. Freeze what you do not eat.



Cabbage soup secret. Actually there isn't any. The cabbage cooks as a veggie. I have just put the ham into the soup pot in one go instead of precooking it in a skillet. There is a lot of water in the cabbage.

[Cliffie]

"Near food" is a concept I can user on a daily basis!


I have never even thought of using instant potatoes in soup. That is shudderific.

[LilyMae521]

Sounds like a good recipe, OP. (except for the "clean your panty out" part.. lol I know you meant pantry..)


And I like the "near food" concept also.. Been there and done that. Never waste food


Celery seed adds good flavor to cabbage soup, imho.

[Gerania]

I can't do that with beans for soup, because I have always use dried.

Welcome to the world of soup! I made my first batch in the 1970s, and it's still my favorite thing to cook. I can never just let it simmer; I have to keep tasting and adding things to it. It's not done until it's on the table. Maybe not then, either.

[evening sun]

All my soups start with a large base of fried onion, carrots & celery & add a bay leaf. If I do not have a ham bone, I use ham base ( a ham bouillon paste in a jar), "better than bouillon" makes one. I always use whatever needs to be used up in the fridge, & any kind of fresh raw veg will work well in a soup. I do cook my beans from scratch too.
If I am making a chicken based soup, I will throw in the leg quarter to cook with the soup, instead of chicken broth, this way you get the real chicken broth. Then I take it out, remove the skin, chop up the chicken & return to pot.
We love home made soups, but do not really make them this time of year, it is too hot. Maybe I need to make a chilled soup soon

[SUPbud]

I make soup from dried beans often. It is one of those "crock pot meals" that cooks while I do other things.

I recommend that you experiment with "smaller batches" to try variations in your recipes until you get closer to what you think is a winning recipe - there is no substitute for ITERATIONS to make better technique and outcome. I recommend Youtube videos for inspiration, or browsing cookbooks with pictures at Barnes n Noble.

Try different meat proteins: beef neck bones, chicken breast, strips of bacon, cut up sausage. Or go the other direction - go totally vegan and challenge yourself to make something delicious without a scrap of animals - and then give up and put a dollop of sour creme on it.

You can... make something perfectly delicious for about $7.97 in ingredients that feeds you for days.

[pikabike]

Necessary but not sufficient for great bean soup:

Degas the beans before cooking them. Soak them in cold water for hours, and change the water at least once during the soak period.