Healthy Soup Recipes

Just like you, I’m busy and dont always have time to cook something healthy for dinner. Often I get home late and just want to sit down to a good feed and rest.

But being a bachelor means that if I don’t cook, or pick something up, I don’t eat. So I cook in bulk on the weekend and freeze my meals so I dont have to think about it on busy nights.

Being prepared means that when I can’t be bothered eating healthy and I’m so hungry that I’ll eat the first thing I see, I have healthy food ready to go.

Usually the first thing I find is what I’m gonna eat, so if theres a healthy meal in my fridge or freezer ready to go, that’s what I’l have.

I must admit that it’s time consuming to prepare meals in advance, but no more so than preparing them every night, so suck it up and do it!

It might take you an hour or two on the weekend to get your meals ready for the next week or two. That is a small sacrifice for healthy, homecooked food.

I usually stick to stir frys and curries out of ease of preparation, but when it starts to get cooler, soup is my go to meal.

See I’m not great at eating veggies at the moment. But if I fill my soup with vegetables and some meat, I can get a complete meal in a bowl! Thats my sorta meal.

I’ll even throw in vegetables I dont really like, because I know its good for me and I will probably not taste them anyway. It’s amazing the power of herbs, spices, garlic, salt and pepper.

Today I’m sharing two of my favourite soup recipes with you, and as I find more I’ll add them too.

An arsenal of good, easy recipes is the answer to boredom, and preparation is always the key to success in health, fitness and weight loss, so here they are…

Beef and Vegetable Soup

There’s an easy way to do this and a hard way to do this. I’ll go straight to the easy way and leave my notes on the end of the hard way. The hard way takes a few days to prepare the soup, but the health benefits are very high and in my opinion worth it.

Ingredients (based on an 8 litre pot):

• 1.2kg beef, diced if possible.
• 300g beetroot
• 300g zucchini
• 300g celery
• 300g carrot
• 300g onion
• As much garlic as you want.
• Whatever other vegetables you have in your fridge or cupboard that need to be used up. I’ve used red and green cabbage, kale, silverbeet (don’t use too much of this as it’s very strong), capsicum, ginger, leek and a whole bunch of others that I’ve forgotten.

I use all organic vegetables for maximum nutrient density plus the taste is much better!

Directions:

1. Find the biggest pot you have (mine is 8 litres) and fill it up one third with filtered water.
2. Dice your vegetables and throw them in.
3. Dice your meat and throw it in, or if you are smart you bought diced beef.
4. Bring to boil.
5. Reduce heat and simmer for as long as you feel like it. I’ll often leave mine going all day if I’m home or 2-3 hours minimum, but it’s not really necessary.
6. Add spices or salt, etc if needed and eat it, fridge it, freeze it or whatever.

I also make up a bone broth to compliment the soup. I picked up a kilo or so of organic beef bones (cost $4 from a local butcher) and boiled them up with some apple cider vinegar overnight.

Bone broths have amazing health benefits, contain plenty of protein and are great to boost the immune system. It’s a detailed process if its your first time making it so I suggest following the directions from Sarah Wilson’s blog just like I did. www.sarahwilson.com.au/2012/01/how-to-make-bone-broth-and-why-you-should

Pea and Ham Soup

I adopted this recipe from my mum, which is rare to take a recipe from her. She hates cooking and isn’t great at it, but this always turned out good.

Once again there’s a hard way thats healthier for you, but it’s not really that hard and notes are once again at the end.

Ingredients (based on an 8 litre pot):

• 1 kilo of bacon bones
• 1 kilo of bacon
• 1 kilo of yellow or green split peas (i’ve used both)
• Half to a whole celery including leaves
• 300g carrot
• 300g onion
• Whatever other vegetables you have in your fridge or cupboard that need to be used up. I add anything I have lying around.

Directions:

1. Find the biggest pot you have (mine is 8 litres) and fill it up with enough filtered water to cover the bacon bones.
2. Bring to the boil and immediately reduce to a simmer for an hour or so.
3. If you don’t like soup with bones in it, you can always take them out before adding the vegetables
4. Throw in the split peas
5. Dice your vegetables and throw them in.
6. Dice the bacon and throw it in.
7. Bring to boil.
8. Reduce heat and simmer for as long as you feel like it. Once again I’ll leave mine going all day if I’m home or 2-3 hours minimum, but it’s not really necessary.
9. Add spices or salt, etc if needed and eat it, fridge it, freeze it or whatever.

When cooking bones, it’s always best to use organic bones and leave them simmering for 12-72 hours following the procedure from Sarah Wilson. I realize that not everyone has this kind of patience or time so just do what you can.

When using split peas, you should soak them in filtered water and leave in the fridge overnight to help rehydrate the vegetable. This also helps release the enzymes in the peas and thus the body can digest them better, and you won’t get as much gas!

Give them a go and send me your favourite soup recipes too.
We need to share this info to really get the best benefit from our collective knowledge.
Enjoy!