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Healthy Soups

Healthy Soups

January 07, 2018

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Soup is a great dish to serve year round and these healthy soups are delicious and good for you, too. From hearty black-bean turkey chili to gingery sweet potato soup, here are terrific healthy soup recipes. Make one of these delicious soups tonight!

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Miso Soup with Turmeric and Tofu

Credit: John Kernick

The combination of miso and turmeric is soothing and satisfying in this simple adaptation of classic miso soup.

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Tomato Soup with Feta, Olives and Cucumbers

This pretty, fresh-tasting tomato soup is David Chang’s riff on Greek salad: He tops it with tomatoes, olives, honeyed cucumbers and feta.

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Beef-and-Farro Soup

Chef and TV personality Hugh Acheson uses miso to add umami to this hearty and exceptionally savory soup.

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Creamy Piquillo Pepper and Chickpea Soup with Chicken

The secret to this speedy soup is buying ingredients with lots of built-in flavor, like hummus and jarred piquillo peppers.

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Corn Soup with Vadouvan

Vadouvan is a French spice blend inspired by Indian curry. Here, it's added to corn chowder for a new twist on the summer classic.

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Beet-and-Tomato Soup with Cumin

Benjamin Leroux's terrific soup is an unexpected mix of beets, tomatoes and tomato paste; it has the flavor of a light borscht.

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Curried Cauliflower Soup with Coconut and Chiles

Chef Annie Somerville thickens and enriches her fragrant cauliflower soup with unsweetened coconut milk. The thinly sliced jalapeño served on top adds a bright, fresh heat that’s delicious with the warm curry spices and sweet roasted cauliflower.

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Butternut Squash Soup

Adding collard greens, bell pepper, corn and carrot to a rustic butternut squash soup is Mary Ellen Diaz's clever way of making it even more healthy. Together these vegetables deliver vitamins A and C as well as fiber and powerful antioxidants.

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Quick Vietnamese Noodle Soup with Beef

Rocco DiSpirito likes to heat shirataki noodles (a low-calorie noodle made from tofu or a kind of sweet potato) in store-bought chicken broth seasoned with lime juice.

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Lentil Soup with Smoked Turkey

Simmering the broth with a Parmesan rind gives the soup an even richer taste than sprinkling the cheese on top.

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Split-Pea Soup with Portobellos

Meaty portobellos are especially good for adding substance and flavor to this soup, but shiitakes or other mushrooms will work well, too. You can also add a ham hock to the pot while the split peas cook, if you like.

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Colombian Chicken Soup

Chicken breast adds plenty of protein but not much fat to this version of ajiaco, a cilantro-scented chicken soup that's virtually Colombia's national dish. Stirring in fiber-rich brown rice turns the soup into a satisfying one-dish meal.

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Hearty Minestrone Soup

This satisfying soup from David Bull is an excellent source of fiber.

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Gingery Sweet Potato Soup

Sweet potatoes are a great source of beta-carotene, essential for vision. The soup uses only one cup of the ginger broth; the rest makes a terrific cooking liquid for grains like quinoa.

More Great Soups

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Spinach Soup with Horseradish Granité

Horseradish, originally consumed for medicinal purposes, became the condiment of choice for English roast beef in the 17th century. Chef Tristan Welch creates an ingenious granité by freezing horseradish with milk, scraping it into icy flakes and scooping it onto toasts to garnish a creamy nettle soup (spinach is excellent here too).

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Spicy Grain Soup

Based on a brothy tortilla soup, this fiery, substantial soup is full of nutty-tasting barley, brown rice and bulgur, creating a dish that's high in fiber.

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Avgolemono Chicken Soup with Rice

Avgolemono is a classic sauce of chicken broth, egg yolks and lemon juice; the addition of a bit more chicken broth, rice and shredded chicken turns it into a satisfying soup.

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Chickpeas and Swiss Chard in Parmesan and Sun-Dried-Tomato Broth

Top-quality jarred pesto is the key to this soup, contributing a lovely, herby nuttiness. Simmering the soup with a Parmigiano-Reggiano rind adds even more flavor complexity.

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Classic Split Pea Soup

"I haven't met a bean or pea that I didn't love," says Steven Satterfield. Here he soaks split peas for an hour before simmering them in the soup, so they're more tender and the soup is smoother.

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Black-Bean Turkey Chili

"In this industry, you often don't eat when you need to," says Ronnie Killen. "What helped me lose weight was eating at the right times." He started having real meals with lean proteins, like this turkey chili.

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Pea Consommé with Mint

This delicate broth is full of vitamin C, thanks to the pea pods Jeremy Fox simmers. (Snow peas are just as delicious and easier to find.) He tops the consommé with shards of white chocolate because he likes the way it brings out the peas' sweetness while adding only a little fat.

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Raw Sweet Corn and Cashew Chowder

Not only is yellow corn a good source of vitamin B, magnesium and thiamin, it also contains carotenoids (organic pigments with health benefits) not found in white corn. Ani Phyo likes to add a handful of vitamin A–rich spinach or soft lettuce to the chowder. “Then it becomes part-soup, part-salad,” she says.

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Chilled Fennel-Grapefruit Velouté with Lemon Olive Oil

For this soup, a citrus oil is used in two different ways: for sautéing fennel before pureeing it with grapefruit juice, and for garnishing the soup before serving.

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Chilled Persian Yogurt Soup

"Ask anyone on my staff their favorite summer dish, and they'll tell you it's this one," says Hoss Zaré. Filled with herbs, nuts and raisins, the soup is delicious with grilled bread.

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Grilled-Vegetable Gazpacho

Classic Andalucian gazpacho combines raw vegetables like tomatoes and onions with red wine vinegar for a little kick. Kerry Simon transforms the recipe by using grilled vegetables brightened with a blend of vinegar, orange juice and lemon juice.

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Zucchini-and-Watercress Soup

Sophie Dahl likes eating peppery watercress in the spring and has figured out a way to highlight its bright flavor in this silky soup. A single tablespoon of cream gives the vivid green soup a touch of richness.

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Chilled Cucumber Soup

Chef Eric Skokan grows hundreds of vegetables at his farm in Boulder, Colorado, analyzing each variety for its best use. He prefers the Zagross Persian cucumber for this tangy soup.

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Chilled Tomato Soup with Goat-Milk Yogurt

Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Brent Ridge make yogurt from the goat milk produced on the Beekman farm. They blend the tangy yogurt into this herb-flecked soup.

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Tomato-Miso Soup

This miso soup gets extra flavor from ripe tomatoes.

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Caribbean Green Soup

Callaloo, originally from Africa, is served throughout the Caribbean in different forms--from a thick side dish to the soup you see below.

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Summer Black Bean Soup with Corn and Tomatoes

This recipe works best with fresh corn and tomatoes at the height of the season. Add them in right at the end so they maintain their texture and fresh summer flavor.

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E.J.'s Vegetable Noodle Soup

The Good News In this nutrient-rich soup, the vegetables are cut very small and the flavors are simple. "It's one of the first dishes I cooked for E.J. and Meril," says Emeril Lagasse. "It's great for young kids."

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