How to Make Soup with Three Owls Market

Chances are, in quarantine times (or even regular times!) there is some produce staring you in the face that you want to use up before it goes bad, but you’re feeling uninspired. Enter soup! Suzanne from Three Owls Market shared the steps for making soup out of (almost anything). This is not an exact science – the beauty of this “recipe” is it’s a blank slate for your taste preferences for flavor profile and ratio. If you love garlic or ginger? Add in more! If you want only a tiny bit of spice? Only put in a pinch. 

Ingredients:

Main Ingredient: choose something hearty, like winter or summer squashes (butternut, acorn, zucchini, etc.), or sweet potato, Yukon gold potato, broccoli, mushrooms, cauliflower, carrots…

Quantity: Look for AT LEAST 2 cups of chopped main ingredient vegetable to make a soup. 

Aromatics: Ideally, choose a mix of alliums (onion, shallot, scallion, leeks) and herbs/spices/garlic/fresh ginger. Choose woody herbs like rosemary, oregano, thyme instead of flimsy ones like parsley. Save those for garnish or blending at the end. 

Some ideas for spices include blends like curry powders or herbes de Provence, cumin, coriander, ginger, crushed red pepper, turmeric, cinnamon, dried herbs, fennel seed, paprika, bay leaf, etc. 

Quantity: for alliums, about 1 shallot or half onion for 2-3 cups of vegetable; more if more of the main ingredient. For woody herbs, 

Liquid: Chicken stock, vegetable stock, coconut milk, or a mix of water and something flavorful like a dry white wine or apple cider vinegar. 

Steps:

Chop your main ingredient into 1-inch pieces so it cooks faster. Finely chop your aromatics as well, although you’ll be blending this eventually so don’t worry about going crazy!

Melt some fat — butter, olive or neutral oil, coconut oil — in a medium pot with a lid over medium-low heat. Add your heartier aromatics, like alliums, garlic, or fresh ginger. Season lightly with kosher salt and cook, stirring, until softening and becoming translucent but without getting too brown, 3-5 minutes (depending on what you’ve used). 

Now add in your herbs and spices. For woody herbs, strips the leaves from a few sprigs — for something milder like thyme, you can use more sprigs; for rosemary, 2-3 sprigs max. For spices, I would recommend about 1 teaspoon per 2-3 cups of chopped main ingredient vegetable for milder spices, for stronger spices like cumin or coriander, use about ½ teaspoon. 

Cook your herbs and spices, stirring, for 1-2 minutes until fragrant. You don’t want spices to burn!

Add in your main ingredient and season with kosher salt and black pepper, if desired. Stir into the aromatics and cook to let flavors meld a bit, about 5 minutes. 

Pour in your liquid to just cover all your pot contents. Err on the side of less liquid; you can always add more later. Cover the pot,  bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce to a simmer over medium low heat. Simmer just until you can smush the main ingredient against the side of the pot with a spoon and it’s blend-able.

Let cool to room temperature, and blend in a food processor or blender (do NOT overfill the blender or put hot liquid in there) in batches if needed. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed, then refrigerate, freeze, or reheat slightly and eat right away!