How to Make Vegetarian Soup

Vegetarian soup is a liquid food that is made by boiling vegetables in water and then seasoning and occasionally thickening the liquid that is created. It is normally served as the first course of a dinner, and it is also frequently served as a light meal, such as luncheon, on its own.

Soup is an easily created, economical and when properly prepared from fresh, nutritious vegetables, very nourishing food.

Care should be taken to produce this food attractive enough to appeal to the appetite, so it should not be greasy nor insipid in flavour, neither should it be served in large quantities nor without the correct accompaniment.

A small quantity of well-seasoned, attractively presented vegetarian soup cannot fail to obtain approval when it is served as the first course of the meal. The purpose of this piece is to acquaint you with the details of cooking appetizing and nutritious vegetarian soup that is both nutritious and healthy.

The three main sorts of soup that can be cooked from wholly vegetarian (yet not necessarily vegan) ingredients are: broths, cream soups (contains dairy produce) and purees. The basis of these three kinds can be a vegetable stock made from either dried or fresh vegetables or both.

BROTHS have as their foundation a clear vegetarian stock. They are sometimes a thin soup, yet other times they are made fairly thick with vegetables, rice or barley when they are served as a substantial part of a meal.

CREAM SOUPS are extremely nutritious and there are lots of varieties. They have for their foundation a thin cream sauce, and to this are always added vegetables or grains.

PUREES are soups made thick partly or completely by the addition of some foodstuff obtained by boiling an article of food and then straining it to make a pulp.

If vegetables containing starch such as beans, peas, lentils or potatoes are used for this purpose, it is not necessary to thicken the soup with any additional starch, yet if watery vegetables are used, other thickening is required. To be right, a puree should be nearly as smooth as thick cream and of the same texture.

When making vegetarian soup always use soft water and be careful to proportion the quantity of water to that of the vegetables. Somewhat less than two pints of water to a pound of vegetables is a good rule for ordinary soups. Rich soups, meant for company, might have a smaller amount of water.

Here is a puree type recipe for carrot soup:

CARROT SOUP

4 decent-sized carrots, 1 small head of celery, 1 fair-sized onion, 1 turnip, 3 oz. of breadcrumbs, 1-1/2 oz. of butter or margarine, 1 blade of mace, pepper and salt to taste.

Scrape and clean the vegetables; cut them up small; place them in a pan with 3 pints of water, the butter or margarine, breadcrumbs, and mace. Boil until the vegetables are fairly tender; rub everything through a sieve and return the mixture to the saucepan.

Reheat; season with salt and pepper. If it is too thick add water. The soup should be as thick as cream; boil and serve with crusty bread.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on several subjects, is now involved with low carb vegetarian recipes. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at http://vegetariancasserolerecipes.com