7 Tips for Successful Soup Making | America's Test Kitchen (2024)

FAQs

What are the 5 basic principles to be followed in making delicious soup? ›

The document provides 5 basic principles of preparing soup: 1) Starting with cold water. 2) Cutting vegetables to an appropriate size. 3) Selecting a protein such as beef, chicken, pork, or fish. 4) Simmering the soup for 4 hours.

A good soup should be full-flavored, with no off or sour tastes. Flavors from each of the soup's ingre- dients should blend and complement, with no one flavor overpowering another. Con- sommés should be crystal clear. The vegetables in vegetable soups should be brightly colored, not gray.

It may sound a bit strange and unusual for some, but vinegar is a common ingredient in some soup recipes, and there is a good reason for it. If you think about it, vinegar is really a flavor-enhancer (umami). That's why it is so often used in cooking, sauces, and salad dressings. The same is true with soups.

There is an Italian saying: “La zuppa fa sette cose.” It means “Soup does seven things.” Soup quenches thirst, satisfies hunger, fills your stomach, aids digestion, makes teeth sparkle, adds color to cheeks and aids sleep. In other words, soup cures most, if not all human ills.

For clear, brothy soups, stock is your most important ingredient. If you want to make a good soup, you need to use an excellently flavored stock — otherwise, the entire pot could be tasteless.

Bring it all to a boil, then simmer. You will know it's done when it's all tender, anywhere from 25 minutes to 3 hours depending on the ingredients. Meat is a luxurious addition to any soup. When you can, choose stewing cuts, such as chicken legs, pork shoulder, beef chuck, short ribs or shank.

What is the common problem of making soup? ›

Overcooking the vegetables:

Try to avoid overcooking vegetables, by adding them according to how much time they need to cook. Regardless of what people think, soup making is a gradual process. For more depth of flavor, add the vegetables that need to cook the longest first.

But once those vegetables are exhausted, they're strained and switched out for a fresh set of thinly sliced celery and carrot. These are added for the final 4–5 minutes of cooking so that they're tender but nowhere near mushy. You get the sweet luxury of long-cooked vegetables and the freshness of crisp-tender ones.

What vegetables go first in a soup? The aromatics of onions, carrots, and celery get sauteed first followed by the garlic, making them first in the soup. Once the broth goes in, so too do the tomatoes, potatoes, parsley, and bay leaves. Then you add your frozen veggies.

All soups and stews must have three major components in order to be tasty: an undercurrent liquid, aromatics, and volumizing ingredients. In every case, they're layered together until all of the flavors meld together in a harmonious, silky balance.