Eight quick and easy soup recipes

When it’s cold, wet and icy outside there’s nothing like a warming bowl of nourishing soup. Soup is healthy, satisfying, extremely versatile and ideal for cooking in bulk to keep you going for a few days or store in the freezer for when you need it. Soup is also perfect for using up leftover meat and vegetables, or when you're low on fresh produce there are plenty of soup recipes that can be made with tinned or frozen vegetables.

All these soups can be made with minimal fuss – simple ingredients cooked gently for under an hour.

Chicken and rice soup

This simple chicken soup is an ideal way to use up leftovers from the Sunday roast, allowing you to turn leftovers that might have been thrown away into a quick, low cost lunch or supper with a few low-cost ingredients.

Recipe: chicken and rice soup

Pea and spinach soup

Pea and spinach makes a simple and healthy green soup that can be finished off with an optional swirl of beetroot to make a striking starter, although feel free to skip the beetroot if you want to keep it simple. This soup uses frozen peas and spinach, so it's a perfect store cupboard recipe, just requiring one potato, one onion and some garlic gloves in terms of fresh ingredients.

Recipe: pea and spinach soup

Minestrone

This simple combination of tinned chopped tomatoes, pasta and chopped vegetables makes a deliciously easy and healthy soup. You can mix and match vegetables according to what you have available and what needs using up from the fridge, or use frozen or tinned if you haven't been able to get to the shops recently. Potatoes, carrots, pulses and shredded cabbage or kale are ideal.

Recipe: minestrone

Leek and potato soup

Leek and potato soup was voted the second most popular soup flavour in the UK, only being beaten by tomato, so it's no wonder this recipe from Mary Berry is one of the most popular soup recipes we have. This classic silky smooth soup that can be enjoyed hot or chilled and turned into vichyssoise for a refreshing summer soup.

Recipe: leek and potato soup

Mushroom chilli broth

This is a quick and easy Japanese-style soup made with miso stock. Miso paste is made from fermented soy beans and adds a deep, rich umami flavour to soup stock, making it particularly good for vegetarian or vegan soup recipes. It's available from most supermarkets in a range of colours, with dark miso pastes having a much stronger flavour than light pastes.

Recipe: mushroom chilli broth

Classic tomato soup

Tomato soup is the nation's favourite flavour, which probably doesn't come as a surprise to anyone. Whether it's a good old tin of Heinz cream of tomato or a deliciously simple homemade recipe it seems this is a soup we just can't get enough of. Tomatoes are full of lycopene, an effective antioxidant, and when cooked they become even easier for the body to absorb. Tomato soup also gives you a great vitamin C boost.

Recipe: classic tomato soup

Spicy carrot soup

This deliciously spicy carrot soup flavoured with chilli and ginger makes a wonderful change from the more common carrot and coriander. Carrots are extremely cheap to buy, but jazzed up with the right flavours the possibilities are endless for this humble root veg - you could try our recipes for carrot and parsnip with cumin, carrot, orange and coriander or carrot, turmeric and watercress.

Recipe: spicy carrot soup

Watercress soup

Watercress soup is an easy way to get the health benefits of these nutritious greens that are packed with antioxidants and vitamin K.

Recipe: watercress soup

Visit our soup and stew recipe section for even more soup ideas

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