How To Make Vegetable Soup

It is easy to overestimate how much produce you plan to use during the week. All the vegetables in the produce section look so enticing, but some weeks you just don’t have the time to prepare dishes as planned. But vegetables that are losing freshness don’t have to go to waste. You can use them as the backbone for a light and satisfying vegetable soup. Mix flavors, colors and textures like cabbage, peas and peppers. It is hard to go wrong with vegetable soup, just be sure to add a flavorful broth as the base. In this video, Chef Mark provides a step-by-step online cooking lesson on how to make vegetable soup. For more great cooking demonstration videos, subscribe to the LearnToCookOnline YouTube channel.

Clear Vegetable Soup Recipe

Ingredients:
2 oz butter or chicken fat
2 oz onion, small dice
1 oz carrot, small dice
1 oz celery, small dice
1 oz turnips, small dice
2 ½ pt chicken stock
2 oz canned tomatoes, drained, coarsely chopped
½ tsp garlic, crushed
1 oz frozen peas
Kosher salt
White pepper

Procedure:
1. Heat the butter in a heavy saucepot over medium heat.
2. Add the onions, carrots, celery, and turnips. Sweat the vegetables in the butter over low heat until they are about half cooked. Then add the garlic. Do not let them brown.
3. Add the tomatoes and sweat them for a few minutes.
4. Deglaze the sauce pan with a little of the canned tomato juice and stock.
5. Add the remaining stock and simmer until the vegetables are al dente.
6. Periodically skim the surface of the soup using a paper towel to remove impurities.
7. Add the peas and simmer for 3-5 minutes and adjust the flavor with salt and white pepper.
8. At service time serve soup in a hot bowl.

Variations
Other vegetables may be used in addition to or in place of one or more of the vegetables in the basic recipe: leeks, rutabaga, green cabbage, parsnips, potatoes, green beans, lima beans, or corn; add to the simmering soup, timing the addition so that all of the vegetables are done at the same time. Other cuts may be used for the vegetables instead of small dice, such at batonnet, julienne or paysanne.

If you have questions or comments about this video or recipe please leave them below.