Kitchen Tips for Soup

So it is official, I start way to many posts with the word "So", but often edit it out in the end, and I am not in a rut, I am sick, again. We shared sinus colds before our trip home to visit, and now we are sharing the plugged up nose/chest colds. Sigh.

So today I punted my original meal plan and am making Italian Meatball Soup in the slow cooker using ground turkey for my meatballs.

But this got me thinking about the things I do that make soup making a snap!

Which naturally brings us to:

Soup Pasta

I love all those fancy little shaped pasta you can get now, and they often go on sale! When they do I stock up on alphabets, stars, orzo, and whatever other little shapes grab my fancy! But I hate having all those little open bags roaming around my cupboard! They are so unorganized, they spill, I forget what I have, little bugs can get into the bags, etc. It makes me a little bit nuts!

So I open one of each bag I want to be using, pour them all in a bowl, mix them, and then fill glass jars from things like mayonnaise, pasta sauce, etc. Then, when I make soup I just have to measure out the appropriate amount and I always have a variety!

Stock

When I make a roast chicken I keep all the bones, skin, etc that we would not eat, and use it to make stock. I usually just keep dumping parts into the slow cooker while I am carving the chicken and then let it simmer over night in the slow cooker so that I do not have to worry about finding room in the fridge for it. Then in the morning I cool it and freeze it in 1 cup portions as it usually ends up being very concentrated. Then when I make soup I pull out 1 cup, add about another 2-3 cups of water and I am set!

Soup Veggies

I am sure that I am not the only woman who as found vegetables that are still okay, but not the freshest variety around, and then realized that I cannot use them all up in time! When this happens I just chop them up and freeze them in soup sized portions. That way I am not throwing money away, and when I want to make soup I can just open my freezer and pull out vegetables that are ready to go! Sometimes I freeze a variety in one bag, sometimes I just freeze one thing, it all depends on what is in the fridge. (Plus I always keep diced tomatoes in the pantry and frozen veggies in the freezer for variety!)


I have to confess that I felt so horrible this morning that if it had not been for these tricks I would have been in big trouble today, but now we will have a healthy, hearty meal for supper. I will pair the soup with oatmeal bread!

What tips do you have for making homemade soup easier?