Mmmmm, soup season. Cooler weather certainly brings the urge to tuck into a bowl of something warm and comforting. The fall harvest is also a perfect time to experiment with all kinds of hearty veggies, so much so that we might have a tendency to overbuy—just a little. If you notice you’ve got a little extra languishing in the fridge or pantry, soup is the perfect vessel to use it up before it goes to waste, a fate about one-third of the food we bring home unfortunately meets.
We pulled together five of our favorites, but remember that any vegetable(s) can transform into a splendid soup. The formula: Chop any allium—onion, garlic, shallot—and sauté for a few minutes. Toss in chopped veg and cook until it softens a little. Add a quart of broth or water per pound of roughage, and toss in any spices you like. Bring that all to a boil, lower to a simmer, and let it hang out until the vege is tender. If you’ve got some leftover beans, greens, or herbs, toss them in to warm and/or wilt at the end.
Soy curl soup for the soul
Our take on a classically comforting chicken and rice soup includes a heaping handful of herbs, which makes it a perfect place to dump the half-bunch of parsley you just unearthed in the fridge. The rest of this bowl of goodness is pretty right-down-the-middle, with the notable exception of swapping chicken for cheap-and-meaty soy curls.
Low-waste pumpkin soup
The mammoth gourds that perch on our porches during spooky season aren’t usually the most flavorful squash on the block. They tend to be more fibrous and watery with paler flesh. But with a little TLC, you can put jack-o-lantern guts (pulp, seeds, flesh, and all) to good use in this delicious seasonal soup.
Quick veggie ramen
This heaping bowl of noodles revolves around a meatless riff on a traditional creamy tonkotsu broth, flavored with soy sauce, miso, and tomato paste to deliver the satisfying umami hit. For a more complete bowl of goodness, we’re throwing in some tofu, baby bok choy, and mushrooms, but you can use whatever veggies you’ve got on hand.
Winter squash ribollita
Ribollita is a traditional Tuscan soup made with vegetables and beans and thickened with stale bread. The word ribollita translates to “reboiled,” as this soup was traditionally made by doing just that with leftover beans and greens. The addition of bread helps make it more satisfying. It’s perfect when the weather calls for something warm and brothy, but you need it to be heartier.
Hearty vegan multi-mushroom soup
This soup, which uses up a whallopping portion of mushrooms, comes to our kitchen courtesy of Adeena Sussman and her cookbook Shabbat. It calls for a couple particular mushroom varieties, but Sussman says if you don’t have any “fancy” mushrooms you could make the whole thing with button mushrooms and it would be equally delicious.