Laughter is brightest where food is best. All the books you read might not have a happy ending, but the cookbook certainly has.
Every recipe that you read and try out after reading a cookbook it would surely be better than your usual cooking as you learn and get things better. Hot soup on a cold day doesn’t only keep you warm, but it also eliminates your daily worries and refines your appetite. And if you want to try out something new every day, a soup cookbook is a great choice for the warm delights.
Soup & Comfort by Pamela Ellgen
- Detailed information and easy to read a cookbook.
- Helpful tips on choosing your seasonal ingredients for seasonal soups.
- Nutritional information included for all the recipes.
- Great combination of flavor, simplicity, and variety.
- A good variety of vegetarian soups which are hard to find otherwise.
- Gluten-free recipes with a wide range of flavors.
- The cookbook also has cold soups for summer and spring.
What is a Soup Cookbook?
A soup cookbook is a collection of recipes along with all the ingredients, the process to make it, including temperature and timings. Soups are such a healthy option that you can serve it for breakfast, lunch, evening, and even for dinner and act as an important part of almost all the cuisine around the world.
Soups can be so versatile… you can choose between hot or cold, creamy or chunky, heavy or light, vegan or meat-filled, and to try out these options a cookbook serves you the best. Soup cookbooks can be specific to one style like Noodles soup cookbook where you get a good range of noodles soup recipes or can include a mixture of all the styles in which a soup can be prepared.
Related: Best Kitchen & Soup Ladles
Benefits of a Soup Cookbook
Cookbooks are a great addition to any kitchen bookshelf which offers you a lot of benefits as below:
- You may know about 10 to 50 soup dishes generally, but some cookbooks offer you around 300-700 varieties of soups.
- Soup cookbooks allow you to be creative and taste some never tried delicious soups.
- Some people may know only a portion or two to prepare, but when it comes to larger portions, i.e., friends get together or family events, the soup cookbook can help you with even proportions.
- Some cookbooks include gluten-free and diet soups that would help you on your weight loss journey.
- You may get some old fashioned grandma-style soup recipes at home instead of searching them in retro eateries.
- Easy to follow instructions offers you a deep understanding of the cuisine and inspires you for the delicious recipes.
- The amazing food photography in the soup cookbook helps you to feast your eyes, and you may try the recipes which you thought you wouldn’t like.
Buying Guide for a Soup Cookbook
A soup cookbook is not something you should just buy and keep on your bookshelf… but it should force you to try out those amazing recipes that you bought it for. To achieve it, we have listed below some of the guidelines which you can try out.
1. Prefer Individual Authors – Don’t buy the soup cookbooks sold by marketing agencies or companies owned as they would just include the photograph of the soup and its recipe. On the other hand, if you prefer the soup cookbooks from individual authors, you would read their personal experience along with the recipes. Those stories from the specific region of the world, grandmother’s cooking, or such reasons inspire you to make those recipes.
2. Tradition Focused – Traditional recipes allow you to know their time-honored techniques and native ingredients that are passed down for ages to achieve the wonderful taste and other medicinal or nourishing qualities. So, a particular regional cooking style recipe can inspire you to attain the same taste and style that is empowered by that particular tradition.
3. A manageable number of recipes – You may not always need a soup cookbook that contains 700-1000 recipes just because you want to buy a versatile cookbook… you may not even look at those 1000 recipes. With less but informative recipe book, you can experiment and enjoy the warm delights instead of just buying a huge number of soup recipes and not reading it. So, go for a manageable number like 50 -200 recipes for a better experience.
Related: Soup Ladle: What’re The Uses & How Much It Holds
4. Make a specific choice – Your choice may not be the same as everyone’s else choice; you can be specific to what you like and choose a soup cookbook accordingly. If you prefer vegan soup recipes, you can choose a vegan soup cookbook, or similarly, there are keto soup cookbooks, gluten-free recipe books, chicken soup cookbooks, bean soup cookbooks, and many more. So, if your taste is specific to only a few recipes, you may search for the specific soup cookbook and buy it instead of going for a cookbook that would contain hundreds of recipes but not of your taste.
5 Best Soup Cookbooks that you can Try Out
1. Soup & Comfort by Pamela Ellgen
Soup & Comfort cookbook is a collection of inventive, hearty classics, and some international favorites soup recipes to provide you the required comfort on a bone-chilling day or for soothing your soup cravings. You can explore some delicious and nourishing soup recipes that use fresh, easy-to-find, and affordable ingredients. Some of the delicious recipes include chilled soups, meaty soups, chili, stews, chowders, broths, minestrone, etc.
Key Features:
- The cookbook features 135 tempting recipes, including classics such as Grandma’s Chicken Noodle or New England Clam Chowder and international flavors such as Quick & Easy Ramen or Chicken Faux Pho.
- It includes some useful “fix-and-forget” recipe tips that you can use for making soups in a slow cooker.
- Great recipes with labels each for different groups… gluten-free, seafood, vegan, Paleo, etc. that help you find the right dish easily.
- The soup cookbook features soul-warming and dynamic recipes, including unique twists apart of some enticing classic recipes.
- Some of the recipes in the cookbook are health offerings that can guide you and your family if dealing with allergies or special diets.
- The soup cookbook also features some time-saving tips to prepare perfect garnishes and making great stocks.
- Detailed information and easy to read a cookbook.
- Helpful tips on choosing your seasonal ingredients for seasonal soups.
- Nutritional information included for all the recipes.
- Great combination of flavor, simplicity, and variety.
- A good variety of vegetarian soups which are hard to find otherwise.
- Gluten-free recipes with a wide range of flavors.
- The cookbook also has cold soups for summer and spring.
- Photos are very limited in the cookbook.
- Some recipes are mild and need more spices.
- Not suitable for families without any dietary agendas as vegan, paleo-friendly, or gluten-free.
2. New England Soup Factory Cookbook
Marjorie Druker- the author of the cookbook, is very passionate about soups. She mentions that her niche is taking what people like to eat and turning into a soup. There is a restaurant “New Elegant Soup Factory” that has won Best of Boston award four times, and people skip school to eat their soups. Now, you can enjoy those delicious soups by recreating the recipes with the cookbook.
Key Features:
- The soup cookbook features 100 Boston’s best-tasting creative and traditional soup recipes such as New England Clam Chowder, Wild Mushroom, and Barley soup, etc.
- The cookbook contains some unique combinations of ingredients that you would love to try out like Cucumber-Buttermilk soup, Raspberry-Nectarine Gazpacho.
- You get both vegetarian and non-vegetarian soup recipes in the cookbook, including a combination of both ingredients such as Curried Crab and coconut soup.
- The cooking recipes are accompanied by some engaging, colorful photographs and fun stories that will inspire you to try out the amazing recipes.
- Easy to read recipes with great pictures.
- You can try out these soups regularly.
- Cool soups for summer and hearty soups for winters.
- The flavor and simplicity of the soup recipes are fabulous.
- Recipe selection is great using simple ingredients.
- The cookbook also includes sandwiches and salad recipes for all seasons.
- Inspiration and fun stories are very charming to read.
- Some of the measurements were vague and a little funky.
- Most of the recipes are not very health conscious.
- A huge portion of the recipes is cream-based and heavy.
3. Soup Affair by Richy Kar
A guide that can help you make mouthwatering soup recipes from scratch. The soup recipes in the cookbook are nourishing, comforting and provide you the very essence of flavor. The inspiration of this cookbook is drawn from a home cook who had experimented with various permutations and combinations of ingredients and prepared world-class soups that have proved to be a benchmark of taste and nutrition.
Key Features:
- The soup cookbook features 100 delicious soup recipes that are creative and unique, including comfort classic to inventive international cuisine soups.
- The cookbook includes a soup-making requirement chapter that covers materials used for a soup such as tools, ingredients, seasoning, etc.
- The soup recipes are divided into three broad sections… Healthy soups, Fruit soups, and Asian soups, where each section contains informative and unique recipes.
- You get both vegetarian and non-vegetarian soup recipes… vegan recipes include ingredients like lentils, carrot, potato, cabbage, chickpea, pear, melon, pomegranate, orange, coconut with a mixture of non-vegetarian ingredients like beef, chicken, crab, tuna, etc.
- Recipes with a unique combination of vegetarian and non-vegetarian ingredients.
- The cookbook contains a seven-day diet plan.
- Great for gifting purposes.
- Easy “fix-and-forget” recipes for the slow cookers.
- Includes weight loss tips.
- Handy soup tips for livening leftovers.
- You may not like the cookbook if you don’t prefer creative and unique recipes.
- The audiobook will not help you with the look and feel of the recipes.
4. Good Housekeeping Soups
A Single Issue Magazine by the editors of Good Housekeeping that provides you a collection of tasty, easy, and healthy soup recipes. Some of the great recipes include chicken noodles, spiced tomato, slow cooker vegetable barley, corn, ginger meatball soup, potato chowder, and more interesting recipes. The comfort classic recipes are included with a twist to provide you a wonderful experience.
Key Features:
- The cookbook features 75+ delicious recipes with easy instructions that can help you to get your dinner table ready in 25 minutes or less.
- The cookbook contains recipes, including hearty, creamy, veggie, and non-vegetarian options for a versatile experience.
- You also get some tips and tricks along with the recipes that would guide you to achieve great results.
- The soup recipes in the magazine are great for all occasions that you can try for every season with the new twists on comfort classics.
- Quick and easy recipes for dinner time.
- Healthy and nourishing soup recipes option.
- Well tested-until-perfect recipe is achieved.
- Great for all seasons and occasions.
- Versatile recipes for experimenting.
- Noodle dishes with a beautiful aroma.
- The recipes are not inventive and unique.
- Most of the recipes are good for dinner time.
5. Taste of Home Soups
The paperback by Editors of Taste of Home contains appetizing homemade soup recipes, including old-fashioned favorites and quick meal ideas. For the chilling winters, these one-pot hot meals recipes will make your family eat more veggies and provide you comfort and ease from the outside chill with delight. Some of the recipes from the paperback include Emily’s Bean soup, Quick Italian Wedding soup, Classic Cream of Asparagus soup, steak soup, Microwave Minestrone, Confetti Chowder, and more.
Key Features:
- The cookbook contains 380 savory and mouthwatering recipes that are family favorites and easy to prepare.
- The soup recipes are created using readily available ingredients, and the instructions to prepare the soup are very clear.
- There are a few pages of bread that would go along with the soups and stews for a tasty and full meal.
- You get the versatile soup recipe options that you can try for fall, spring, and winter, obviously.
- Sharply focused and colored photos.
- No dependency on undiluted soups as a base.
- Simple and straight forward recipes.
- Includes both vegetarian and non-vegetarian options.
- There is a soup recipe for almost every ingredient.
- A huge number of soup recipes that your family would love.
- Great to gift your relatives on Christmas eve or other similar events.
- Most of the recipes include canned condensed soup.
- There are a lot of recipes for the same soups.
Also read:
