Hearty Vegetable Parsley Soup

This hearty vegan soup is chock full of good stuff, including what may seem like a crazy amount of parsley, but it is exactly the right amount of parsley – and only $0.69 a cup. Nice.

As I write this, it is mid-March. Not exactly the peak of soup season, but here in NYC it’s still in the 30s, last week’s 60-degree days a distant memory.

Therefore, it is still soup weather.

My mother was the one who introduced me to the concept of loading soup with parsley. It is not exactly her recipe, which unfortunately I do not have written down. It’s just my best guess as to her recipe – the soup she made every time anyone in the family was sick.

So credit goes to Joan Taber for this one.

Most people think of parsley as a garnish, something a chef tosses onto a plate on its way out the kitchen, only to be promptly removed by the patron and placed on the table where it will later be swept onto a dirty plate and then scraped into the garbage.

Parsley deserves better than that.

This is a simple recipe with a few options to make it whatever you want. If you use the same ingredients and amounts I did, it should make about 8 cups of soup.

INGREDIENTS

Exact amounts are in the recipe at the end of this post.

A general rule with soup is that there are no rules. Unlike baking, where it helps to be exact in measuring and weighing ingredients, soups and stews and chilis are very forgiving. So feel free to play around with the ingredients and amounts.

• Carrots and celery work well in just about any soup.
• I like curly parsley, but you can use flat parsley. Curly parsley is used more as a garnish, but my mom always used it in soup and I really like the texture and flavor. More on the difference between the two types of parsley.
• Cannellini beans, a.k.a. white kidney beans, are great in soup and usually found in minestrone. I’ve also used Great Northern beans in this soup. More about those two types of beans.
• I used Yukon Gold potatoes for this recipe instead of the less expensive Idaho potatoes, as I prefer the buttery taste of Yukons and think they work better in soup than the more starchy Idaho. For me, it’s one of those ingredients that’s worth the slightly higher cost.

BROTH

I did not include broth in the above photo of ingredients but, obviously, you need a broth. Options for broth include:

• Packaged broth. You can buy this at the store in boxes or cans. I find that, while they are convenient and can taste good, they are fairly expensive, with one 4-cup box costing anywhere between $3 and $7. In my humble opinion, one cup of broth should not be more than a dollar.
• Bouillon. You can use bouillon cubes or granules to make broth. These are usually more economical than boxed broth but tend to be very salty.
• Soup base. This thick, paste-like ingredient is a great way to make broth with water. The only brand I’ve ever used is Better Than Bouillon, which I used for the recipe in this post. You don’t need a lot of it and, if you can find the big jars, it’s super cheap compared to boxed broth. Also, my health-conscious mom used it.
• Make your own. You can make your own stock at home from vegetables and/or bones (if you’re into bones). Depending on how you season it, using homemade stock might require more spices than are in this recipe.

INSTRUCTIONS

Detailed instructions are in the recipe at the end of this post.

This is an easy recipe that doesn’t take long. That said, if you want to make life super easy, you could throw everything together in a pot of broth at the same time and cook until done. But I think doing these steps in this order help bring out the best flavor.

After chopping the vegetables, potatoes, onions, and garlic:

1. On low to medium heat, heat the olive oil and sauté the onions, salt, and pepper
2. Add the carrots and celery, mix, and cook until heated
3. Add the broth, potatoes, and garlic
4. Turn up the heat and bring to a boil
5. Once boiling, add the beans and turn down the heat to low
6. Simmer, then add the parsley at the very end and cook until wilted

I find that sautéing the onions, spices, and vegetables first brings out a nice flavor in the soups, similar to the way I do it in my lentil chili recipe.

You can cook the parsley for longer but I usually prefer to not over-cook anything with leaves. It’s mostly the potato chunks that need to cook through. Once they’re soft, the soup is done.

TIPS

• Chop everything ahead of time. It’s just easier.
• Choose your own brothiness. I purposely made this soup less brothy than others may prefer because I like heartier soup. If you’re unsure, err on the less brothy side while it’s cooking since it’s always easier to add more liquid. If you think you want more liquid, add more toward the end of cooking once the food has absorbed the broth.
• Don’t worry about the bean skin. You can remove whatever extra skin you see in the can but there’s no need to remove it from the beans.
• Stir the soup occasionally. This helps it cook evenly and break up the beans a bit, which leads to extra soup creaminess.
• Test a potato chunk at the end of cooking. Once the potatoes are soft, the soup is likely done.
• Store and freeze extra servings. For storage, add 1-2 cups of soup (whatever you want a serving to be) to glass jars and store in the fridge for up to five days or in the freezer for up to a few months. Thaw in the fridge the day before using, or heat the jar slowly submerged partly in warm water (not over heat) or in the microwave.

SUBSTITUTIONS AND ADDITIONS

Instead of…

• Carrots or celery, you can add any other vegetables you like to this soup.
• Potatoes, you can add more vegetables or leave them out entirely (just remember that without substituting anything for potatoes, you’ll wind up with more brothy soup).
• Cannellini beans, you can try Great Northern beans, navy beans, chick peas, or any other type of bean. You could also leave out the beans, but they add flavor and protein to an otherwise carb-heavy soup.

Feel free to add…

• Pasta. My mom always added macaroni pasta to this type of soup. However, she did not cook the pasta in the soup. This is important, unless you like your pasta overcooked and mushy! Just cook the pasta separately and add it to your bowl of soup when serving.
• Chili garlic sauce or sriracha sauce. If you like an extra kick in your soup, feel free to add a small amount to each serving, or even to the entire soup.
• Tamari or soy sauce. I love adding a dash of tamari to soup. Unless you get the low sodium version, it can be a salty, so don’t go overboard.
• Grated cheese. I’m not a huge cheese person, but I’ve dusted some dry cheese onto a soup or two.

COST BREAKDOWN

As you may have guessed, vegetable soup is cheap.

This pot of soup, containing a little over 8 cups of soup, cost me $5.50 to make. Depending on how many servings this makes for you, it’s either $0.69 per cup or $1.37 per two cups of soup. Not bad.

Here’s what I paid in NYC. Note that your ingredient costs may differ depending where you live and shop.

• olive oil: $0.06
• yellow onion: $0.10
• salt: $0.01
• black pepper: $0.01
• carrots: $0.50
• celery: $0.64
• soup base: $0.64
• potatoes: $2.09
• cannellini beans: $1.09
• garlic: $0.16
• curly parsley: $0.21

Total cost: $5.50

The most expensive item was the Yukon Gold potatoes, which at my local store are $1.69 a pound as opposed to the much less expensive Idaho potatoes which are around $0.89 or $.99 a pound (and maybe even cheaper if you buy a bag). But again, I opted to pay a little more for the less starchy potatoes that work better in soup.

The cannellini beans were organic, and they are from Whole Foods’ 365 line which is pretty cheap.

The soup base is Better Than Bouillon which, considering it takes just one teaspoon of base per cup of water, is so much cheaper than boxed broth.

And the rest of the ingredients is mostly from my local store.

If you make this recipe or have any questions, please let me know in the comments!