Garden glut soup | Vegetables recipes | Jamie Oliver (2024)

FAQs

What gives vegetable soup that depth of flavor? ›

Tips for Flavorful Vegetable Soup

Flavor the base: We add Italian seasoning and tomato paste to the aromatics and warm them up to bring the seasonings back to life. You could use fresh herbs like thyme or rosemary, or even add a Parmesan rind for more flavor.

But to put some pep back in your soup's step, you're going to want to add more. Start by sautéing any combination of finely chopped vegetables and alliums—like onion, garlic, carrots, celery, bell peppers, and ginger. Whatever you choose is going to infuse the entire can of soup you're about to heat.

Dried herbs and seasonings: homemade seasoned salt, black pepper, Italian seasoning, and dried bay leaves lend flavor to the soup. Stock: I much prefer chicken stock over vegetable stock in terms of flavor, though if you want to keep this soup vegetarian, feel free to use vegetable broth or stock instead.

It may sound a bit strange and unusual for some, but vinegar is a common ingredient in some soup recipes, and there is a good reason for it. If you think about it, vinegar is really a flavor-enhancer (umami). That's why it is so often used in cooking, sauces, and salad dressings. The same is true with soups.

Cornflour or cornstarch is used to thicken the vegetable soup. It can be replaced with 1 medium boiled potato or 3 tbsp oats flour or barley flour. To make oat or barley flour, simply powder the rolled oats or barley in a blender to get a fine powder.

To minimize the loss, use the cut vegetables promptly. Long, slow cooking is more destructive than rapid cooking for a brief period. To quickly destroy enzymes in vegetables that oxidize vitamins, add the vegetables to rapidly boiling water. Stirring of foods also tends to increase the rate of oxidation.

It's time to ring the changes: out with butter, in with extra-virgin olive oil. Swapping the saturated fats in butter for the (heart-friendly) unsaturated fats in extra-virgin olive oil for tastier, healthier vegetable soup. It's all good, so what are you waiting for!

How do you make soup taste richer? ›

"If your broth is lacking in savory richness, try adding roasted onion, tomato paste, mushrooms, seaweed, soy sauce, or miso. These ingredients add umami flavor and depth to broth," she says. The choice of ingredient depends on the recipe, though.

A squeeze of citrus, a dollop of yogurt or a drizzle of cream, a dusting of cheese or a good chile powder, a sprinkling of some herbs or croutons — all can take a perfectly fine soup into the realm of the delectable. Even a spiral of good olive oil to finish and some coarse sea salt can do wonders.

For clear, brothy soups, stock is your most important ingredient. If you want to make a good soup, you need to use an excellently flavored stock — otherwise, the entire pot could be tasteless.

To season it, we recommend starting with our Vegetable Soup Mix. It contains celery salt, parsley flakes, garlic powder, sea salt, summer savory, marjoram, thyme, black pepper, turmeric and sage, which are all excellent with root vegetables, so you can incorporate things like carrots or potatoes into the soup.

Garlic and roasted onions add depth. Simmering mushrooms down concentrates flavors for mushroom soup. Simmering most vegetables down also adds more concentrated flavors and reduces the water in them. Herbs, salt and pepper also help.

Vegetable broth: The key to a flavorful soup is to start with a quality broth. Bay leaves, fresh thyme and rosemary: fresh herbs add a subtle flavor layer that adds more depth to your soup. Lemon juice: lemon juice adds a game-changing brightness to the soup.

Boost the Umami of Vegetable Broth

Soy sauce, tamari, or liquid aminos add great depth, but watch out for using too much—you'll end up making the stock only taste like super-salty soy. Start with about 2 teaspoons per quart and adjust from there. Remember, you can always add more.

Making a delicious soup depends on building flavors as you go along. Aromatics, which include garlic, onion, leeks, carrots and celery, are the basic flavor-building blocks of most soup recipes. Sautéing these vegetables in oil or butter is the first step to boosting your soup's flavor.