It’s Soup Season! Here Are the 9 Recipes You Need

So for all my fellow soup lovers out there, here are the nine soups you’ll want to make to celebrate soup season.

One of the soups I like to make to transition into soup season is a minestrone. It’s a brothy soup, which gives it some lightness, but it’s also chock-full of veggies, beans, and pasta, making it hearty. If you’re just on the verge of feeling ready for soup season, I recommend our Slow-Cooker Minestrone. It’s a chicken broth–based soup that’s brimming with white beans, zucchini, tomatoes, and greens. After a little prep on the stovetop, it simmers away in the slow cooker for about 6 hours, giving you plenty of time to whip up some rolls to serve alongside (if that’s your thing).

Ribollita is similar to minestrone. It has a brothy, tomatoey base with lots of beans and Swiss chard, but the key to ribollita is the bread. Torn rustic Italian bread gets baked until dry and then stirred into the soup where it breaks down and thickens the broth, making the soup hearty and filling. See, I told you soup and bread were meant to be.

Another brothy but hearty bean-based soup is our Chickpea Soup with Pancetta and Rosemary. This soup is inspired by similar recipes from the Italian region of Umbria and makes use of pantry staples and humble ingredients. Pancetta gives the soup a meaty backbone while chickpeas and kale add some bulk. It’s delightful with a bit of Pecorino Romano grated over top. 

Our Pork Meatball Soup with Wonton Noodles and Baby Bok Choy also gets some flavor from a porky ingredient. In this case it’s the ground pork we use to form the meatballs. The combination of pork, scallion, ginger, soy sauce, sesame oil, and chili-garlic sauce makes for some very flavorful meatballs. These simmer in a ginger-enhanced chicken broth along with bok choy and wonton noodles. Slipping the noodles into the soup means there’s no need to wrap the meat in the noodles to make this deconstructed wonton soup.

A must-make list of soups could not be complete without rich, soothing chicken noodle soup. We have several versions, but it’s our Old-Fashioned Chicken Noodle Soup that I’m going to sing the praises of here. We wanted a relatively quick, easy chicken soup (one that could be made even when you’re feeling under the weather), so we started by browning bone-in chicken pieces to build flavor. Then we added store-bought chicken broth, onion, carrot, and celery and simmered the chicken right in the broth. The chicken gets shredded, pasta gets cooked in the broth, and the chicken gets added back in to warm through. That’s it. The soup is ready for eating. It’s flavorful and fast and, like most soups, can be made ahead (and is even better reheated the next day). 

It’s hard to beat silky butternut squash soup when the leaves start to turn and sweater weather sets in. Our Butternut Squash and Red Pepper Soup starts with crisping pancetta to add savory notes. The squash, red bell pepper, and some aromatics get sautéed in the fat left behind and then simmered in chicken broth. Once the squash is softened, it’s just a matter of blending it and stirring in some sherry vinegar to give it a little flavor boost. The crispy pancetta gets sprinkled on top along with fresh chives. 

Sweet potatoes rival butternut squash when it comes to making a silky pureed soup. For a flavor-packed version, we started our Curried Sweet Potato Soup with Spiced Pepitas by blooming curry powder and sautéing garlic and ginger. Then we cooked sliced sweet potatoes in a mixture of water, coconut milk, and miso until they were tender. An immersion blender quickly smooths out the soup, and a topping of spiced oil and toasted pepitas adds interest and crunch.

Looking for the ultimate comforting soup? It’s our Cheesy Chicken and Broccoli Soup. Cheesy broccoli soup is already a crowd-pleaser (think Panera’s broccoli-cheddar soup), but we add some chicken to it to really make it entrée-worthy. A combination of cheddar cheese and American cheese ensures that the soup has that classic flavor plus a supercreamy texture. 

For the richest, most indulgent bowl of soup, opt for French Onion Soup. Ours focuses on slowly caramelizing the onions. We start them covered to trap steam and soften them and then we uncover them to let the liquid evaporate and develop deep browning on the onions. We splash in some red wine to deglaze the pot, making sure to scrape up all the flavorful caramelized bits so that they incorporate into the soup. Then we add beef broth and simmer everything together to build flavor. While the soup simmers, we crisp up slices of baguette. When the soup is ready, we spoon the soup into crocks, sprinkle some Gruyère cheese into each, set the baguette slices on top, mound more Gruyère and some Parmesan over them, and pop the crocks under the broiler. The result is delightfully melty cheese and bubbling-hot intensely oniony soup.