soups

kitchen tips

When you taste your soup, you may feel it is too salty. This happens from time to time to everyone. Add a peeled potato to your soup. After fifteen minutes, remove it. The potato will soak up any excess salt. It tastes pretty good later, too, as it has soaked up some of the flavor of the mixture.
Save the rinds from wedges of parmesan cheese then stash in the freezer. Add to simmering soups and stews to add unbelievable depth of flavour.
Keep all your veggie cutoffs to make stock…you will save lots of money.
Never boil your soup. Simmering keeps the flavours intact.
Soups are a lot easier to put together if you have stock on hand, and good quality vegetarian bouillon is also a pantry essential.
The very best soups are made with homemade stock. Any ingredients you use should be as fresh as possible. While this does add to the total cooking time, you cannot beat the flavour.
Add salt toward the end of cooking time rather than at the beginning; you’ll lose flavour the longer it cooks.
Bulk up light soups with beans, rice, barley, potatoes, lentils, pasta.
To absorb soup fat, place a piece of lettuce on the surface of soup, then remove and discard it.
To avoid mushy veggies, add the longest cooking vegetables first, then add the ones that take less time. Quick cooking veggies like peas and corn don’t need to be added until near the end.
After soup has finished cooking, remove as much of the fat as possible by cooling the soup. Refrigerate it, then remove the fat that has hardened along the surface.
Noodle soups: For best results, cook your pasta separately. This keeps the pasta from adding starch to your soup. Pasta should be the last ingredient you add.
If you like creamed soups but need to watch your calories, you can substitute your heavy cream with a combination of a quart of cold water, two cups of powdered milk and a half can of evaporated milk.
Try incorporating mashed potatoes in your soup to make it nice and creamy; you can also use as a thickener.