Soup's On!
Anyone else excited it’s officially #soupseason? I love how comforting a warm bowl of soup can be, however at times it may not be filling enough on its own. What we can do then is think about some gentle nutrition, and utilize the “nutrition by addition” mentality. More on this can be found in a previous blog post.
Here’s some ideas for bringing more nutrient and energy density to soup:
Depending on the type of soup/recipe, you can always add more to it. For example, take a can of chicken noodle soup - you could add some more protein and starch by mixing in a can of beans or lentils. Or for a homemade soup, you can consider what food group may be lacking and add. Perhaps you’ve made a delicious tomato soup with all of the final tomatoes from your garden or farmer's market, but you know that it’s lacking protein and carbohydrate. Could you also make a grilled ham and cheese sandwich to dunk into the soup and add those missing food groups?
Add more fiber. Consider if it makes sense to the flavor profile of the soup to add more fibrous components such as additional vegetables, potatoes, beans, corn, lentils or a whole wheat grain such as brown rice to a chicken and rice soup!
Increase the volume. This might sound like an obvious idea but if you’re not full and satisfied after making some of these gentle nutrition adjustments, you might need to consider if you ate enough of a portion! Soup can seem filling due to the liquid component giving us volume fullness, but you may not be taking in much energy density and therefore need to eat more than you’d initially portion out. This also pertains to serving sizes. Remember, serving sizes are a suggestion! If a container of soup says that the serving size is for 2 but you need the full container to feel comfortable fullness and satiety for your meal, then that’s the right portion for you!
I’ll leave you now with a few recent favorites for soup recipes (in no particular order):
Until next time… Happy fall!