Soups are often highly underrated meals. They can be rustic and robust or smooth and soothing. They can be adapted to suit the ingredients you have on hand, or upgraded with toppings. A bowlful can feed the belly and bathe the soul, and more often than not, achieve both these things on a relatively tight budget. The following five soups do just that.

Cauliflower, thyme and potato soup with cheesy mustard croutons

The mustard cheese toastie bites bring a touch of the old cauli bake flavour profile to this soup and are a wondrous addition. You could, of course, just stick to some simple toast, but they are a very worthy, and I’d lean towards necessary, addition. This soup is spectacularly easy to make and requires very little babysitting while it chugs away on the stove. It freezes well so make in bulk to pull out on those days you fear you might be going down in a blaze of glory.

Ingredients

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 2 brown onions, diced
• 6-8 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
• 4 tbsp thyme leaves
• 1kg potatoes, peeled and chopped
• ½ head cauliflower, florets roughly chopped
• 1 litre chicken stock
• 1½ tbsp oyster sauce
• 2 tbsp honey Dijon mustard
• 300ml sour cream

Cheesy mustard croutons

• 4 slices sourdough
• 2 tbsp honey Dijon mustard
• 4 slices of cheddar cheese (smoked would be ideal here)
• 1 tbsp olive oil, for frying
• 3 tbsp butter, for frying

To serve

• olive oil
• thyme leaves
• cheesy croutons (see above)

Method

1. Add the olive oil to a Dutch oven and place over medium heat. Once hot, add the onion and turn the heat to low and cook for 2-3 minutes or until completely softened. Add the garlic and thyme and cook for another minute. Add the chopped potato and cauliflower and cook for a minute, turning it in the onion mixture.
2. Add the stock, oyster sauce and mustard and reduce the heat to low. Cook for 20-30 minutes. The cauliflower should have begun to break down and the potatoes softened. Continue to cook until you can easily push a fork through a piece of potato.
3. Use a stick blender and give everything a good whiz in the pot until it reaches your desired consistency. Stir through the sour cream and keep over the heat until warmed through.
4. While the soup is warming through, make the cheesy mustard croutons. Smear two slices of sourdough with mustard and top with a slice of cheese and finish each with a piece of bread, much like a sandwich. Add the oil and butter to a frying pan and once the butter has melted, add the sandwiches, frying until crisp. Flip and fry the other side. Place onto a chopping board and chop into large bite-sized squares, being careful as this will be very hot.
5. Scoop soup into bowls. Top with a few croutons and season generously with salt and pepper. Scatter over additional thyme leaves, if using, and add a drizzle of olive oil to finish. Serve piping hot.

Serves 6

Rustic mushroom, potato and bacon soup

It’s probably clear that I love a soup I can stand a spoon in, and this is the epitome of soup with structure. It’s thrown-together, but in the very best way. I don’t like the grey colour that so many mushroom soups can turn, so I prefer to leave a lot of the fungi large and lovely. You can of course blitz all of this down into a smooth soup.

Ingredients

• 4 tbsp butter
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 2 brown onions, diced
• 6 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 750g mushrooms (I used a mix of what I could find fresh at my local greengrocer), sliced
• 1 litre chicken stock (you may need more)
• 1kg baby potatoes, halved
• 350ml thickened cream
• 350g bacon rashers, roughly chopped

Method

1. Place a large pot or high-sided frying pan over medium heat. Add the butter and olive oil, and once foaming, add the onions and cook for 2-5 minutes or until completely soft. This is where a lot of the sweetness for this soup comes from so don’t rush this step.
2. Add the garlic and mushrooms and cook until the mushrooms have softened and look significantly reduced in volume. Add the chicken stock and potatoes and simmer for 25-30 minutes or until the potatoes can easily be pierced with a knife. (If the stock has reduced too significantly in this time, add more stock, ½ a cup at a time.)
3. Add the cream, stir gently to combine, and cook for a further few minutes until warmed through.
4. As soon as you have added the cream, place a frying pan over medium heat. Add the bacon rashers and cook for 1-3 minutes, or until cooked through and crisp.
5. Ladle the soup into bowls. Top with crispy bacon and season generously with salt and pepper. Serve piping hot.

Serves 6-8

Spiced carrot and lentil soup

This is why soup exists. It is soul-restoring, simple, uses cupboard staples, is cheap and healthy. Winning on all fronts.

Ingredients

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 2 brown onions, diced
• 6 cups peeled and roughly chopped carrot (about 750g)
• 3 tbsp roughly chopped ginger
• 1 tbsp garam masala (depending on the strength of your spice mix, you may like to add more)
• 1 tbsp cumin seeds, freshly ground
• ½ tbsp turmeric
• 250g split red lentils
• 1.5 litres vegetable stock (from a stock cube is fine)
• sea salt flakes, to season
• 1½ cups Greek-style yoghurt
• coriander leaves, to serve

Method

1. Add the olive oil, brown onion and chopped carrots to a large pot. Cook, stirring regularly, for 5 minutes or until the onion has completely softened and become fragrant.
2. Add the ginger and spices and cook until fragrant. Add the lentils and vegetable stock and simmer for 20–25 minutes or until the lentils are soft and the carrot has cooked through.
3. Give everything a whiz in the pot using a stick blender, then stir through the yoghurt. If you feel the soup is too thick, you can stir through a little more stock, just give the soup some time to warm through if you are adding extra liquid.

Serves 6

Quick red curry and noodle soup

This is the most glorious throw-it-in-and-call-it-dinner slurpy, soupy goodness. Add a few crunchy peanuts and the tang of lime and this is nothing short of spectacular. I now eat it on repeat. While I love the texture the noodles provide, you can ditch them entirely if all you crave is soup without the bother of accoutrements.

Talking of noodles, this is the soup that wants whatever you have lurking in the pantry. Udon, soba, ramen, egg noodles, your kids’ Maggi 2-minute noodle packs – all will work just fine. It’s a noodle judgment-free zone.

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp coconut oil
• 2 tbsp good quality red curry paste
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 tbsp very finely chopped lemongrass, white part only
• 2 x 400ml cans coconut milk
• 500ml chicken stock
• 2 tbsp fish sauce (plus more to taste)
• 1 tbsp honey
• juice of 1 lime (plus more to taste)

To serve

• 150-200g noodles from your pantry
• 4 tbsp crispy fried shallots
• 4 tbsp roughly chopped salted and roasted peanuts
• coriander leaves
• lime wedges

Method

1. Add the oil, onion and the curry paste to a high-sided frying pan over low-medium heat. Cook until the onion is translucent, and the curry paste looks to have split − it should be very fragrant.
2. Add the lemongrass and cook for another minute before adding the coconut milk and chicken stock. Simmer for 15 minutes or until the soup has reduced and thickened a little.
3. Taste and season with fish sauce, honey and lime juice – you want a balance of heat, salt, sweet and tang. Add the noodles and cook directly in the soup for the time specified on the packet.
4. Use tongs to divide the noodles among bowls, then ladle over the soup. Top each bowl as desired with coriander, peanuts, crunchy shallots and wedges of lime, and serve.

Serves 4

Crisper zuppa

The list of ingredients below is a guide only. This soup exists as a means for using up your leftovers − it’s how the Italians run with it, and how you should run with it, too. The pasta makes the soup gloriously starchy and a bit thick and luscious. A squeeze of lemon juice to finish never hurt anyone either. Often sausage and cream is also added, but here I’ve kept it packed full of veg and it is just as flavoursome.

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 onions, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 stick celery, finely diced
• 4 carrots, sliced
• 4 zucchini, sliced
• 2 potatoes, chopped
• 4-6 cavolo nero leaves, roughly chopped
• 3 tbsp tomato paste
• ¼ cup flat-leaf parsley, chopped
• 2 cups white wine
• 2 cups vegetable stock
• 2 cups short pasta (ziti works well)
• salt and pepper
• shaved parmesan to serve

Method

1. Place a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the olive oil and when hot add the onions, garlic, celery, carrot, zucchini, potato and kale (and any other crisper vegetable matter) and cook for at least 10 minutes, stirring until fragrant and the vegetables look to be soft.
2. Add the tomato paste and parsley and stir to coat. Add the wine and vegetable stock. Give everything a good stir.
3. Season then cover with the lid and turn the heat to low. Simmer for 30-45 minutes.
4. Add the pasta and cook until al dente. Once the pasta has cooked through, pour the soup into bowls. Season with salt and pepper and throw over a very generous amount of parmesan shavings.

Serves 4-6

Crisper zuppa recipe adapted from Slow Victories by Katrina Meynink