Our best soup recipes to keep you warm
These classic recipes are good for the soul. Here we bring back the best of David Herbert - try his ‘anything-goes’ soup with buttery crumbs.
Chunky or brothy, warm or chilled, comforting or nourishing. A peerless Seinfeld bit, and the protest instrument of choice of late. Soup. You can’t beat it.
Soup season is nigh, so here are some of the best recipes from The Australian’s classics, courtesy of chefs David Herbert, Alice Zaslavsky, Jeff Koehler, and Ellie Bullen.
Pumpkin soup recipe by Ellie Bullen
classic pumpkin soup is a great thing to have in your cooking repertoire. This recipe is a cozy classic. Ellie Bullen’s taken on pumpkin soup is built on a base of butternut pumpkin and coconut cream. Top this one with crispy sage leaves for extra oomph. Have this with a cheesy mushroom toastie.
Get this classic pumpkin soup recipe by Ellie Bullen here.
Chicken soup recipe by David Herbert
One for the soul, and the body. Doctors have recommended chicken soup to fight colds since the 12th century. David Herbert’s hearty take on the classic, which is chock-full of greens like celery, peas, zucchini, and butter spinach, can be made ahead of time and reheated.
Get David Herbert’s chicken soup recipe here.
Chicken pho by David Herbert
For a soup that needs no accompaniment, look no further than David Herbert’s aromatic, crystalline chicken pho, a staple in Vietnam. Serve with mint, basil, coriander and, for those that like it hot, your preferred chilli oil.
Get the recipe for David Herbert’s chicken pho here.
Spiced carrot and lentil soup recipe
This David Herbert special is hearty enough to make for dinner without accompaniments, but a toasted sandwich for dipping would be totally gourmet. Spiced carrot and lentil soup may be old fashioned, but it has stood the test of time for a reason.
Get David Herbert’s spiced carrot and lentil soup recipe here.
David Herbert’s Thai chicken soup
This recipe has all the satisfaction of a Thai green curry, without the hassle of scraping clean your burnt rice cooker. This David Herbert recipe has it all, it’s sweet, spicy, creamy and aromatic — and the hefty backbone of green curry paste makes these herbs dance.
Read the recipe here - underneath the pea soup recipe.
Red capsicum soup by Alice Zaslavsky
Cookbook-writer Alice Zaslavsky recommends serving this soup with a dense sweet potato and capsicum loaf — with a healthy lashing of feta, if you’re so inclined. As she writes, “I think of capsicum and sweet potato as gateway veg – their naturally high sugar content makes them easy for our tastebuds to love, even more so when teamed with a salty cheese like feta.”
Get Alice Zaslavsky’s recipes for the red capsicum soup and the sweet potato loaf here.
Fish soup recipe
Chow down on David Herbert’s one-pot wonder, which comes together in a flash. This is a basic chowder, though with mussels used in place of the traditional clams. For this, Herbert suggests using un-dyed smoked fish; use fresh fillet if preferred.
Read the recipe here.
Semur chicken by chef Nornie Bero
Semur chicken, in which a whole chicken is cooked in a thick soy broth with vermicelli noodles, is always on the menu at Melbourne restaurant Mabu Mabu. The Asian flavours of lemongrass, soy and chilli feature in many Torres Strait Island dishes, influenced by Japanese fishers and divers who’ve been living on the islands since the 19th century, and by visitors from Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. This recipe uses native vegetables and it really is a must-try. The flavours from the whole chicken will fill your home with warmth.
Get Nornie Bero’s semur chicken recipe here.
Zucchini, pea & pesto soup
The brightest of soups: wafer-thin strips of zucchini, plump cannellini beans, and frozen peas. David Herbert bolsters this with a dribble of basil pesto. Serve with crusty brown bred.
Read the zucchini, pea and pesto soup recipe here.
Chorba recipe
This thick, wholesome soup with lamb, dried mint, and plenty of spices is considered somewhat a traditional dish in Libya. Traditionally, it’s enjoyed during winter and during Ramadan to break the fast. This recipe is taken from Jeff Koehler’s ‘The North African Cookbook’.
Meatball soup recipe
Alice Zaslavsky was inspired by the meatballs cooked in tinned tomato soup, that Australian kids gorged on in the 1970s and 1980s, when putting together this recipe for her book The Joy of Better Cooking. Consider this an elevated take on the genre — with meatballs made out of store-bought sausages, and pricked with its of currants and pine nuts.
“The meatballs were made to look like spiky little creatures with the addition of long-grain rice and, once added to the soup, they’d cook and flavour the broth, springing and puffing like magical hedgehogs — or echidnas,” she writes.
Get the meatball soup recipe here.
Winter soup with buttery crumbs
Anything goes with this recipe: pumpkin, chard, cauliflower, artichoke, leeks, Brussels sprouts, or whatever you have left on hand. The buttery crumbs, however, are non negotiable.
Get the Winter soup recipe here.