Soups are one healthy preparation that is made and enjoyed in every continent, from Europe to Asia and from Australia to South Africa. Only the flavour, the ingredients, the spices and the way of preparing it differs but it is basically the same everywhere; all the ingredients are cooked together to give a nutritious, filling, delicious, and in a way complete and healthy dish.
Each of us find many reasons to enjoy a bowl of soup; it take care of the solid and liquid needs of the body, can help in losing weight by making us feel full, helps in getting over fever or cold and a lot more. Whatever may be your reason to have the bowl of soup, enjoy it wholeheartedly, because here are a few tips to make any of your favourite soup healthier.
Use fresh ingredients
Many of your soup recipes will call for ingredients like canned tomatoes, ready to use vegetable broth and a lot more of those canned and preserved ingredients. But as all of us are aware; fresh is healthy, so you can always try to replace these bottled vegetables and preserved products with fresh and healthy substitute. Fresh and garden picked veggies and fruits have more antioxidants and vitamins in it and substituting these in your formula helps to make a healthier soup than your old canned version. Remember soup made from scratch is much healthier than the one made from bottled, canned and preserved ingredients.
Swap cream with milk
Your rich and creamy soup calls for the addition of fresh cream that not just makes your soup tastier but sadly put in a lot of calorie with it. If you prefer a healthier low calorie version of the soup, swap your cream with milk which just adds about 20 percent of the calorie coming from cream but gives you the same great taste.
Blot the fat
Many number of soup are butter based or have ample amount of fat in it, to remove the calories from the fat, you can skim off the fat from the soup after it is prepared. There are different ways of skimming off fat from soup; you can either refrigerate your soup for three hours and remove the top fat layer which will get solidified, or you could drop in some lettuce leaves to absorb the fat and take out the leaves after a short time. Blotting the fat with a piece of bread can also do the magic of making your soup healthy and fat free.
Use more of herbs and spices
An extra bit of herbs in your soup can help it to get a flavour zest and to increase the healing and antioxidant property of your soup. Coriander leaves, ginger, garlic or other spices like pepper can improve the taste and flavour of the soup and all at once, make it healthier. But don't overdo the spices and herbs as using more than the perfect amount can spoil the flavour of your soup making it spicier than you really prefer.
Make your soup a complete meal
You can include shredded chicken breast pieces, beaten egg or cooked chick peas in your soup preparation to make it a whole meal and to introduce more of protein into it. Balancing the amount of protein and the carb in your soup can help the 'One Bowl of Soup' to fill your stomach, refill your soul and to fulfill your diet requirements.
So here you are with a few more reason to enjoy a steaming bowl of healthy soup.
