Many of my clients tell me how much they like to eat soup for lunch in the colder months, but most of the time they mention several brands of soups they buy at the store. Don’t get me wrong: Many commercial soups are great options for the calorie conscious. The problem with canned soups, of course, is the sodium content. Some products are in excess of 1000 mg of sodium per serving. In my opinion, this is too much salt for a simple food. So while it’s easy to hit the grocery store shelves to get your lunchtime soup, consider making your own soup.
The beauty of homemade soup is that you can literally take any basic soup recipe and tweak it based on whatever ingredients you have on hand. You can make adjustments and reduce the sodium content without giving up great taste. Most soups start with a broth or vegetable base. You can make your own stock if you have the time, but starting with pre-made stock can reduce prep time. If you buy ready-made soup broth, I recommend that you read the labels carefully. Regular broth will make your homemade version of the soup just as high in sodium as canned soup. Low sodium broth versions have sodium too! I found that most brands of “low sodium” broth had close to 500mg. sodium per serving. This is still too much if you are sodium conscious. I found several low sodium organic stocks with only 140mg. per serving, so it’s worth looking around.
If you want to try making homemade soup for your lunches, here’s an idea: Make a pot of a different soup each week. Keep enough soup on hand for one or two meals, and then freeze the rest in smaller containers, preferably 1- or 2-serving containers. If you make a different type of soup each week, you’ll soon have a “selection” of different soups in your freezer that you can choose from for a quick lunch or dinner. Bring a single serving of frozen soup to work and you’ll have a nice healthy meal ready to heat up.
Here is my favorite vegetable soup recipe:
Barley Vegetable Soup
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped carrots
12 oz. chopped fresh mushrooms
1/2 cup barley (use pearl or hulled barley)
6 cups low sodium beef, chicken or vegetable broth
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
2-3 cups chopped spinach, kale, or Swiss chard
Heat the oil in a large pot and sauté the onions and carrots until tender. Add the mushrooms and cook for another 2 minutes. Add barley, low sodium broth, and salt. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer until the barley is done. (Pearled barley takes about 40 minutes; hulled barley takes about 60 minutes to cook.) Add the chopped vegetables and cook for an additional 5 minutes. For 6.
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