“My” Vegetable Soup

I love soup.  I eat soup for lunch every day.  A couple of years ago I decided I needed to lose weight and I lost 55 pounds and I’ve kept it off and I credit this in large part to my eating soup.  Every day.  There are so many flavor and texture combinations, I never get bored.  One thing I struggled with though was that I could never find a vegetable soup that met my expectations.  And then last fall I realized I could just create my own.  So I looked at many, many veggie soup recipes and picked the base recipe I thought sounded good.  Then I just added the veggies I like.  Since it was fall, I added vegetables like cabbage, turnips, and mushrooms.  It was delicious!

So, now it’s March and I finally had some time to cook and I wanted my veggie soup.  But I wanted more seasonal ingredients.  So this time I used kale, broccoli, and red onion.  And again, I loved it.  Now I’m super excited to make it later in April with asparagus, spinach, artichokes, and peas.

Here is the recipe I most recently used...

Makes roughly 6 servings (10-12 oz each)

Ingredients:

• 2 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 3 Tbsp Unsalted Butter
• 1 Red Onion, diced
• 3 stalks Celery, diced
• 3 Carrots, diced
• 1-2 heads Broccoli, cut into florets
• 3 Yukon Gold Potatoes, peeled and diced
• 1 head Kale, washed well and chopped
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1/4 tsp Garlic Salt
• 1/4 tsp Celery Salt
• 1 can Diced Tomatoes
• 1 quart Low Sodium Chicken Broth (I like thick soup, you may want to add more broth)
• 2 Tbsp Fresh Thyme, chopped
• 2 Tbsp Fresh Oregano, chopped
• 3 Fresh Bay Leaves

Directions:

Heat oil and butter in stock pot on med high heat

Add onion and cook for 2 minutes, Then add celery and carrots, cook another 2-3 minutes, stirring to coat with oil and butter

Add broccoli and potatoes, stir to combine and cook another 2-3 minutes. Add kale, stir and cook for 2 mins

Add salts, tomatoes and broth, bring back to boil and boil for a couple of mins

Turn down to simmer, simmer for about 10 mins and then add herbs

Cook for another 20 mins until all veggies are tender

Notes: 

If you’re watching your salt intake, you could easily take out the extra salt, I just like the flavors.

Also, you could easily add some chicken to this for some added protein

[Nutrition: Calories - 256; Fat - 11g; Sodium - 352g; Carbs - 35; Protein - 7.4g]