In today\’s quest for healthy eating, more and more people are looking for herbal soup recipes to add to their regular diets. All soups are a wonderful way to add nutrients; they are very inexpensive and are simple to prepare. By using herbs in your soups, you\’ll be giving them that little extra flavor that makes homemade soups so special.

All herbal soups rely on a good stock. When you\’re evaluating herbal soups, one of the first items you need to check is what sort of stock the recipe calls for. Many people today prefer to use their own stock that they make at home in the traditional way. This involves boiling scraps of foods – bones, clean vegetable peelings and so on – in water along with peppercorns, perhaps a bay leaf and other flavorings, and reducing it to a simmer and cooking for about an hour. Once strained, you\’ll have a splendid base for your herbal soup recipes that has cost mere pennies, made from items that would normally be thrown away. This is an added bonus for the frugal cook who wants to feed his or her family well – without breaking the bank.

Note that vegetarians, or those wanting to restrict meat in their diets, can make a vegetable stock using the peelings and off cuts from any vegetable used in day-to-day cooking. A good way to do this is to keep a jar or other container alongside the chopping board when you are preparing vegetables for other meals. Keep this in the refrigerator and every time you have more peelings or off cuts, add them to the jar. Within a short time, you’ll have enough to use to create your basic vegetable stock. For maximum health benefits, avoid using commercially-prepared stocks in your herbal soup recipes unless they are high quality and free of chemicals and preservatives.

Now comes the fun part. You can devise our own soups using your stock with whatever ingredients you have on hand. For a hearty soup, add a little rice, some pasta or diced potatoes. Let your imagination loose when you look into the refrigerator at the ingredients you already have. Almost any vegetable is suitable so you can vary your soup dishes every time.

And let\’s not forget the most important part of your soups – fresh, delicious herbs. Basil is a favorite in soups. Just tear the leaves and add a few seconds before you remove the pan from the heat. Thyme, oregano, and sage – all herbs add an extra pizzazz to homemade soups. If you have fresh herbs growing in your garden, or in pots in your kitchen, so much the better and your soups will be even fresher, tastier and full of nutrients. Most green herbs contain good amounts of vitamin C so be generous when adding them to your soups.

Serve your herbal soup with fresh crusty bread and you have the perfect, healthy lunch dish that has cost you almost nothing to make and will taste as good as it looks.

Chef Qing Hua, grew up helping in a food stall and learned about traditional cooking methods there. He received a diploma from the Overseas Institute of Cookery of Hong Kong and later traveled to many places to learn about various cooking methods and ingredients used, as well as other recipes such as herbal soup recipes.

Chef Qing Hua, grew up helping in a food stall and learned about traditional cooking methods there. He received a diploma from the Overseas Institute of Cookery of Hong Kong and later traveled to many places to learn about various cooking methods and ingredients used, as well as other recipes such as http://www.asiafoodrecipe.com/recipes/herbal-soup/ herbal soup recipes.

Author Bio: Chef Qing Hua, grew up helping in a food stall and learned about traditional cooking methods there. He received a diploma from the Overseas Institute of Cookery of Hong Kong and later traveled to many places to learn about various cooking methods and ingredients used, as well as other recipes such as herbal soup recipes.

Category: Cooking
Keywords: herbal soup recipes, about soup recipes, learn herbal soup recipes