If you know me, you know that I am a huge Friends fan!! I feel that almost everything in life can be related back to some quote from that show! And when I think of soup I always think of the episode where Joey and Ben,(Ross’ son), are both up for a commercial audition and Joey doesn’t get it because he cannot say the correct line which is, “Mmmm, soup!” and instead he keeps saying, “Mmmm, noodle soup!!”. I forever love Friends!!
With all of that said, I also love soup too and it is still the perfect soup weather in Chicago! I could give you about 100 different soup recipes and I will try and continue to post the recipes for my favorite soups, but for today I am going to share with you my favorite three soups that I make at home all of the time.
Three different soups you will love
The first soup that I am going to share with you I was actually introduced to by my mother in law when I first started dating my husband. It is essentially just a beef broth, but the way we eat it and serve it and what it is served with was the new part to me.
Also, the flavors are just fantastic and it quickly became not only one of my favorite soups, but one of my favorite dishes I make at home period. In Italian this is called Brodo or Bollito or Brodo di carne depending on where in Italy you are from. We eat the broth first with pasta, usually a small, short pasta or a broken pasta. When I say broken pasta, I literally mean nests of egg noodles or pappardelle pasta broken into small pieces.
A lot of times now I use small shell pasta or even mini farfalle noodles because that is what my daughter likes. Feel free to use any small pasta you like. Then we eat the delicious, rich, fall apart meat that makes the soup so yummy.
Finally we enjoy homemade fries… fries, yes fries! I had never had fries with soup, but I am telling you it is perfect after this soup. I will post the recipe for the ones I make in the recipe section. Here is my version of Brodo di carne, I hope you fall in love with it like I did.
Brodo di Carne
Ingredients
- Ingredients
- 2 1/2 pounds bone in beef short ribs
- kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper
- 12 cups water
- 1 1/2 pounds russet potatoes about 2 large potatoes peeled and quartered
- 1/2 cup carrots cut into a ¼ inch dice
- 1/4 cup onion cut into a ¼ inch dice
- 1/4 cup grape tomatoes leave them whole and they will slightly burst in the soup
- 1/2 cup stalks of celery cut into a ½ inch dice
- 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 2 bay leaves
- 8 ounces broken pasta or small pasta shells or mini farfalle
- Parmigiano Reggiano cheese for serving
Instructions
- Trim the excess fat off of the short ribs with a knife and set aside.
- Heat the oil in your stock pot and brown the short ribs on both sides. Remove them from the pan onto a plate. Add in your vegetables and sauté for a few minutes until they are slightly cooked and the onions are translucent and your tomatoes have popped. Add the short ribs back in with the juices from the plate.
- Cover the meat and vegetables with your water and bring to a boil. Skim any foam that floats to the surface with a spoon and discard. Once boiling add bay leaves. Turn the flame down to medium and cook stirring occasionally until the meat is tender and begins to separate from the bone, about 1 hour and 30 minutes to 2-4 hours.
- When the soup has about 15 minutes to go, bring pasta water to a boil. Break the pasta by hand into 2 inch pieces and drop them into salted boiling water. Or cook your small pasta according to the package directions. Cook until al dente.
- Drain the pasta and add it to a bowl. Ladle the broth on top, leaving the meat for seconds. You can add in the vegetables or you can just serve the pasta with the broth. I like to eat some of the potatoes with the meat after we eat the pasta. I also used to smash up the carrots and potatoes and give them to my daughters with her pasta when they were little. They loved it!
- Serve with grated parmigiano reggiano cheese and crusty bread. Enjoy the meat after the pasta is served with the broth and finish the meal with some homemade fries! ENJOY!
Chef’s Tip-I like to use short ribs here. You can certainly use soup bones with meat, but I love the meat you get from the short rib and the flavor of the broth.
The next soup is one of my favorite cream soups. I love to make this soup especially when it is really cold outside as the creamy, cheesiness just really warms my soul.
There are so many recipes out there for broccoli cheese soup, this is how I make mine and I think you will find it becomes a favorite of yours as well. I love this soup with crusty sourdough bread or even better if you can find a small sourdough boule and put it in a crusty bread bowl!
Broccoli Cheddar Soup
Ingredients
- Ingredients
- 1/4 cup melted butter
- 1/2 medium chopped yellow onion
- 1/4 cup flour
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 2 cups chicken stock or vegetable stock
- 1/2 lb broccoli (about 3 cups), chopped into bite size pieces
- 1 cup carrot julienne, you can purchase these already cut if you wish
- 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
- 8 ounces grated sharp cheddar cheese (2 cups)
- Kosher salt to taste
- Freshly cracked black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Melt the butter and saute the onions in the butter until soft. Sprinkle the flour over the onions and butter. Cook and stir over medium heat for 1-2 minutes.
- Whisk in the heavy cream and chicken stock. Add the broccoli and carrots. Cook over low heat for 20-25 minutes or until the broccoli and carrots are tender.
- Add Kosher salt and pepper to taste. At this point you can leave the soup chunky, or what I like to do is blend about 1 cup of the soup and stir it in for a smoother soup. Return to low heat and add the cheese. If your heat is too high your soup can get grainy. Stir in the nutmeg and check seasoning one last time before serving.
- Serve with crusty sourdough bread or in a nice crusty sourdough boule. Enjoy!
Chef’s tip-I use heavy cream in all of my cream soups. I see sometimes recipes call for half and half in cream soups, but I like the lusciousness of the heavy cream and your soup will tend to be less grainy if you use heavy cream and watch your heat when you add the cheese. These two steps will ensure a nice, rich and creamy soup every time.
My last soup for you today is a classic Chicken Noodle Soup. My only spin on this soup is that we like it served with tortellini in house instead of plain noodles. I prefer it with cheese tortellini, but for my husband and my daughter I put chicken tortellini in there.
It is not traditional Chicken Tortellini soup because that usually has red pepper in it. I like to just make classic Chicken soup and add the tortellini instead of noodles. I like to make the stock for the soup, but you can certainly purchase the chicken stock.
There are a lot of good premade stocks out there today. My favorite premade chicken stock is Emeril’s brand. I have given you the recipe for the stock here as well though, so you can do whatever you have time for!
Here is a great homemade chicken stock recipe as well.
https://happychefmama.com/2021/10/11/homemade-chicken-stock/
Chicken Noodle Soup with Tortellini
Ingredients
- Ingredients
- 1 Tbsp olive oil ;1 cup chopped carrots from about 3 medium
- 1/2 cup chopped celery from about 2 stalks
- 1 cup chopped yellow onion 1 small
- 2 cloves garlic minced ;32oz homemade chicken stock or 2-14.5oz boxes Emerils chicken stock
- Kosher salt to taste
- Freshly cracked black pepper to taste
- 12 oz refrigerated three cheese tortellini or chicken tortellini
- 1/4 cup packed parsley stems and all, plus more for serving
- 2 1/2 - 3 cups cooked diced chicken
Instructions
- Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat, add carrots, celery and onion and saute 3 - 4 minutes. Add garlic and saute 30 seconds longer. Season with Kosher salt and pepper.
- Stir in chicken stock and check seasoning. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat then cover and boil 5 minutes. Add in the cooked, diced chicken and heat until cooked through.
- At this point you can do one of two things. You can add in your tortellini and boil one minute less than the package instructions. Or you can boil in a separate pot of water to the package instructions and then drain and serve with the soup. I do them that way for a few reasons. Mainly if there is extra soup the tortellini are not remaining in the soup to swell up and absorb all the broth. Also, we like two different types of tortellini in our house, so I make them separate and serve each person what they like.
- If you are cooking the tortellini in the soup, you will add tortellini in now with the parsley and, cover and boil 6 - 8 minutes longer (or one minute less than time listed on package). Otherwise, just add in the parsley, whole and stir it around to cook in the soup while your pasta cooks separately. Remove the parsley and serve the soup with the tortellini or over the tortellini that you cooked separately.
- I garnish this soup with some more chopped parsley and some crusty bread.ENJOY!
Notes
