- Cooking soup with a Dutch Oven harnesses the pot’s efficient heat to help unleash more flavor.
- Timing is everything when adding oil and butter, and legumes and seasoning for the best flavor and texture.
- Slowly reheat soups, adding extra chicken stock or water to achieve a desired thickness.
There’s nothing quite like sitting down to a comforting bowl of soup at the end of the day. But because it won’t make itself, you’ll want to set yourself up for success with a few simple, yet essential, tips for making soup from the Barefoot Contessa herself, Ina Garten, celebrity TV personality and cookbook author.
Ahead, learn what cookware is best for simmering soups, what order to add ingredients and the best time to season, plus how to reheat leftovers so that your soup is even better than it was the day before. By the time you read the last tip, you’ll be feeling as confident as a pro and ready to take on all the soup recipes.
1. Break Out Your Dutch Oven
Sure, it’s big and heavy and probably stashed in the hardest-to-reach cabinet in your kitchen, but a Dutch oven is a must for cooking soups and stews. The thick, typically cast-iron walls help retain and distribute heat, which means Dutch ovens are better at trapping moisture and cooking evenly than stainless-steel cookware. And because they usually feature an enamel coating, you can brown, braise and sear right in the same pot.
And that’s the reason you’ll see Ina often calling for the classic kitchen workhorse in several of her soup recipes, including her Ultimate Beef Stew, where she browns, sautés and simmers everything in a large Dutch oven. We also call for using a Dutch oven in many of our soup recipes, including our Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup.
2. Don’t Forget the Fat
Adding oil to the pot before you start sautéing is a given, but depending on the kind of soup you’re making, you might consider adding butter too. A couple of tablespoons of butter can do wonders. It thickens, creates a silky texture and helps meld flavors, and its low smoke point makes it ideal for sautéing vegetables so that they become softened and translucent rather than browned.
Ina uses this technique quite often, notably in classic creamy soups, including her Creamy Potato Fennel Soup and Cheddar Corn Chowder.
3. Let It Simmer
When it comes to soup, low and slow is the way to go—a method you’ll see in almost every one of Ina’s soup recipes. It simply means to keep the heat low and let the soup simmer away rather than boil over high heat. Not only does this gentle cooking method allow all the flavors time to develop and meld, but it also helps the ingredients retain some texture.
4. Use Parmesan Rinds
Many soups can benefit from the salty, nutty flavor of Parmesan cheese. But that doesn’t mean you have to add in your precious (aka expensive) Parm by the pile. In fact, adding it in this way would send the cheese sinking to the bottom, where it would become a gluey mess. Instead, save your Parmesan rinds so you can toss them into soups while they simmer. The best part—aside from the incredible flavor they impart—is that they’re easy to remove with tongs when the soup is ready.
To put this tip to work, try your hand at Ina’s Chicken Pot Pie Soup, which she tops with a handful of charming heart- and star-shaped puff pastry croutons. We love the savory nuttiness a Parmesan rind adds to our One-Pot Lentil & Vegetable Soup with Parmesan too.
5. Add Any Legumes Last
While uncooked legumes should go in early on in the soup-making process—as when making split pea soup—precooked legumes should be added during the last half-hour or so of simmering. Add them too early and you might not be able to find them when it comes time to serve, as they tend to dissolve into the soup. In Ina’s mouthwatering Tuscan White Bean Soup recipe, she notes that when using canned beans, the simmering time should be reduced to 45 minutes—half the time the recipe calls for when using dried beans.
Similarly, you’ll want to add ingredients in order of how long they take to cook. Precooked beans simply need reheating, while raw vegetables like onions, carrots and celery should be added first, not only to create the traditional French flavor base known as mirepoix but also to give them time to soften a bit.
6. Taste for Salt and Pepper
Almost no soup would be complete without a dash or so of salt. But because ingredients slowly release their flavors over time, it’s best to adjust the seasonings once the soup is finished cooking, before serving. That’s why you’ll notice that nearly every one of the Barefoot Contessa’s soup recipes ends with “Taste for salt and pepper” or “Taste for seasonings.” It’s a particularly important tip to follow when making soups that include salty ingredients, like Ina’s Spanish Pea Soup with Crispy Ham.
Bonus Tip for Reheating
You’ve likely noticed that soups improve with time, making leftovers a thing to look forward to. When pulling that big pot of soup out of the refrigerator, follow Ina’s simple rules for reheating found in her Pork Posole soup recipe. “Reheat this (and all soups) slowly, adding extra chicken stock or water, until it is the desired thickness.” When it comes to soups with starchy ingredients, like rice and pasta, adding extra stock or water is a must, as those ingredients tend to act as a sponge.
Our Expert Take
According to Ina Garten, there are six easy ways to make the most flavorful soups. Start by choosing cookware that retains and distributes heat well, such as a Dutch oven, which she considers essential for soup-making. Don’t hesitate to add a bit of fat, like butter, as it can greatly enhance the flavor of the ingredients. Cooking low and slow—this also applies to reheating—helps flavors develop. Additionally, be mindful of when to add certain ingredients for the best results.
