9 Tasty Recipes to Make with Your Soupmaker
When I mention to friends in the US that I made a recipe with a soupmaker, I get a bit of confusion. A what? It makes soup? And the answer is yes, it makes soup and does a few other handy jobs too! But I thought a good overview of what a soupmaker is and what it can do would be a great way to introduce you all to its benefits.
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What is a soupmaker?
A soupmaker is sometimes called a soup kettle and that’s because it looks a bit like a normal kettle, only stockier. Well and it has buttons on the top, no spout to pour and a blender inside, so not really like a kettle at all. But you get what I mean.
Soupmakers are a brilliant gadget that let you create either smooth or chunky soups without the need for other pots or pans. Or sometimes with the addition of a single jug or pan to mix some stock, more on that later.
They have pre-set programs that you simply select and the soupmaker does the job for you. For example, on my Tefal Easy Soup, there are two main settings. The smooth soup takes 23 minutes and includes an automatic spell of blending to get that smooth texture. The chunky soup takes 25 minutes and obviously doesn’t do any blending – although you can blend manually afterwards if you decide it is too chunky.
There are slightly different specifications with the different models but generally, they are made from a stainless steel pot with steel blender blades. They are easy to clean and have enough space to make four quite generous portions in a single use. Mine also has a keep warm feature that will keep the food inside warm for up to 40 minutes automatically.
What can you make with one?
Being it is called a soupmaker, the obvious answer as to what you can make with one is soups. You can make smooth and chunky soups or even use the blender only to make cold soups.
You can also use the compote setting on my soupmaker to make your own fruit compote. This takes 20 minutes and there are recipes in the book to give you ideas of how to use this features.
Finally, you can also use it as a smoothie maker. I must admit I have a high powered blender that I use more for this but if you want to keep the number of gadgets down and have something like a sieve handy, there’s no reason you can’t make great smoothies with the soupmaker.
All in all, I think the cost means it is really worth having a soupmaker and we use ours all the time, even in the warmer months.
Simple and tasty soups
The great thing about using a soupmaker to create soups is that it is quick and easy, and you can make them just as you like them. Maybe you don’t like garlic or want to get more turmeric in your diet. Or you are fussy like me and hate lumps of onion! You can adapt recipes or create your own that just suit your tastes and preferences!
Soupmaker Recipes
One of the main reasons we bought a soupmaker is because I’m a weird, fussy eater. I don’t like tinned soup because there’s always too many lumps of stuff I struggle with. But I knew I needed to eat more vegetables. So, the creamed setting on the soupmaker was the perfect solution for me – all that goodness, nice smooth texture. Here are some of the soups we have made since owning the soupmaker – and check out our special eBook filled with more exclusive recipes!
We work hard to avoid wasting food in our house so a few of our soups were ‘use-uppers’ where we made use of leftover ingredients from something to create a soup. The chicken and mushroom soup was an example where we used two chicken legs from the Sunday roast, but you could easily use a couple of chicken breasts if you prefer – I would just cook them first before adding them to the soupmaker to ensure they are cooked thoroughly.
Our soupmaker twist on a minestrone soup was a really chunky one. We used pasta shells, but you could swap this for soup pasta or anything else you prefer. And if you are a vegetarian, just swap the stock for vegetable and you are good. We found and used some basil puree but if you can’t get this, just shred some basil finely and use it instead.
This was one of the first soups we made, and we made the switch from the traditional stilton to cheddar because the taste was better. I mean I love blue cheese in the right place, but it can be a bit tart for soups. The result was a tasty soup that wasn’t too strong – but you could easily swap the recipe to Stilton or any other type of cheese you love.
This recipe was inspired by the Thai green curry paste that we found in the shops. After making a nice curry with it, there was some left, so we decided to use it in a soup, also with some leftover chicken. You could easily swap this to a red curry paste if you like stronger flavours.
No collection of soups is complete without a chicken and noddle soup in there somewhere. This was another chunky one with the noodles in it but if you wanted smooth, make up the soup without the noodles, blend it and then cook the noddle separate. Once the soupmaker is finished, add it all together to serve.
Mushroom is one of the ingredients on my list of things I’m not really keen on but with the addition of some garlic, onions and a little potato for some substance, this made a really creamy and tasty soup. We do use stockpots but if you don’t have those available, you can use normal chicken stock and add some mixed herbs.
This started out life as a tomato and sweet potato soup that changed to butternut squash when it turned out the bag of frozen veg was squash and not sweet potatoes! But it worked really well, and we added a chilli from the garden to give it a touch of spiciness – you can always leave that out if you aren’t a fan.
Robert insisted this one was called ‘oriental style’ because we used soy sauce in it – and he’s the chef! We used leftover chicken and added dark soy sauce. There wasn’t a huge amount of sweetcorn (me again) but if you like it, you can add more. Plus, you could easily make this as a chunky soup rather than blending it to a smooth one.
The final soup is a seasonal one – ideal for after Halloween when all of those pumpkins are still in good condition but being sold off by the supermarkets! We added garlic, thyme and parsley to give is some extra flavour and used chicken stock, but you could change this to vegetable to make it a vegetarian option.
