Best Soups for Batch Cooking: 10 Easy, Slimming-friendly Ideas
When it’s a hearty lunch or a flavour-filled light dinner you’re after, soup is hard to beat. While a carton off the supermarket shelves might seem like the best option when you’re in a hurry, homemade recipes you can prepare by the batch are a time-saving wonder.
Not only is having a go-to stash of ready-to-warm soups better for you, they’re tasty and good for your budget too!
We’ve rounded up some soup-erb recipe ideas that are so easy to have batch-ready, you’ll be filling up the freezer faster than you can say, ‘Ready, set, batch!’ We’ve listed our soups from quickest to most time-consuming to cook, so you’ll be able to choose the ones that best suit you in a pinch (they’re all ready in under an hour and less than 250 calories!).
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Chinese Style Chicken and Sweetcorn Soup (15 minutes)
Whether you’re a batch cook beginner or a batch cook boss, you don’t need to spend a long time preparing complicated soup recipes to gather enough tasty, slimming-friendly meals to fill your fridge-freezer for the coming week. With our Chinese Style Chicken and Sweetcorn Soup, you can have a hearty, meaty, veg-filled broth ready in just 15 minutes.
Inspired by the classic dish on a Chinese takeaway menu, we’ve included crunchy bits of sweetcorn and a sprinkling of spring onions, to cut through the chicken flavours and leave your taste buds satisfied.
There’s nothing better than having everything ready in one pot – that’s where the magic of Pinch of Nom: All in One comes in!
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Spicy Tomato Soup (20 minutes)
Bottoms up! Are you a lover of a Bloody Mary cocktail? Believe it or not, our fiery twist on a classic soup recipe was inspired by the famously hot tipple. At 114 calories per serving, our Spicy Tomato Soup is well worth dipping some toast in.
As if the moreish, punchy flavours from the Tabasco sauce and the super handy (mostly) store cupboard ingredients list wasn’t enough, you can also have a batch load prepped and sealed away in tupperware after just 20 minutes!
Since you’re bound to want to eat this one again, you can leave leftovers to cool and store spare portions in the fridge for up to 3 days. Or, if you are planning ahead, pop your portions in the freezer, with the date and name of the recipe on a label.
Cream of Spinach and Rocket Soup (20 minutes)
Ready for some wonderfully green goodness? Our vibrant Cream of Spinach and Rocket Soup will brighten up your soup flask, and your lunch break, in an instant.
With vitamin-filled fresh veggies blended into every rich, creamy spoonful, it’s hard to say no. With its indulgent, silky texture, you wouldn’t believe it comes in our Everyday Light recipe category at just 143 calories per serving.
We’ve lowered the calories by using oat milk instead of a pot of cream, but you can use dairy milk if you’d prefer – just be sure to adjust the calories if you’re counting! Why not stock up on this freezer-friendly recipe for a burst of colour on a grey day?
Salmon Leek and Potato Soup (30 minutes)
Another rich recipe that’s thick and creamy without the calories you’d expect, our Salmon Leek and Potato Soup is just the ticket if you’re looking for a filling, flavourful soup to take on the go. For bursts of salted, savoury flavour, we’ve added smoked salmon pieces to chopped potatoes, leek and onion.
You might think we’d need a pot of double cream to get the texture just right, but we’ve made this dish oh-so-thick (and lower in calories) by using low-fat cream cheese instead. Trust us, it works a treat!
Carrot, Orange and Thyme Soup (35 minutes)
If there’s anything we love more than a tasty, low-calorie recipe, it has to be a tasty, low-calorie recipe with a short ingredients list. Our Carrot, Orange and Thyme Soup is so easy to prepare with only 8 ingredients total (and one of them is low-calorie cooking spray!). To get things going, blitz your softened carrots and onions, thyme and stock together with a stick blender.
We prefer using a stick blender over a food processor as it saves the hassle of moving ingredients from the pan, and it’s more affordable!
Once you’ve stirred the orange juice through and seasoned with salt and pepper, your sweet and zesty soup is ready to become a batch cook staple.
Curried Creamy Carrot Soup (40 minutes)
Carrots are such a scrumptious soup ingredient, they deserve to be star of the show for at least two of the batch-cook wonders on this list! We’ve given things a spicier makeover with our Curried Creamy Carrot Soup.
A velvety blend of veggies, mild curry flavours and reduced-fat cream cheese, it’s comfort by the spoonful. Be sure to make some room in your freezer for this low-calorie lunch.
Minestrone Soup (45 minutes)
We can guarantee that each and every nutritious ingredient in our Minestrone Soup recipe is worth the space in your basket. We’ve covered the basics with carrot, celery, onion, tinned tomatoes, garlic, herbs and filling dried pasta all thrown in!
You can really make this soup your own – why not add meat and a meat-based stock to pack more protein into your bowl? Don’t forget to finish with a sprinkling of chopped basil and Parmesan cheese.
White Onion Soup (45 minutes)
Our homely White Onion Soup recipe is the perfect place to pop any stray onions you might have lying around. Even if you don’t have white onions, brown ones work just as well! The combination of blended onion and half-fat creme fraiche makes this one an ultra-velvety addition to the table.
Enjoy it alone as a lunchtime warmer or serve it up as a starter ahead of a slimming-friendly, three-course meal.
Ham, Leek and Potato Soup (Slow Cook)
We love that we can leave our Ham, Leek and Potato Soup to simmer low and slow throughout the day, and come home to a potful of flavour bubbling away. Whether you’re eating it straight away or scooping it into your tupperware to load up the fridge-freezer, this hearty recipe won’t disappoint.
Not bad for a recipe with only a handful of ingredients (just 5!). Don’t worry if you’ve got a hankering when you’re short on time, this one’s pressure cooker friendly too!
Creamy Chicken Soup (Slow Cook)
Hugs in a bowl don’t come much more comforting than our homemade Creamy Chicken Soup. Whether you’re feeling a bit under the weather, or just in the mood for a hot and tasty dairy-free pick-me-up, we’ve made sure this one’s full of familiar flavour even without the traditionally high calories.
Just promise us you’ll use the space in your calorie budget to mop up any leftovers with a crusty wholemeal bread roll…You can find this and many other recipes worth cosying up to in our Comfort Food cookbook.
For even more slimming-friendly soup inspiration, we’ve got you covered here.
Ready to cook up some soup-er lunches and dinners?
Don’t forget to stop by and say hello in our Facebook group. We’d love to see photos of any soup recipes you decide to cook up, or just have a chinwag about what you’ve been cooking lately.
We’ve got almost 1 million lovely community members waiting to encourage you on your slimming journey, or answer any recipe questions you might have.
You can also look for inspo in our Gallery – head over and have a nosy at what everyone else has been cooking up recently. You’ll need to sign up to a free website account to upload and share your own photos (we’ve got a step-by-step guide on how to do that just here).
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