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[–] 27 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (6 children)

My heart goes out to those without the knowledge, skill or time to make their own. Great healthy soup is not hard to make. Relatively easy, cheap and with litteral food scraps. 99% of the time requirement is just an unattended pot simmering, with just a wee bit of chopping, tasting as you do and ammending.

If anyone is on a very tight budget, you can go a long way for cheap with:

  • beans and rice

  • pulse dishes

  • soups!

Some important ingredients in a good soup include bones (boil 'em for the broth - beef, pork, chicken, soup company EVP, whatever). Diced carrots, celery, onions and salt and voila! You have an amazing versatile soup base.

Everything else is optional and to taste. Throw in beans, groats, herbs, spices, mushrooms, meats, rice, fish, fish sauce, sirracha, chillies whatever is cheap and available. You can buy from the "almost spoiled" discount section of the grocery because you'll never notice diced up in a soup. You can also dress it up fancy with premium ingredients for a treat and variety.

Old canned and frozen foods are also great in soups.

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  • [–] 7 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Value-Bean-with-Bacon-Condensed-Soup-11-25-oz/10316792

    $0.96 is pretty damn cheap and I don't need to make any extra effort for all the protein I need for the night. I wish I had time and energy to cook more often, but I really appreciate having affordable options like this. If I was single I would be eating very cheaply with very little effort.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    There is kind of an art to making good soup.

    Unfortunately, a lot of college kids / 9-5ers I've seen have a set of exactly 2 or so dishes (not exaggerating) which they tend to regularly cycle through as their "cooked dinner of the week", typically involving some kind of noodle and protein, usually some variation of hamburger helper, carbonara or chicken fajita, but I've seen vegetarian editions too.

    Making soup is relatively easy, unless you

    • Don't lightly caramelize the mirepoix before adding water, so the broth is bland
    • Don't know what a mirepoix is
    • Put the noodles in first
    • Put the potatoes in last
    • Want to try your hand at making "peanutbutter soup" because it looked cool on your buddy's last instagram post
    • Oversalted it and an article online recommended lemon juice to "absorb the sodium"

    I've seen some travesties lmfao

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