I am presenting my first cooking segment on Twin Cities Live tomorrow, Wednesday October 12th. I'm going to make two of the soups I've blogged about before: Roasted Tomato Basil Soup and Spicy Tuscan Soup.
People often think of soup and picture cream based options. While these may taste good they are high in fat and calories. I'm going to show broth based soups that are healthy but still flavorful.
Tips to Make Healthy Soup:
-Use water or low sodium broths as your base
-Try adding a small amount of skim milk or 1% milk to soup to add creaminess without much fat
-Start with onions, garlic, carrots and/or celery to get lots of flavor without calories
-Think fresh herbs and spices for added taste instead of loads of salt
-Choose lean meats. Try making chicken chili or choose a lean ground beef or ground turkey breast (make sure it says turkey breast otherwise the turkey may contain some of the skin and not all breast meat)
-Load up on vegetables: zucchini, tomatoes, squash, potatoes, corn, peppers, kale and beans are great additives to soup
-When adding beans, look for low sodium varieties. If these aren't available drain your beans in a strainer and run cold water over them for a minute to wash off some of the sodium
HEALTHY SOUP RECIPES FROM TWIN CITIES LIVE SEGMENT 10/12/2011
-To make this recipe healthier I use olive oil to sautee the onions instead of butter and I use a low sodium chicken broth (I've also made it with vegetable stock for a vegetarian version)
-Don't have a food mill, don't worry. I used a food processor to blend the tomatoes and basil in the end. An immersion blender would also work.
Spicy Tuscan Soup Adapted from Zuppa Toscana, Olive Garden
Ingredients:
- 2 medium russet potatoes (or 3 small ones)
- ½ small white onion, chopped
- 1 pound of Spicy Italian Sauage (in bulk, not with casein) or for you can substitute ground turkey breast and add extra crushed red pepper or for a Vegetarian soup use meatless crumbles instead of sausage
- 1-2 garlic cloves, minced
- 5 ½ cups Low Sodium Chicken Broth
- ½ cup milk (I used skim but use whatever you have in your house)
-4 cups chopped Kale (ripped off the vein)
- 1 can of garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp crushed red pepper flakes
Directions:
1. Poke holes in the baked potatoes and microwave them for 6-8 minutes (until tender). Set aside to cool.
2. Heat dutch oven to medium high and add onion and sausage to the pan. Cook 5 minutes then add garlic and continue to cook until meat is brown
3. While the meat is cooking rinse and chop the Kale and peel and dice the potatoes
4. Add broth and milk to the onions and meat once the meat is brown
5. Add kale, garbanzo beans, salt and crushed red pepper flakes
6. Simmer for 30 minutes and serve.
