How Eating Healthy Soups Can Help You Lose Weight
Making home-made healthy soups can be a great weight-loss tool. Adding a delicious healthy soup to your diet will improve your health, make you feel fantastic and help you lose weight!
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Healthy soups for weight loss
When you think of weight loss and what you should be eating, salad and fresh vegetables are probably the first things that comes to mind. Fresh, raw produce has a crucial role to play in a healthy diet and lifestyle. It has a big part to play in helping us to slim down and cleanse our body of toxins while delivering optimum nutrition.
However, we’re not always in the mood for cold veggies, and having a variety of different foods that we find delicious is the key to sustaining a healthy lifestyle. That’s where soup comes in. Soup makes for a healthy alternative to salad when you just can’t bear the thought of crunching on one more raw carrot!
What's so great about soup and why is it good for weight loss?
Soup, when you prepare it from scratch at home, is full of healthy vitamins and minerals. If made right, soup contains a balance of good nutrition and a filling meal… all in a single bowl.
There are lots of healthy soup varieties to enjoy, from light and refreshing cucumber to classic chicken noodle. Even creamy and hearty soups that eat like a meal, containing just a few ingredients.
Soup is a great option if you’re trying to limit calories and fat while getting your daily intake of fresh veggies. Soup fills you up, tastes great… and one bowl can deliver multiple servings of vegetables that go down easy with a warm, nourishing broth.
Another great thing about soup is that you can whatever texture you want, chunky, smooth or somewhere in the middle. In fact pureeing a soup can often make it seem like a totally new recipe. Just puree it up in the blender, or whip out your immersion blender while the soup’s still cooking. It’s simple to make a smooth and tasty soup that requires minimal effort to eat. In fact, if you have a sensitive stomach you can actually give your gut a break by pureeing your vegetable soup before you eat it.
Why is this important? Because sometimes that belly fat that we’re trying to whittle away with crunches really isn’t fat. It could be inflammation from a sensitive gut. Pureeing healthy, homemade soup is one way to give your sore tummy a rest!
What Makes Soup Nutritious?
There is a general formula for making soup that brings nutritious balance to the recipe. When you consider this, you’ll realize that just about anything can become soup. Leftovers from two nights ago needn’t sit sadly wasting away in the back of the fridge. Instead they can become a quickly prepared, delicious and healthy soup. The key, as you might expect, is to have broth on hand. The better quality broth you add to your homemade healthy soups, the more nourishing your soups become.
Most good soup recipes start by sauteing aromatics such as garlic and/or onion in oil. You might also add in a few sprigs of a flavorful fresh herb, or a blend of herbs. Herbs that are commonly added to soup include rosemary, sage, and thyme. These hardy herbs can cope with cooking in the soup and contain powerful healing properties thanks to the oils that come from the plant. The powerful oils add flavor and health to your soup when simmered along with the other ingredients.
Next you would typically add other common soup vegetables to make a mirepoix. Carrot, celery, along with the oil, garlic and onion combine readily for a perfect soup base. You could also chop up some parsnips or turnip for the start of your soup. If you’re looking to stay within a limited range of calories and are a meat eater, then soup with just enough meat to fill you up is your best bet for weight loss success.
Go easy on the meat
While we’re on the topic of meat: It is thought that people who consume a lot of beef increase their risk of cancer. However, red meat remains an important source of protein to fuel our bodies with iron and vitamin B12. Soup is a great way get a modest serving of protein-rich meat along with a balance of other healthy foods. These include green vegetables, starchy vegetables and legumes. If you are considering cutting down on your meat consumptions, check out our Meat Free Monday article.
Soup is often made with animal bones or shellfish stock. Broth cooked from animal bones is very beneficial for the body. Simmering of the bones in water to slow cook for many hours means that your broth will be rich in collagen. This is fantastic for the skin, tissues and tendons of the body. Collagen, combined with vitamin C and A plus minerals from vegetables that you add to the broth, makes the perfect healing mix of nutritious ingredients that also tastes delicious.
Check out this video from Jo’s Kitchen Capers for more information and a bone broth recipe.
Alternate sources of protein are often added to soup. This includes beans, peas and lentils. They add fiber and bulk to the diet which is excellent for our digestion. Beans and legumes are said to reduce our risk of cancer and adding them to the diet assists with weight loss. It is also a great way to fill your diet with protein if you don’t eat meat.
Pack your soup with nutrition
Cruciferous vegetables also fill us up while helping us stay regular and delivering a dose of antioxidants to reduce the risk of cancer. It is also said that vegetables such as broccoli, cabbage, kale and Brussels sprouts assimilate their nutrition more readily when they are cooked.
While these vegetables can be eaten as salad, this creates much more work for the digestive system. If our body struggles to process certain cruciferous vegetables, this means some portion of the vegetables may go undigested. Therefore, we may not be absorbing as much nutrition from these amazing, healing foods as we could if we cooked them in soup.
Soup makes for a warm and hearty meal. When it’s cold outside, we look for more filling meals, which means we often choose less healthy options. Having a healthy soup at the ready can fill us up. This means we’re no longer hungry, we feel satisfied, and we’re less likely to look for those foods that cause us to gain weight and deplete our health.
Another good point to make about soup is that a few cups of it can provide you with a meal’s worth of veggies and carbs. If you choose to also enjoy some protein for your meal in the form of meat, you might actually be able to reduce the portion of meat that you would normally eat because you have filled up on healthy soup.
Soup is a good thing to eat if you’re looking to round out your diet with a balance of healthy foods, and occasionally enjoy small to moderate portions of foods that are a little higher in fat, such as cheese, cream, bacon or red meat.
Winter Weight Loss Soup Ideas
What soups can we eat during the cold weather months that will help us stay on track with our weight loss goals?
There are so many delicious and nutritious soups to try, especially when it’s cold out and you’re craving a warm and satisfying meal that won’t wreck your diet. Let’s think of the basics first.
Chicken Noodle
Who doesn’t love a cup of chicken noodle? You may wonder if chicken noodle soup is weight loss friendly. The noodles can be removed altogether or you can replace white pasta noodles with a more healthy version such as whole wheat or brown rice pasta. You can also limit your noodle intake by only adding half the normal quantity.
A variation on chicken noodle would be chicken and rice. You can make this whole grain brown, whole grain wild rice, or Basmati for a change of pace. Complex carbs (meaning whole grains and whole starchy plants), digest more slowly. Eating them supplies the body with carbohydrate-based energy, while keeping your blood sugar steady.
A few spoonfuls of white or pink beans can be a nice addition to your chicken noodle soup that puts a few beans in every bite, but not to the point that it becomes a bean soup.
Beef Vegetable
You’ve probably heard that beef should be severely limited if you’re looking to lose weight and eat more healthily. It is true that a higher risk of cancer exists for people who eat a lot of red meat such as beef. However, the key to a sustained healthy lifestyle is to eat these types of foods in moderation, rather than thinking you are ‘not allowed‘ to eat them at all.
Having small amounts of lean, slow cooked beef in your vegetable soup is not dangerous for your health. So if you’re craving beef, you might satisfy that urge by simmering up a pot of beef and vegetable soup, adding an array of colorful vegetables such as carrots, celery, parsnips, turnips, mushrooms, and whole grain barley.
Beef soup is typically made with beef broth. For an excellent source of calcium and collagen, check out Jo’s Kitchen Capers’ bone broth video above.
Beef broth is famous for its health-giving properties. It is often served to ill people in the hospital, along with Jell-O, which few people realize is also made from made by boiling down beef bones (and then adding sugar, of course!)
If you have ever cooked up a pot of beef soup and then chilled it in the refrigerator to skim the fat off the top, you may have noticed that the beef soup becomes a gelatinous substance. This is gelatin and it is packed with nutrition. Yes it is the same gelatin that is present in your packet of Jell-O, without the added sugar and food coloring.
Other soups for weight loss
Chili
Chili is the soup that eats like a meal. If you enjoy a hearty soup that contains meat, chili can be a healthy compromise on this because you can also add lots of beans which are very nutritious. You’ll find all kinds of wonderful chili recipes, including even some unusual ones containing weight loss friendly ingredients such as lean ground turkey, and white beans and cilantro.
Vegetable soup
Your basic vegetable soup would contain all of the favorites such as carrots, celery, potatoes, cabbage. It may also contain others like zucchini, green beans, peas, kale. Combine vegetables in your soup strategically. Example: kale, tomatoes and potatoes all complement each other, both in flavor and for their nutrition profiles. You’ll also want a protein source. Add beans to the actual pot of soup if you like. Or you can just make a vegetable soup and then serve a healthy protein on the side. The more colorful your vegetable soup, the more balanced nutrition it is likely to contain.
Chowder
A chowder is traditionally a creamy soup, but yours does not have to be high in fat if you don’t want it to be. You can make lower fat choices like switching cream with milk or simply using less cream. If you choose to make a chowder and add a little full-fat cream, you can restrict portions so that you’ll still be able to enjoy your chowder as a meal without going overboard.
Lentils and legumes for weight loss
Plant-based eating can be a very effective method for losing weight, and you have tons of delicious options when it comes to making soups that fill you up and promote weight loss.
Lentils are enjoyed in a variety of countries including Italy, India, the Middle East, and others. This gives you lots of exciting soup recipes to work with so you won’t get bored of the same old thing.
How do lentils and legumes help with weight loss?
These plant-based proteins add bulk to the diet which means they will improve your digestion and speed up metabolism. If you’re trying to reduce your intake of saturated fats for a more heart-healthy approach to eating, lentils and beans will be a great addition to your diet.
Let’s look at the types of lentils and legumes that are available to add variety to your soup recipes:
Brown lentils
Red lentils
Split peas (yellow or green)
French lentils (smaller)
White beans (Cannellini, northern white beans)
Black beans
Kidney beans (red, dark red)
Pinto beans
Blackeyed peas
Chick peas
Mung beans
You can make your lentil or bean soups thick and hearty, or you can thin them out with some tasty broth. Add chicken or beef broth for the collagen. Alternatively, if you want to go all plant-based, then choose a healthy vegetable broth.
Season your lentil and legume soups with nutrient-rich herbs and aromatics such as garlic, onions, shallots, leeks and scallions. These ingredients are known for their healing properties. The oils of these plants are antifungal and antibacterial in nature which is wonderful for gut health.
If you want a more filling soup, you can add whole grain bulk such as brown rice, wild rice, Basmati, whole potatoes, millet or barley grains.
Include a variety of colorful vegetables for vitamins and minerals. Lentils, beans and peas go nicely with carrots, kale, spinach and turnips in a big pot of flavorful broth.
Remember to season your bean soups with healthy spices. A lentil curry is a common Indian dish, but you can also choose aromatic herbs such as rosemary and sage to flavor your lentil soups if you prefer to put a Mediterranean spin on your lentil and legume recipes.
Soups Made from Colorful Winter Vegetables
Winter squash blends nicely with chicken or veggie broth and milk (or a milk alternative) to create a rich and hearty soup that’s made with vegetables yet eats like a meal. If you don’t want to add cream to your squash soup, you can leave it out of the recipe and then finish with a dollop of plain yogurt or sour cream at serving time.
If you’re looking for something super healthy for an appetizing orange puree, look no further than carrots. Like most orange vegetables, carrots contain high amounts of vitamin A or beta carotene which delivers healing power to the eyes and the lungs.
Summer squash is perfect for soup. Summer squash such as yellow squash and zucchini blend up nicely in a fresh healthy soup, and doesn’t take long at all to cook. With their high water content, these vegetables make a nice light soup to cleanse the palate.
Seafood Soups Are Great for Your Health
Seafood soup eats like a meal. If you’ve ever enjoyed the culinary brilliance that is a seafood-based soup from an Asian restaurant, then you know that there is no limit to the possibilities when it comes to enjoying a homemade, healthy bowl of soup made from fish or seafood.
Think of a wonderful assortment of protein and mineral-rich shellfish, such as calamari, muscles, oysters, clams and shrimp. These fish are readily available at your local supermarket’s seafood department, and they shouldn’t break the bank. If you have a fish market close to home, then you can pay them a visit and make your selections of delicious meat straight from the sea.
The key to making a tasty seafood soup is to remember that the actual shellfish or seafood or freshwater fish cooks very quickly. You will likely only be simmering the fish that goes into the soup for about 3 to 5 minutes depending on what type of fish it is.
The majority of the cooking takes place without the actual fish in the soup. If you do make a soup with shellfish, you may want to separate the shells from the fish meat. Simmer up the shells in a pot of water to extract their ocean-based nutrition which includes calcium, magnesium, selenium, zinc and other amazing minerals.
What Types of Vegetables Make for a Tasty Seafood-based Soup?
Chinese restaurants typically add carrot, onion, cabbage, Chinese cabbage, broccoli, peppers, and bok choy to their soups. To give your soup an Asian flair, you can also purchase special canned additions like small mushrooms, baby corn and water chestnuts.
Going for Thai soup style? Start with a garlic, ginger and cayenne combo for the base of your soup. Thailand is a hot climate. You’ll find lots of peppers and green beans in their soups, along with cilantro and basil for the herb flavorings. Add a dash of coconut milk to finish your Thai inspired soup made from seafood.
Choose a form of healthy carbohydrate for your soup. Your carbohydrate should ideally be complex, meaning it should be based in a whole grain if you’re looking to keep your blood sugar levels balanced and not consume too much sugar or carbs. Complex carbs that are okay for people who are weight watching include whole grain brown rice, whole grain wild rice, noodles made from whole grain brown rice, or whole wheat pasta. Just be sure to limit portions if you’re trying to restrict carb-based calories.
Cook the whole grain noodles in a separate pot. You want to reserve the noodles until it is time to actually serve and eat the soup, otherwise they may become overcooked and overly soft and starchy.
Your protein source for the soup should be several cups of quick cooked seafood, which can include calamari, mussels, clams, shrimp and oysters.
Add some form of an acidic ingredient such as lemon or lime juice, and a fresh herb such as cilantro or parsley, to bring a bright finish to your seafood soup just before serving.
What About a Seafood or Fish Chowder for Weight Loss?
We’re talking about healthy fish and seafood soups that eat like a meal and lead to weight loss. One of the great ones for this purpose is chowder.
The general recipe for chowder is to make a base of celery, onion or leek and potatoes sauteed in oil. Add some pre-made broth and cook until the potatoes are soft. When everything seems to be melding together in this flavorful melange, add your source of fish-based protein. Most people think of clams when they think of chowder. If you have raw clams, you can simmer them right up in the broth with the other ingredients. Finish with a dash of cream, and stir everything together to serve. You can also make a chowder out of salmon, or a combination of shellfish such as clams, oysters, shrimp and crab.
How To Keep your Chowder Weight Loss Friendly
Chowder is traditionally made with white potatoes which have a higher sugar count. You can opt to cook fewer potatoes in the chowder so that you only have a small serving of potato in your soup bowl. You might increase the amount of celery in the recipe in lieu of some of the potato. Or, balance out your chowder with other things that are traditionally not found in chowder, such as heart-friendly turnips or cauliflower, mushrooms, or bits of corn and green beans.
If you are trying to keep your fat intake low, you can swap out the full-fat cream in your chowder recipe for either half and half, or plain milk. Or you can put just one tablespoon of cream into your chowder and make the rest milk.
Again, chowder is one of those heartier soups that is substantial enough as a meal. If you want to shed extra pounds and do it by making smart choices, simply change your habit of using soup as a starter that leads to a much bigger meal served on a dinner plate. Skip the dinner plate of food served after the soup. One bowl of seafood or fish chowder would certainly make a very satisfying meal that wouldn’t have you going overboard in terms of calories, carbs or fat. And if you’re not following the chowder with an entree which most people do, then you can even have your chowder with a few small pieces of whole-grain bread drizzled with healthy oil.
Essential Gadgets To Make Soup Making Even Easier
The great thing about making healthy soups for weight loss is that soup can be made with just a saucepan if you wish. However there all lots of great kitchen tools out there which can make your soup-making even easier, from a simple stick blender, to a soup maker which does everything except chop the veggies! Here is a selection of our favorite tools to speed up the process of making healthy soups.
Stick Blender
A stick blender is an affordable kitchen essential which will allow you to vary the texture of your healthy soups, giving you a creamy blended consistency if desired. This hand-held blender from Brentwood is easy to clean, has two different speeds and a soft grip handle. It is also great for making smoothies and sauces.
Large stock pot
If you plan to make healthy soups a part of your weight-loss routine, having a large pot will make it much easier to prepare in bulk and refrigerate or freeze as required, saving you time. This 8 quart stock pot from Homichef will look great in your kitchen with its mirror polish and tempered glass lid. It is also nickel-free and is compatible with induction hobs.
Soup maker
The ultimate in soup making shortcuts – a soup maker does nearly all the work for you. Just chop your ingredients, add water/stock and the soup maker will do the rest. This Simple Living one has four different settings to allow you to choose how smooth you want your soup to be. It can also be used for making smoothies and sauces.
Soup Ladle
A great soup pot needs a great ladle to match! A self-standing ladle is great for reducing mess, like this one from Letschef. Made of BPA-free nylon, it is scratch resistant and dishwasher safe.
Travel Mug
Taking healthy meals to work is a crucial part of healthy eating, so make sure you have a leak-proof mug to stop your soup from spilling out! This Sistema soup mug is BPA-free, dishwasher safe and has a steam release vent on the lid.
Soup thermos
If you want to keep your soup hot until lunchtime, this BPA-free insulated vacuum flask from Energify is perfect. It keeps food piping hot, has a built in bowl and spoon, and has an easy-carry handle. Perfect for adults and kids alike!
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