At the end of 2021 I decided that I wanted to become Soup Boy. Currently I’m merely a soup apprentice, but I wish nothing more than to become the Soup Boy. That’s why I set out the challenge to try out 50 different soup recipes in 2022. After that I asked my Instagram followers to share their favorite soup recipes with me and the response was overwhelming. I received so many cool, traditional soup recipes from everyone’s home country. It’s a super diverse list of soups (see table at the bottom of this page).
Very cool.
So yeah, the rest of the year, I’ll try to make one of those soups a week. And then I’ll share my experience of the making process and the end result in this blog post of course. You can find all of the results below, in chronological order.
And if you have any other nice soups that you want to recommend, please feel free to do so!
Soups reviews
Underneath I present to you my professional soup apprentice opinion about the soups I’ve made so far.
French Onion Soup (4/5)
- Taste ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Ease ⭐⭐★★★
This soup is delicious, yet a bit cumbersome to make. It takes quite a long time to caramelize all the onions. But if you take the time to do it, you’ll be rewarded greatly. This soup is awesome. The only point of attention I suggest you pay attention to is that you use (or make) a broth that you really really love. We bought some expensive broth because we thought it would make it taste awesome, but it turned out to taste not so awesome. But we adjusted the flavour with some soy sauce and Maggi and then it was awesome again 🙂
Kale Soup (3.5/5)
Taste ⭐⭐★★★
Ease ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I kind of freestyle this soup with leftover veggies in the fridge. Sautéd onion + carrot + celery in the pan, then added some veggie stock and a shit ton on kale (or the less sexy, Dutch name: boerenkool). Then I added some crème fraîche for creamyness and maggi + soysauce + pepper for flavour. The final step is just blending it all together into something that looks like a soup. The taste was alright, but not superb. But I guess it’s healthy? So that’s something. At least more healthy than the French onion soup with its copious amount of cheese for topping. It’s a good soup to just eat for the sake of having a quick and healthy meal. Disclaimer: I did add some freshly grated parmazan to the kale soup and that actually made it taste pretty nice. Side note: you can literally blend every kind of vegetable into an acceptable soup like this.
Peanut soup (4.5/5)
Taste ⭐⭐⭐⭐★
Ease ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I loved this soup. It’s very very nice. Was it perfect though? No, not yet. It reminded me too much of eating satay sauce. And because I had already eaten rice with satay sauce twice this week, it probably wasn’t the best idea to also make peanut soup the day after. But here we are, making poor life decisions as a routine. Anyway, I think that if you’ve not had the taste of satay sauce in your mouth for a few days, it will be awesome to eat this soup. You can dump a lot of veggies in it. My favourite is the beansprouts. I didn’t find them in a lot of the original recipes, but I decided that they belonged there anyway. I dumped a lot of them in the soup. A lot. They are just fun to eat. The ginger gives it a nice zing to it as well. I’m wondering how to bring even more flavours in there the next time I make this soup. Will update this post when I found out.
Ingredients: stock cubes, water, peanut butter, ginger, lemon, leek, pakchoi, beansprouts, sambal oelek, soy sauce.
Roasted sweet potato + carrot soup (4.5/5)
Taste ⭐⭐⭐⭐★
Ease ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
This was the first soup that included roasted elements. But damn, what a nice way to prepare vegetables! Roasting these root vegetables worked out really well. The soup had a lovely silky texture and a deep rich flavour. Don’t forget to add some herbs, otherwise it might become a bit boring after a few spoons.
The preparation of this soup is very easy as well. Just chop the veggies into evenly large pieces, add oil/herbs and shove them in the oven. Remove them when they are decently roasted. Then fry some onion and garlic in a souppan, add a nice veggie broth, bring it to a boil and finally you add the roasted potatoes and carrots. Blend it all up and add some cream. Very nice. Very soft.
Groningse mustard soup (4.5/5)
Taste ⭐⭐⭐⭐★
Ease ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I deeply love the city of Groningen. It has reached mythical status in my mind. This soup is therefore a homage to this great city. Is it easy to make? Yes. Is it delicious? Yes, also.
Celeriac soup (3.5/5)
Taste ⭐⭐⭐★★
Ease ⭐⭐⭐⭐★
In September Becky’s cousin got married in Sweden and the day after the wedding we were invited to sweat out all toxins in a sauna in the woods (and an invigorating swim in the cold lake). After this wonderful experience, however, we had some lunch at the same premise. And Becky eat this A-MA-ZING celariac soup. Of course, I had a (few) lil spoons as well. We were obsessed by the velvety texture and the rich flavour.
Back in Malta I tried to recreate the soup. I did not completely succeed. Even though it was a nice soup, it couldn’t really match up to our experience in Sweden. One note I want to make however is this: the garnishes I tried were delicious!
- Caramalised onions
- Salted and roasted corn kernels + capers + croutons
My attempt at this soup was quite basic by the way: saute leek + carrot. Add the celeriac (in tiny cubes). Add stock cubes + water. Add spices and other flavours. When everything is soft and ready, puree it.
Turkish Lentil soup (3.5/5)
Taste ⭐⭐⭐★★
Ease ⭐⭐⭐⭐★
Inspired by @fitgreenmind on Instagram, who shared this lovely recipe. The soup’s official name is Mercimek Çorbası and it is filled with carrots, potatoes, garlic and of course lots of lentils! And not to forget: lots of spices! It was a very flavourful soup. Like always, I managed to make it a bit too tick. Quite a lot of my soups are quite akin to veggie purees. But very flavourful and nutritious nonetheless! What I like about this soup is that it at least has a certain amount of protein in it. Most other soups are lacking in that department. Flavour was nice, although not I can’t recall having a very strong response to eating it. Not extremely memorable. Quite easy to make as well. No difficult tasks involved.
Cold almond soup (4/5)
Taste ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Ease ⭐⭐⭐★★
You can read the full review on this soup here in the post I ate nut soup.
Cold beetroot soup (4.8/5)
Taste ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Ease ⭐⭐⭐⭐★
You can read the full review on this soup here in the post I made soup with the president.
German potato soup (4/5)
Taste ⭐⭐⭐⭐★
Ease ⭐⭐⭐⭐★
You can read the full review on this soup here in the post I made soup with a chess master.
Chestnut soup (3/5)
Taste ⭐⭐⭐⭐★
Ease ⭐⭐★★★
You can read the full review on this soup here in the post I made chestnut soup in Italy (or: the day our families met)
List of soups
Here is a list of soups I am planning to make in the future. Please let me know if you have some cool recipe you’d like to share with me!
- ✅ French onion soup ??
- ✅ Kale soup
- ✅ Peanut soup
- ✅ Sweet potato + carrot
- ✅ Mustard soup ??
- ✅ Celeriac soup
- ✅ Lentil soup ??
- ✅ Mazamorra Cordoba
- ✅ Šaltibarščiai ??
- ✅ German potato soup ??
- ✅ Chestnut soup
- Caldo Verde ??
- Sopa de Mondongo ??
- Mierikswordelsoep
- Olive soup
- Lia’s mush
- Noodle soup ??
- Creamy spinach soup with bacon
- Yuvalama ??
- Red cabbage with pear and ras el hanout
- Courgette
- Chupe ??
- Maltese Minstra ??
- Lobster bisque
- Woton soup ??
- Kerrie soep
- Pea soup (erwtensoep) ??
- Chinese tomato soup ??
- Zondagse soep ??
- Creamy walnut soup
- Salmorejo ??
Thanks for the suggestions
I’d like to thank all individuals in the list underneath for suggesting all of these wonderful soups. It’s really cool to get to know your cultures via your soups. If you’re reading this and you’d like to suggest a soup yourself as well, don’t hesitate to email me!
- Stijn Peeters (Caldo Verde)
- Koen van den Bemd (Mierikswortelsoep)
- Mitchell Multem (Olive soup)
- Isa Stoffels (French Onion soup)
- Adrian Robinson (French Onion soup)
- Amber Linskens (Sweet potato + carrot)
- Lia Sinnige (Lia’s mush)
- Arnas Lasys (Šaltibarščiai)
- Guus Colbers (Creamy spinach soup with bacon)
- Ezgi Aytekin (Yuvalama)
- Fleur Verheijen (Red cabbage with pear and ras el hanout)
- Steffy Janssen (Courgette)
- César Najak (Sopa de Mondongo, Chupe)
- Steve Azzopardi (Maltese Minstra)
- Jelle Luttge (Lobster bisque, Salmorejo)
- Gijs Herings (Noodle soup, Woton soup)
- Frank Mertens (Pea soup (erwtensoep))
- Martijn Roefs (Kerrie soep, Chinese tomato soup)
- Valentina Petrovic (Creamy walnut soup)
- Ronny Müller (German potato soup)