The best part of winter is the hearty food. The preparation time gets longer as the days get shorter. A good hearty soup at the end of the day makes all your problems go away.

While I can’t and won’t give away exactly what goes into my soups, I can give you an idea and you can try and copy them but I know you’ll fail (insert: evil laugh).

Here’s my top 5 soups that I have mastered and serve regularly at home

5. Mixed Vegetable Soup

In the winter days, when you walk into any grocery store, you’re immediately greeted by a vegetable soup mix. This is the core of my vegetable soup. Simply put, my pressure cooker is a God in my kitchen. It saves me a lot of time in the kitchen and electricity. Here’s a tip, if you want to thicken it up, don’t add in minestrone soup powder, rather opt for a while onion on vegetable soup mix.

4. Butternut Soup

I got sick and tired of always running to Woolies to buy this, so I decided to Google my own recipe and try it myself. It started off quite sweet which really was like drinking a badly made pumpkin spiced latte. My second attempt involved roasting the butternut and not adding any sugar to it. My third attempt had my friends asking me for the recipe. Here’s a tip: roast the butternut. It not only releases the flavour, but it also adds a smokey flavour to the soup.

3. Tomato Soup

My hubby loves anything tomato based. So this one I tried because of his love for it. The key to making this a really delicious soup is, just like the butternut, is to roast the tomato. Don’t be afraid of a little charring on the tomato, that’s the best part of the tomato. Give yourself more time to work on this soup, even if you’re using a pressure cooker. Tomato has a lot of flavour that can be highlighted by adding in fresh basil, roasting it. Be careful too. Tomato is quite acidic and you can undercut that acidity by adding in some sugar and right at the end while your sup is simmering, you can add some cream.  Here’s a tip: To add extra volume to this soup without altering the flavour too much, add carrot in the initial phase. It will add a bounce of colour, break the acidity but to over take the powerful tomato flavour.

PS: Don’t use tomatoes from a can even that dreaded tomato and onion mix. Please don’t. I don’t care if you’re in a rush or can’t find fresh tomato… Just don’t

2. Seafood Chowder

This is not exactly a  soup, it’s more of a stew but I only make it in winter so I saw it appropriate to add it in. It comes in at number 2 because it has such complex flavours that it is making me salivate at the thought of it. It’s a shortcut if you use the seafood mix that is in the frozen section of the grocery store. It’s just as good and a lot more cost effective than individually buying the fish. Just make sure that you fully let it defrost before you start cooking it. You don’t want all that extra water when you’re cooking it. Another component of the perfect chowder is the potato you use. Make sure that you use potato that is for mashing. I know that sounds weird but read the potato packet. It will tell you what the potato is best for. Here’s a tip: Cream cream cream and more cream. Yes that makes your meal like a million calories, but it’s winter, you deserve it!

1. Lamb and Vegetable Soup

This is the Piece de resistance of soups. EVERYONE adores this soup. They always ask me for the recipe and although I freely give it away, it never tastes as amazing as the one I make. The cut of meat is what I treasure the most. This is not the most expensive cut, but it is tender and has a lot of fat on it.

In the above picture, you can see the cut that I am talking about. Cook it until the bone falls off. Also remove the bone, mid cartilage and the cartilage on the side of the meat. The soup packets that will best bring out amazing flavour are minestrone, lamb and vegetable soup and a little unknown secret, bisto! Here’s a tip: Add in some cayenne pepper for a little kick.

So here’s my top 5 soups for this winter. Some are heavy, some are light, some take time and others you can make in an hour. If you’re really nice, I may just give you the recipes.

Always remember, if a soup is see-through, it’s not soup, just murky water. – LadyVera