With the winter chill just outside our doors and the blur of holiday preparations and parties on their way it might be a good time to add soup to your dinner time repertoire!

Who doesn’t like a good bowl of soup?  Healthy, hydrating and warming to our belly and soul, there’s no better food as days shorten and the temperature dips.  And, there’s more!

Soup can be a very healthy choice for breakfast, lunch or dinner.  Add vegetables, fruits and protein  in a soup for a healthy meal that staves off those hunger pangs.  Your body will love it!

And soup can be easy on the budget!  With a few simple ingredients you can create classic soups that taste great and cost little to make    Take for example Potage Parmentier, (potato leek soup). You would think this French favorite would be complicated and costly but it uses just four ingredients – and one is water!  You can certainly enrich it with chives and sour cream but if you stick with the four ingredients you won’t be disappointed!  Here’s our favorite:

Soup is the perfect food to fill you up without adding many calories.  (A good trick to know if you are watching your waistline!)  A little soup before dinner is a great trick to keep down the carbs that come with the main course and dessert! 

Soup makes you feel better.  And, that’s almost a proven fact!  Mom knows it’s a surefire remedy for a cold so scientists put it to the test.  University of Nebraska Medical Center physician/researcher Stephen Rennard, M.D., challenged the folk remedy and found it to be credible.  Unable to pinpoint exactly why test subjects responded positively to soup, researchers suggest that it may be the vegetables and chicken working together that packs the nutritional punch. Whatever it is, have it handy when winter brings the sniffles. 

And, finally… what better food to warm your insides? That’s right, soup, especially if it’s a little on the spicy side or thick and filling… we say mmm, mmm good!  Here are two that will fill you up and leave you ready to settle in for that long winter night. 

 

What’s your favorite soup?  Don’t be shy, share your favorite in our comment section.