Healthy Soup Recipes: Easy Ideas for Lunch & Dinner
Soup is one of my favourite easy lunches when the weather starts getting colder, although to be fair I’ll happily eat it at any time of year. It’s cheap to make, a good way of using vegetables that need eating and, depending on what you put in it, can be anything from a light lunch to a really filling meal.
I particularly like homemade soup because it doesn’t have to be complicated. Some days you might want a smooth tomato soup with a slice of crusty bread, while other days something with lentils, pasta, potatoes or beans feels much more substantial. You can make soup on the hob, in a soup maker, in the slow cooker or even in the Instant Pot, so there are plenty of options depending on how much time you have and what equipment you prefer using. Here are some of our favourite soup recipes for you.
Easy healthy soup recipes
If you want something straightforward using ingredients you can easily pick up in the supermarket, there are plenty of simple soups to try.
My easy tomato soup is particularly handy when you want something quick, while the tomato and basil soup has a little more going on with fresh tomatoes, passata, red pepper and basil.
For something earthier, try my easy mushroom soup. You can blend it completely smooth or leave some texture depending on how you prefer your soup.
Another option is celeriac and celery soup. Celeriac isn’t something everyone automatically puts in their shopping trolley, but it works really well in soup and is worth trying if you’ve spotted one in the supermarket and wondered what on earth to do with it!
Vegetable soup recipes
Soup is an easy way to use more vegetables, particularly those odd bits left in the fridge when there isn’t quite enough of anything to make a meal.
Carrots work especially well because their natural sweetness comes through once they’re cooked and blended. Carrot, ginger and orange soup combines that sweetness with a little warmth from the ginger, while smoky aubergine soup has a completely different flavour and is a good choice if you fancy something less traditional.
The double pepper soup is a little more unusual because the red and yellow pepper soups are served together in the same bowl. It looks rather impressive but isn’t nearly as complicated as it looks!
There’s also coconut and pea soup, or for something more suited to colder weather, red pepper and butternut squash soup is lovely and warming.
Butternut squash soup
Butternut squash is almost made for soup. Once cooked and blended, it becomes naturally thick and smooth, so you can get that lovely creamy texture without necessarily adding cream.
My healthy butternut squash soup is a simple option when squash is in season, while the red pepper and butternut squash recipe above adds another flavour if plain squash soup doesn’t appeal to you.
Lentil soup recipes
Lentils are brilliant in soup because they add texture and make a bowl of vegetables feel much more substantial without making the recipe particularly expensive.
Red pepper and lentil soup is a good choice for a filling lunch, especially if you want something that doesn’t need lots served alongside it. There’s also a red lentil soup where the lentils are much more central to the recipe.
Dried lentils are worth keeping in the cupboard because they’re inexpensive, keep for ages and can turn fairly basic vegetables and stock into a much more satisfying meal.
Filling soup recipes for lunch or dinner
There are definitely days when a small bowl of smooth vegetable soup isn’t going to cut it. If I’m hungry, I want something with enough in it that I’m not looking for something else to eat half an hour later.
Minestrone soup is ideal for this because you’ve got vegetables and pasta together rather than just blended vegetables and stock.
The hearty vegetable pasta soup is another good choice if you like plenty of texture. Pasta works surprisingly well in soup and makes it feel much more like a proper meal, especially with some vegetables and a tomato-based broth.
For meat eaters, slow cooker Italian meatball soup combines meatballs, pasta, tomatoes, vegetables and spinach. That’s definitely dinner territory rather than a little bowl of soup before something else!
Cheese and creamy soups
Some soups are naturally thicker and richer, which can be lovely when you want something a bit more comforting.
Broccoli and Stilton soup is particularly handy around Christmas when there always seems to be cheese left in the fridge. Stilton has such a strong flavour that you don’t need huge amounts of it to make a difference.
There’s also an Instant Pot broccoli and cheese soup, which is a different recipe and useful if you have an electric pressure cooker.
For something even more substantial, loaded baked potato soup is made with potato and topped with cheese, bacon and spring onions. It’s definitely one for days when a thin vegetable soup isn’t going to satisfy you.
Soup maker recipes
A soup maker can be really handy if you make soup regularly, particularly if you like smooth vegetable soups. You can prepare the ingredients, put everything in and let the machine do most of the work.
Quite a few vegetable soup recipes can be adapted to work in a soup maker, although you’ll need to pay attention to the maximum and minimum fill levels for your particular machine.
My recipes for soup makers guide has more ideas, and if you’re wondering whether one is actually worth having, I’ve also written about the benefits of using a soup maker.
You certainly don’t need one, though. I’ve made plenty of soup recipes using nothing more exciting than a large saucepan and a stick blender, so I wouldn’t buy another kitchen gadget purely because a recipe tells you that you need it.
Slow cooker soup recipes
A slow cooker makes more sense for chunky soups and recipes containing ingredients that benefit from a longer cooking time.
Slow cooker Italian meatball soup is a good example because the meatballs, tomatoes and vegetables have plenty of time to cook together before the pasta is added.
For a simple blended vegetable soup that takes 20 or 30 minutes on the hob, I’m not convinced I’d wait several hours just for the sake of using the slow cooker. Sometimes the saucepan really is the easier option!
If you use your slow cooker regularly, there are more ideas in my healthy slow cooker recipes.
Instant Pot soup recipes
An Instant Pot or electric pressure cooker is useful when you want the opposite of slow cooking and would rather get dinner made quickly.
Loaded baked potato soup, lasagne soup and broccoli and cheese soup can all be made this way, and they’re particularly good examples of the thicker, more substantial soups that can work as a full meal.
There are more ideas in my easy Instant Pot recipes if yours spends more time sitting in the cupboard than actually being used.
Slimming World soup recipes
Soup can work really well when you’re following Slimming World because there are plenty of recipes based around vegetables, lentils and other filling ingredients. I ate a lot of soup when I was losing weight, particularly for lunch, because it was easy to make in advance and take some of the thinking out of deciding what to eat.
Of course, not every soup is automatically suitable just because it’s soup. Cheese, cream, oil, coconut milk and some toppings can make quite a difference, so it depends entirely on the recipe.
If that’s specifically what you’re looking for, have a look at my Slimming World soup recipes for more suitable ideas rather than trying to work out which recipes fit the plan yourself.
Healthy winter soup recipes
Soup really comes into its own during autumn and winter. Root vegetables such as carrots, parsnips, celeriac and butternut squash are perfect for it, and a hot bowl of soup feels considerably more appealing when it’s freezing outside!
My healthy winter soup recipes include several different ideas if you’re looking for something warming.
Autumn and winter are also good times to experiment with vegetables you don’t usually buy. If you’ve never cooked with celeriac or aren’t sure what to do with a butternut squash beyond roasting it, soup is a pretty forgiving place to start.
What can you serve with soup?
Bread is the obvious answer, but it certainly isn’t the only one.
A crusty roll, toast, pitta bread or a sandwich can turn a lighter soup into a more substantial lunch. A jacket potato can work alongside a smaller bowl of soup too, particularly if you’re very hungry.
If the soup already contains pasta, potatoes, lentils, beans or meat, you might find you don’t need anything else with it.
This is one of those areas where I don’t think there’s much point following rules. If a bowl of soup fills you up, brilliant. If you know you’ll still be hungry afterwards, have something with it.
Can homemade soup be frozen?
Many homemade soups freeze well, and freezing individual portions can be particularly useful for quick lunches. It’s much easier to take one portion out of the freezer than defrost a huge container when you’re the only person who wants it.
Texture is worth considering, though. Pasta and potatoes can change after freezing and reheating, while some creamy or dairy-heavy soups aren’t quite as nice afterwards. Simpler vegetable and lentil soups are often the ones I’d choose if I was deliberately making extra for the freezer.
Always cool, store, freeze and reheat leftovers safely, and don’t leave a big pan of soup sitting around at room temperature for hours before dealing with it.
Making soup on a budget
Soup can be incredibly cheap, especially if you start with what you already have rather than shopping for a long list of ingredients. You can even make it without specific soup recipes and just base it on one you like and chuck in whatever you have to use up.
Carrots, onions, lentils, tinned tomatoes, frozen vegetables and stock are all useful basics. Reduced vegetables can be good for soup too if you’re going to cook them promptly, so it’s worth checking the reduced section if you’re shopping on a budget.
Before buying anything specifically for soup, I usually think it’s worth checking the fridge. Half a bag of carrots, a slightly wrinkled pepper and an onion aren’t particularly exciting individually, but add some stock, herbs and a couple of cupboard ingredients and suddenly lunch is sorted.
That’s one of the things I like about making soup. Once you’ve made a few different recipes, you start to get a feel for what works together and it becomes much easier to use what you’ve already got rather than following every recipe to the letter.
More easy meal ideas
For more easy meal inspiration, have a look at my chicken recipes, slow cooker recipes and easy Instant Pot recipes. There are plenty of options for quick lunches, family dinners and those days when you just need to make something from whatever happens to be in the kitchen.
