How To Boost Your Immune System With Healthy Homemade Soup

There is nothing better for dinner on a cold winter night than a piping hot old fashioned bowl of homemade soup. Homemade soup instantly warms you right to the core. It is so comforting to enjoy. Nothing can make you feel more cared for and loved than homemade soup. The steamy broth just soothes away any throat discomfort while satisfying hunger with no guilt attached. Add a piece of crusty bread to the side and you have before you a healthy, immune-boosting, delicious meal.

Easy And Affordable

Soup is one of the easiest and most affordable meals to make. I have saved leftover vegetables from dinner to make homemade vegetable soup before. Keep a gallon-sized sealable bag in your freezer. Every time you have a little leftover corn, green beans, carrots, or peas just drain them well and add them into the freezer bag. When the bag is full make your soup. Being frugal is always in fashion. You might need to add some additional ingredients but you are well on your way to making a tasty soup. All you have to do is put all the ingredients in the stockpot and simmer until everything is tender. Season it to your taste and Voila! Making homemade vegetable soup is a great beginner meal for a young cook to learn. It is an instant success because it is so easy to make. It’s practically infallible!

Healthy And Immune Boosting

After all the holiday indulgences we all need to get back on track to choosing healthy eating. Sugar suppresses your immune system. Who can afford a suppressed immune system? Winter months are known as “cold and flu season.” With Covid 19 lurking around every corner, let’s give our immune systems every advantage to be able to fight off colds and flu or at least recover faster. Vegetables are powerhouses of the vitamins and nutrients that our body’s defense systems need. Vitamin supplements are okay to take but our bodies absorb more from nutrient-packed foods. What we eat is the fuel for our immune system. Can you think of anything healthier than nutrient-packed homemade vegetable soup to stay healthy and boost our immune system?

Tailor It To Your Specific Taste

The best thing about making this soup from scratch is that you can tailor it to your family’s tastes and needs. If you don’t like peas; don’t add them in. If someone is allergic to corn; don’t add it in. Choose the vegetables that you like and season it the way you want to. Add a little more pepper if you like your soup spicy. Use a little less salt if you have high blood pressure. Tailor it specifically to your health needs and tastes. This is an exceptional option that you just don’t get when you buy canned soup. While canned soup is always an option, it will never be able to compete with being able to tailor homemade soup exactly to your specific needs.

How To Make It

Gather the vegetables that you have on hand or want to use. If you are using the frozen leftover vegetables that you have been saving there is not much prepping involved. Remove them from the freezer bag and place them in the stockpot with enough water to cover them. Add any additional ingredients and seasonings at your discretion. I would recommend using canned carrots at this point because they are already cooked. Don’t overcook the rest of your vegetables trying to add fresh which requires a longer time to cook.

I used fresh vegetables this time and placed them in my instant pot to cook faster. This also ensured that my carrots would be tender. Any large stockpot with a lid, crockpot, or instant pot will work for making delicious homemade soup. Begin by washing all of your fresh produce. Next, chop up your celery, carrots, onion, garlic, and green beans. Put all of the chopped ingredients in the pot. Then I added a large can of diced tomatoes. My mother always added shredded cabbage to her vegetable soup but I had none on hand. After all the ingredients were in my instant pot I selected the Soup/Stew program and set the cooking time on medium. In less than an hour, it was ready to serve.

Something My Granny Would Say

I did not include a recipe with specific measurements. (That sounds like something my granny would say. LOL!) But honestly, this is a healthy, make-it-tailored, to fit your family size and needs kind of thing. A family of two may not need the amount of what a family of four would. A small pot of soup might only require a small onion whereas a large pot might require a large onion. If you like a brothy soup then add the desired amount of water to make it happen. Add less water if you prefer a thicker, heartier, stew-type soup.

Final Advice

The advice I will give is to stir, taste, adjust, stir, taste, and adjust again until you like the way the soup tastes. The next piece of advice is to just give it a try. You cannot go wrong! Throw some croutons in your soup bowl, bake a loaf of homemade bread to go with it, or eat it with traditional saltine crackers to top it off. Add in a garden salad on the side with your favorite salad dressing and you are done! You will be eating healthy and boosting your immune system this winter with this wonderful homemade vegetable soup. Enjoy!