30 best soup recipes

Everyone has a favourite type of soup -- anything from rice soup, corn soup, celery soup or fish soup -- but no matter which kind you prefer, you know a bowl of hot soup is as comforting as a big hug. On the other hand, there's nothing better to cool off with in the summer than a chilled soup with fresh ingredients from your garden.

Here are 30 of our best soup recipes to comfort you all year long. Many recipes will yield a batch that's big enough so you can freeze some and save it for later.

You can make many of our favourite soup recipes with homemade soup stock or a pre-made base.

Best soup recipes: chicken soup
1. Spring Chicken Soup with Pasta
The base of this soup is the poaching liquid used to prepare the chickens for the main course in our Italian feast menu. Cutting the fresh lasagna noodles approximates the look of homemade pasta.

2. Chinese Chicken Noodle Soup
This hearty spoon and fork-style soup can be made in only 15 minutes. Makes 4 cups (1 L) for 2 to 3 servings.

3. Velvet Chicken and Cucumber Soup
This soup is as smooth as its name suggests. If you serve it to guests, be prepared to share the recipe!

4. Chicken Soup with Spinach Dumplings
Here we are using the clear soup used to poach the chicken for the salad, but you can use another full-flavoured, preferably homemade, chicken soup for these vivid emerald-green dumplings.

5. Chicken Soup with Bread Dumplings
Since you start with chicken stock, this satisfying soup is full of flavour, despite so few ingredients.

Best soup recipes: beef soup recipes
6. Quick Beef and Vegetable Borscht
Beef borscht usually requires hours of simmering tasty yet tough cuts of beef to tenderness, but with ground beef, you can get the flavour quickly. Serve this nutritious soup with Russian pumpernickel or rye bread.

7. Nan's Pea Soup
Everyone has a favourite pea soup recipe. This one is tasty and calls for salt beef -- in contrast to the salt pork typical of French-Canadian recipes -- and it is thickened with cream as well as peas. For a slightly lighter soup you can successfully make it with milk.

8. Autumn Beef Borscht
You can cut all the vegetables for this rich, Eastern European-style soup the night before to toss in a slow cooker the following day before you leave for work.

9. Swiss Oat Soup
While this soup isn't low fat (the Swiss soup includes cheese, of course), it's so good you'll want to make it as a treat every so often.

10. Wedding Soup with Meatballs
This is a pretty soup, and very substantial with all those meatballs. The torn escarole floats on the broth, enriched by the meat and molten cheese. This dish is flavourful yet subtle, something to throw a bouquet about. For nonbridal occasions, it can be a proper meal for four persons.

Best soup recipes: barley, noodle and rice soup recipes
11. Filipino Chicken and Rice Soup
In the Philippines, soups with poultry, meat or fish and vegetables are common supper fare. Cooking the whole chicken adds flavour. Cut the thighs in half and the breasts into 2 or 3 pieces for easier serving.

12. Mushroom Miso Soup with Noodles
Use barley, brown rice or dark miso for the best flavour in this easy-to-make Japanese-style soup with noodles.

13. Yogurt-Rice Soup
Prinzov Abour (Yogurt-Rice Soup) is rich, yet light; soft on the palate; and highly stimulating to the appetite with its sour-minty tang.

14. Chicken Lemon Soup
If you have chicken stock in your freezer or pantry, this soup can be on the table in less than 15 minutes. You can substitute rice for the orzo if you wish.

15. Mushroom Barley Soup
This soup will become thicker as it stands; if you're making it ahead, thin it with some water before serving. The soup has an appealing peppery bite, but, if you wish, you can use less pepper.

Best soup recipes: vegetable soup recipes
16. Roasted Red Pepper Soup
The Jalapeño Cream drizzled over this soup packs a deliciously spicy punch. Jalapeño peppers can vary in heat: taste and adjust heat level. Serve soup warm or chilled.

17. Mediterranean Tomato, Lentil and Spinach Soup
Serve this hearty vegetarian soup with crusty whole wheat bread for a complete meal.

18. Butternut Squash Soup
This soup tastes best in the fall and winter, when winter squash is fresh and sweet. Stay away from precut squash, as its flavor is usually dull and its texture dry.

19. Italian Vegetable Soup
Just two sausages boost the flavour of this simple vegetable and chickpea soup. For a vegetarian version, you can omit the sausages and replace 3 cups (750 mL) of the water with vegetable stock.

20. Leek Soup with Cheese
You can replace the feta cheese in this Balkan-style soup with Greek Kasseri or Bulgarian Kashkaval cheese. Garnish with a few celery or parsley leaves, if you like.

Best soup recipes: chilled soup recipes
21. Cold Blueberry Soup
Blueberries are full of the antioxidants that many of our diets lack. This easy, healthy soup makes a refreshing finish to any summer meal.

22. Chilled Avocado Soup
For a sit-down dinner, serve this soup in soup cups on lined plates. For easy service on a buffet, ladle soup into juice glasses and present in a bowl of crushed ice.

23. Spiced Cold Cherry Soup
This fruit soup can be served before the main course or as dessert.

24. Chilled Tomato Soup with Herbed Tomato Tapenade
A cross between gazpacho and classic tomato soup, this fresh version is made to enjoy cold. Because all tomatoes differ in acidity and sweetness, adjust the flavour of the soup with sugar and lime juice to taste.

25. Baltic Cold Spinach Soup
This cold soup, a meal in itself, sits perfectly when served with buttered Russian-style pumpernickel.

Best soup recipes: Fish soup recipes
26. Fish and Leek Soup
Use haddock, cod, pollock, halibut or other white-fleshed fish for this delicately flavoured soup. Serve with French or Italian bread.

27. Greek Fisherman's Soup
In this dinner soup, based on variations from across Greece, fragrant extra-virgin olive oil is used as a flavouring. You can use other kinds of fish or replace the clams with 8 oz/250 g shell-on shrimp – or add them along with the clams. Serve with crusty white bread and a side of horta (bitter greens.)

28. Dairy-Free Low-Fat Fish Chowder
This chowder is rich in taste and texture despite the absence of traditional ingredients such as milk, cream and butter. Cured meat can deliver a valuable flavour boost to dishes; in this soup, a tiny bit of bacon adds a lot of flavour and provides all the fat in the recipe. Flash-frozen fish fillets are a convenient and inexpensive fish for this chowder.

29. Easy Clam Chowder
Clam up with a bowl of this nurturing soup.

30. Asparagus and Crab Soup
The best time to make this delicious Asparagus and Crab Soup is in the spring when local asparagus is just beginning to show up at farmers' markets and crab from both coasts is being harvested.