Much like my Bottom-of-the-Freezer Vegetable Dal, this Bottom of the Fridge Soup with Leftover Vegetables is designed for those odds and ends that sadly lurk in the bottom of the vegetable drawer.
I often have bits and pieces in the fridge that I couldn’t use up in recipes. Half a ridiculously huge leek, a few left in the bag of potatoes, an abandoned carrot. Fortunately, these can be turned into a glorious bowl of warming soup in just half an hour.
The Leftover Vegetables
Like many of my recipes, this is very versatile. Don’t feel like you have to go out and buy the exact ingredients I’ve used here! This is a recipe for soup with leftover vegetables – and so you can use pretty much whichever leftover vegetables you have.
Got 2 carrots and no kale? Not a problem, use both of the carrots instead of the kale. It’ll still be delicious!
Got leftover celery instead of leek? No issue, it’s going to work brilliantly.
The only thing you need to be careful with is potato. I used one medium potato, and it works beautifully to thicken the soup. If you use more potato, the soup will be texturally different. You can always add more water if your soup ends up too thick, but then you could end up with an awful lot of soup! I’d stick with one potato if you can.
The Other Ingredients
I used just two other ingredients in the soup here; stock and double cream.
I used some homemade chicken stock because I had some in the freezer. You could use a stock cube instead – that’s fine. If you want to make it vegetarian, add vegetable stock instead. Ham stock would also work nicely.
The double cream can be skipped if you want to make this a proper ‘bottom of the fridge’, only ingredients you have in, soup. However, double cream makes all soups more delicious- this is the law- so do add it if you can.
Bottom-of-the-Fridge Soup with Leftover Vegetables
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 onions
- 1 leek
- 1 carrot
- 1 medium potato
- ½ head of kale
- 1.5 litres chicken stock (or vegetable stock if you want it to be vegetarian)
- 50 ml double cream
- 25 grams crumbly cheese (e.g. Cheshire cheese), to serve (optional)
Instructions
- First, prep your vegetables. Peel and roughly chop the onions. Roughly slice the leek. Peel and chop the carrot. Slice the kale. Peel and roughly chop the potato.
- Put the oil in a large pan over a medium heat. Add the onion, leek and carrot and cook for five minutes, stirring often, until starting to soften.
- Add the stock, potato and kale. Bring to a simmer and cook gently for 20 minutes (the potatoes should be soft at this point).
- Take off the heat and use a stick blender to blend the soup until smooth. Check the consistency here – if it’s too thick, add a little water.
- Add the cream, and season with salt and plenty of pepper.
- To serve, spoon into bowls and top with the crumbled cheese, if using. Dunk crusty bread in and enjoy!
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