Soup
Soups, stews and broths, from clear stocks to thick, long-simmered pots. Most of them stand or fall on the stock underneath and on when the salt goes in. Basics to read first: Stocks and Broths: Clarity, Time, and Why You Do Not Salt Them
Soup Joumou (Squash and Beef Soup)
Haiti's independence soup: beef rubbed with lime and marinated in épis is simmered tender, squash is boiled apart and blended smooth to thicken the broth, then potato, carrot, cabbage and thin pasta go in. It is eaten on New Year's Day.
Senbei-jiru (Soy Broth with Wheat Crackers Simmered Soft)
A soup from Hachinohe in Aomori: wheat crackers baked specially for the pot, broken by hand and simmered in soy broth with chicken, burdock and mushrooms. They drink up the broth and turn into something like a chewy dumpling.
Maesaengi-guk (Oyster and Fine Seaweed Soup)
A winter soup of maesaengi, a green seaweed finer than hair, cooked only briefly with oysters. Its fibres mat so densely that the soup barely steams, yet it holds its heat for a long time, so it is easy to take it for cool and burn your mouth.
Kozuyu (Dried Scallop Soup with Taro and Wheat Gluten)
A celebration soup from Aizu in Fukushima: dried scallops soaked to make the broth and left in it, with taro, carrot, wood ear, ginkgo nuts and tiny wheat-gluten puffs, lightly seasoned. It is served in small, shallow red lacquer dishes and refilled as often as you like.
Cullen Skink (Smoked Haddock, Potato and Milk Soup)
The soup of Cullen on the north-east coast of Scotland: smoked haddock poached in milk, and the milk turned into a soup with potato and onion. Some of the potato is mashed in to thicken it and the fish goes back in flakes at the end. Served with bread or oatcakes.
Chaogan (Pork Liver and Intestine in Thick Garlic Gravy)
A Beijing breakfast: simmered pork intestine and briefly blanched liver in a soy-darkened broth thickened heavily with starch. The name says "stir-fried" but nothing is fried; it is simmered. It is drunk from the bowl, turning it and sipping round the rim with no spoon, with steamed baozi on the side.
Sogogi Muguk (Beef and Radish Soup)
Beef and radish soup, an everyday Korean home soup. The radish is cut into thin squares and cooked until it turns translucent, and the broth is seasoned with soup soy sauce and salt. The same ingredients make two soups: fry the beef in sesame oil first and the broth comes out fuller and slightly cloudy; start the radish in water, add the beef and skim, and it stays clear. What decides it is whether fat went into the pot.
Soto Padang (Clear Beef Soup with Crisp-Fried Beef)
The clear beef soto of Padang, West Sumatra. Beef is boiled to make the broth, then lifted out, sliced thin and fried until crisp; boiled potato is shaped into small patties and fried; and each bowl gets rice vermicelli, the fried beef, the potato and a boiled egg before the boiling broth goes over. Meat in the pot cannot brown with water round it, so the browning is done outside the pot and meets the broth again in the bowl. The pot stays clear.
Soto Lamongan (Turmeric Chicken Soup with Koya)
East Java's chicken soto from Lamongan: a clear turmeric-yellow chicken broth poured over glass noodles, cabbage, bean sprouts and thinly sliced chicken, and finished at the table with koya — prawn crackers pounded with fried garlic to a powder. The starch in a cracker is already cooked, so it gives the broth body in the bowl with no boiling. The pot stays clear; each person thickens their own bowl.
Changua (Eggs Poached in a Salted Milk Broth)
Colombia's breakfast soup: milk and water in equal parts, salted and brought up to heat, with eggs cracked in whole and poached, and dry bread left to soften in the bowl. The two usual aids to poaching an egg — vinegar in the water, and no salt — are both closed to this pot: it is the soup, so it has to be seasoned, and it is milk, so vinegar would curdle it. It gets away with that because whatever white strays is still in the bowl.
Tonjiru (Pork and Root Vegetable Miso Soup)
Pork and root vegetables — daikon, carrot, burdock, potato — fried in sesame oil first, then simmered in water and finished with miso. It uses the same paste as miso soup and runs in the opposite order: miso soup builds a dashi and drops things into it, while here frying the vegetables in the pork fat is what makes the broth. That is why it works without dashi at all, and why — against the rule that a miso soup is best straight off the heat — this one is kept and reheated on purpose.
Shchi (Cabbage Soup, Fresh or Soured)
The Russian cabbage soup, and one whose identity is its sourness. Where that sourness comes from changes with the season — the cabbage itself, sauerkraut, or a sour leaf such as sorrel — and which one you pick changes the order things go into the pot.
Samlor Kako (Stirring Soup with Toasted Rice)
Cambodia's national soup: a pounded Khmer paste of lemongrass and turmeric let out into a broth, whatever vegetables there are simmered in it, and the body brought up at the end with rice that has been toasted dark and ground. Kako means to stir. Where amok seals the same paste into a banana-leaf cup so that nothing escapes, this one dissolves it into a litre of liquid — and the toasted rice and the prahok are what pay for that.
Meggyleves (Chilled Sour Cherry Soup)
A Hungarian summer soup of sour cherries simmered with sugar and cinnamon, chilled, and then let down with soured cream once it is cold. Sharp fruit and dairy share a pot without splitting here — not because of a stabiliser and not because nothing is ever heated, but because the two never meet the pot at the same time.
Hot and Sour Soup (Suan La Tang)
Tofu, wood ear, bamboo shoot and pork cut into matchsticks in a broth thickened with a starch slurry, finished with egg poured in as threads and with the vinegar and white pepper stirred in off the heat. The dish is the order of the last three minutes: the starch has to go in before the egg or the egg sinks instead of hanging in ribbons, and the vinegar and pepper go in away from the boil because heat takes their aroma away.
Encebollado (Tuna and Cassava Soup under Raw Red Onion)
Ecuador’s breakfast fish soup, and its hangover cure. Tuna and cassava are boiled in separate pans; the aromatics lifted out of the fish broth are not thrown away but blended and pushed back through a sieve to become the body of it. Raw red onion goes in the bowl last and the broth is poured over it.
Cawl (Welsh Lamb Broth with Leeks)
A Welsh broth of lamb neck and root vegetables given two slow hours, into which the leeks go only at the end. A leek is an allium with no bulb, which is why it cannot simply take the onion’s place at the start of a pot. Traditionally cooled overnight, skimmed, and eaten the next day with bread and cheese.
Carne en su Jugo (Beef Cooked in Nothing but Its Own Juices)
A beef dish from Jalisco. Paper-thin slices are salted, covered and set over a low flame, and the water the meat gives up is the broth — nothing is poured in. That single decision also deletes the searing and the deglazing, because the moisture those two steps drive off is the thing you are trying to collect. It is served with beans, crisped bacon, raw onion and coriander, and tortillas.
Rasam (Thin Tamarind and Pepper Broth)
A thin South Indian broth: tamarind extract simmered with tomato, crushed garlic and black pepper, let down with the water from cooked toor dal, taken off the heat the moment it froths, and finished with mustard seeds and curry leaves fried in ghee and poured over. Eaten poured onto rice or drunk from a cup. That its sourness is tamarind's tartaric acid — neither a vinegar nor a ferment — decides most of the order it is made in.
Romazava (Clear Beef and Greens Broth with Mafana)
Madagascar's national dish: beef and pork simmered into a deliberately clear broth, with three Malagasy leaf greens wilted in at the end and red rice alongside. The name means "clear broth". What defines it is not heat but mafana — paracress leaf and flower bud — whose spilanthol neither burns like capsaicin nor rushes up the nose like mustard. It tingles, numbs a little, and makes the mouth water. The chilli stays out of the pot and comes to the table as sakay.
Lablabi (Chickpea Broth over Stale Bread)
A Tunisian breakfast soup. The water the chickpeas cooked in is the broth, and apart from garlic, cumin and salt nothing else goes into the pot — no fat, no stock, no thickener. Stale bread is torn into the bowl first and the hot broth poured over it, and then the harissa, the olive oil, the egg, the tuna and the capers go on in the bowl rather than in the pan. One pot therefore produces as many different dishes as there are people at it.
Bagnun (Fresh Anchovy Soup)
A fresh anchovy soup from Sestri Levante in Liguria, made by fishermen at sea and poured over dry bread. Anchovy is usually a salted condiment that melts away; here it is the fish. Its flesh sets in three or four minutes, so the tomato broth is finished first and nothing is stirred once the fish is in.
Ajiaco (Bogotá Chicken Soup Built on Three Potatoes)
One of Colombia's national dishes: a Bogotá chicken soup built on three kinds of potato, each with a job. Small yellow papa criolla falls apart and becomes the body of the soup, waxy potatoes stay in pieces, and a middling one fills in between. Corn and the herb guascas go in; cream and capers are added at the table.
Šaltibarščiai (Cold Beetroot and Kefir Soup)
The Lithuanian summer soup of boiled, cooled beetroot loosened in kefir and served cold. Kefir is milk soured by fermentation, its casein set as a fine gel, and heat is what would squeeze it into curds and whey. Nothing here is heated, so the acidic beetroot does not split it; the potatoes come hot on the side.
Pasta e Fagioli (Pasta and Beans)
The Italian poor man's dish of pasta cooked straight in the bean broth. Pasta water is usually saved for its starch; here the cooking water is the soup, so every bit of starch the pasta sheds stays in the pot and thickens it. The cost is that the salt must be right before the pasta goes in.
Rawon (Black Beef Soup with Keluak)
The black beef soup of East Java. The colour is neither burnt nor soy: it comes from keluak, a fruit that is poisonous raw. It carries cyanogenic compounds, and it only becomes food after being boiled and then buried in ash and banana leaves for weeks, which turns it black, oily and faintly like chocolate. Most cooking that meets a toxin avoids it. This dish eats the part that was the toxin.
Dovga (Herb and Yoghurt Soup)
An Azerbaijani soup whose liquid is yoghurt. Yoghurt usually splits with heat and is added gently, off the boil; dovga simmers a litre of it. It works because egg and a little flour are beaten in before any heat, getting between the casein so it cannot clump, and it is stirred nonstop until it boils.
Abgoosht (Lamb and Chickpea Broth, Two Courses)
The Iranian lamb stew that comes out of one pot as two separate dishes. When it is done the broth is poured off and eaten first with bread torn into it, and the meat, chickpeas and potato left in the pot are pounded with a pestle into a thick paste and served as the second course. The second dish is made by crushing the first, and the whole technique is in that moment: keep the poured-off broth hot, and pound what is left of it dry. Any liquid still in there and you get porridge instead of a paste.
Kongnamul Gukbap (Bean Sprout Soup with Rice, Reheated by Ladling)
What makes the Jeonju version of this soup is not an ingredient but the way the rice is warmed. It is called toryeom: cold rice goes into an earthenware bowl, hot broth is poured over it and poured back off again, five or six times, until the rice is hot. Boil rice in soup instead and the grains drink the liquid and swell while the broth goes cloudy with their starch. Toryeom avoids both. The aim is to make the rice hot without cooking it any further.
Solyanka (Sour Soup of Cured Meats and Brine)
A sour Russian soup of smoked sausage and ham with brined cucumbers, olives, capers and lemon. Much of the sourness comes from pickle brine, an acid that is already salty, so you cannot fix the salt first and then add acid bit by bit: more sour means more salt. The broth stays under-salted until the end.
Egusi Soup (Melon Seed Stew with Greens)
One of Nigeria's national dishes: a stew thickened with ground melon seeds. Ground walnuts, as in fesenjan, melt into a smooth sauce; egusi does the opposite. Its protein coagulates with heat, so instead of dissolving it sets into soft curds: drop it in as lumps, then leave it alone for ten minutes without stirring.
Oden (Simmered Fishcakes, Daikon and Egg in Dashi)
A Japanese pot of fishcakes, daikon, konnyaku, boiled eggs and stuffed tofu pouches simmered in soy-seasoned dashi. Things that need five minutes and things that need two hours go into the same pot, so what an oden actually is is the order they go in. And the seasoning goes into them as they cool, not while they heat: warming drives water out of a porous solid, and cooling contracts it and draws the broth in. Which is why an oden left overnight and reheated is a different thing from one made in an hour.
Ukha (Clear Fish Soup with Dill and Vodka)
Russia’s clear fish soup. It is not a broth made in advance and used in something else — the broth is the dish, so the rules of stock-making invert one by one. Fish bones turn bitter past twenty or thirty minutes, so more time is not available, and depth has to come from the number of fish instead: cheap small fish are boiled first and thrown away, and the good fish goes into that liquid for ten minutes. No fat goes in at any point, which is why the broth has to stay clear, and why it is salted from the first pot rather than at the end.
Hwangtae-guk (Freeze-Dried Pollock Soup)
A Gangwon hangover soup made from pollock frozen and thawed outdoors all winter. Slow freezing grows large ice crystals that rupture cells and let moisture out on thawing. Hwangtae repeats that about ninety times over three months on purpose, leaving a sponge that holds more broth than fresh fish.
Leng Saep (Spicy Sour Pork Spine Soup)
Thai pork backbone simmered until it falls off the bone, then dressed hot and sour with lime, fish sauce and chilli. It arrives looking like a soup but it is built like a salad — laap or som tam rather than a broth. The bones are cooked long over heat; the seasoning goes in only after the pot comes off it, because boiled lime juice loses its perfume and turns bitter.
Pozole Rojo (Hominy and Pork Stew)
The Mexican celebration stew: corn simmered until each kernel bursts open like a flower, in a pork broth stained deep red with ground dried chillies. The heart of it is not the chilli but what is done to the corn. Nixtamalisation, cooking it in an alkaline solution and slipping off the skins, is what lets the kernel flower; corn that skips it stays a hard bead however long you boil it.
Sujebi (Hand-Torn Dough Soup)
Wheat dough torn thin by hand into anchovy broth. With so little else in it, the dough decides everything: knead it, then rest it in the fridge for an hour, or every piece springs back as you pull it and tears thick — and that thickness stays as a doughy middle in the bowl.
Chueo-tang (Loach Soup with Perilla and Dried Greens)
Pond loach simmered soft, pushed through a sieve so the bones stay behind, then cooked into a thick soup with dried greens, soybean paste and ground perilla seed. Sansho pepper scattered over at the table is part of the dish, not a garnish. Only two steps are real work — purging the loach and sieving it; the rest is an ordinary doenjang soup.
Bouillabaisse (Provençal Rockfish Soup with Rouille)
Marseille's fishermen's soup. The name means boil, and the dish really does break the usual rule for fish stock: the broth is boiled hard. That hard boil breaks the small rockfish down and emulsifies the olive oil into the liquid, which is how it thickens without cream or flour.
New England Clam Chowder
The creamy clam soup of New England. What defines it is that the liquid does not start as water or stock: the broth is what comes out of the clams as they steam, and once you pour that away there is no way to make it again.
Galbitang (Clear Beef Short Rib Soup)
Beef short ribs simmered into a clear soup. It shares ingredients with seolleongtang but aims at the opposite result: a bare simmer throughout and every trace of fat lifted off. What decides it is how thoroughly you trim the ribs before they ever meet the pot.
Seolleongtang (Milky Ox Bone Soup)
Seoul's ox bone soup, boiled until the broth turns milk-white. That whiteness is not dairy but fat and gelatin emulsified into water — which is why, unlike almost every other broth, this one wants a rolling boil. And it is seasoned at the table, not in the pot.
Cheonggukjang (Fast-Fermented Soybean Stew)
A stew built on soybeans fermented for only two or three days, left whole in the pot — deeper and far more pungent than doenjang jjigae. The paste goes in last and is barely simmered, and the broth must be seasoned before it does, because cheonggukjang is salty and there is no taking it back.
Gamjatang (Spicy Pork Back-Bone Stew with Potato)
Pork back-bones simmered until they give, with cabbage greens, whole potatoes and a finish of ground perilla seed. Whether it smells porky is decided by the prep rather than the seasoning — soak, then parboil and throw that water away — and the perilla goes in at the very end.
Cazuela (Clear Chicken Broth with Pumpkin, Corn and Potato)
Chile's everyday one-bowl meal: a whole potato, a wedge of pumpkin and a round of corn simmered in a clear broth, one of each per person. Leaving the vegetables in single large pieces is what makes it a cazuela, and letting the broth boil is what ruins it.
Lohikeitto (Creamy Salmon Soup)
A Finnish salmon soup: potato and carrot simmered in stock made from the salmon frame, finished with cream, then the salmon cooked off the heat by residual warmth alone. Whole allspice and a generous handful of dill at the end are what make it Nordic — and not boiling the salmon is the whole technique.
Chicken Noodle Soup
The classic American comfort soup — chicken and vegetables simmered into a clear, deeply savory broth with tender egg noodles. It's the bowl you reach for on a sick day, all made in one pot to share with the whole family.
Yukgaejang (Spicy Beef Soup)
A fiery Korean beef soup: brisket simmered until tender and shredded, loaded with scallion, fernbrake, and bean sprouts in a broth spiked with chili oil. Deep, hot, and restorative — ladle it over rice for a full meal.
Caldo Verde (Kale Soup)
A thick potato broth studded with thread-thin shredded kale and slices of chorizo — Portugal's national soup. Humble ingredients, but the silky potato base, smoky chorizo, and generous olive oil make it deeply comforting.
Sinigang (Sour Soup)
Pork simmered with radish, tomato, and vegetables in a broth soured with tamarind — the Philippines' beloved sour soup. Bright, clean, and tangy, it's the comforting bowl that makes rice disappear in Filipino homes.
French Onion Soup
A classic French soup of deeply caramelized onions in rich stock, topped with a baguette and gruyère and broiled until golden. Take your time with the onions and anyone can make it deeply savory.
Tteokguk (Rice Cake Soup)
Korean rice cake soup: oval rice cakes simmered in anchovy or beef broth, topped with egg ribbons and nori. Eaten at Lunar New Year (it 'adds a year'), and ready in 30 minutes once you have the rice cakes.
Minestrone (Vegetable Soup)
An Italian vegetable soup built on onion, carrot, and celery with seasonal veg, beans, and small pasta. There's no fixed recipe — it's perfect for using up vegetables in one hearty pot.
Miso Soup (Misoshiru)
Japan's everyday soup — miso (fermented soybean paste) dissolved into dashi stock with tofu, wakame, and scallion. It's on the table at nearly every meal. With a dashi pack it takes 10 minutes, and the key is not to boil it once the miso is in, to keep the aroma.
Gazpacho (Chilled Tomato Soup)
A chilled summer soup from Andalusia, Spain — ripe tomatoes blended with cucumber, pepper, garlic, olive oil, and vinegar, served cold. No cooking at all: blend, chill, done. Cool, bright, and refreshing on a hot day — vegetables you drink.
Kongnamul-guk (Soybean Sprout Soup)
A clean, refreshing Korean soup of soybean sprouts in a light broth. Seasoned simply with garlic and salt it's already crisp and savory; an anchovy-kelp stock adds depth. Ready in 10 minutes and famously good for a hangover — a Korean home staple.
Borscht (Beet Soup)
Ukraine's iconic beet soup, deep ruby-red. Built on a beef broth with cabbage, potato, and carrot, it's simmered sweet-and-sour and finished with a dollop of sour cream (smetana) and dill. Ukrainian borscht culture was added to UNESCO's heritage list in 2022.
Goulash (Paprika Beef Stew)
Hungary's national dish — beef and vegetables slow-simmered with sweet Hungarian paprika. It began as a herdsmen's ('gulyás') cauldron stew. Deeply paprika-rich and, with potatoes added, a hearty one-bowl meal.
Budae Jjigae (Army Stew)
A spicy, hearty Korean stew of ham, sausage, baked beans, and kimchi simmered with instant noodles. Born after the Korean War from U.S. army-base surplus — hence the name 'army stew'. Comfort food made for sharing.
Samgyetang (Ginseng Chicken Soup)
Korea's signature tonic soup — a whole young chicken stuffed with glutinous rice, ginseng, garlic, and jujube, simmered into a milky, restorative broth. A summer staple; tender chicken, rich broth, and rice porridge inside.