Vegetable Soup Seasoning

Vegetable Soup Seasoning is also called seasoning for vegetable beef soup, best seasoning for vegetable soup, or seasoning for chicken vegetable soup.

What Is Vegetable Soup Seasoning

Vegetable Soup Seasoning is especially excellent with soups that contain just about any type of root vegetables you have on hand: carrots, celery root, parsnips, sweet or regular potatoes, rutabaga, butternut squash, or turnips.

We especially like to bloom the soup seasoning in a little bit of fat like oil before adding onion and then browning the rest of the vegetables. Many cooks tend to wait until the end of the cooking process to taste and add seasoning to their soup. But adding salt and other spices earlier in the cooking process allows their flavors to blend into the entire soup providing more flavor.

What Does Vegetable Soup Seasoning Taste Like

Earthy with noticeable herbiness.

How to Use Vegetable Soup Seasoning

There are two ways that we most typically use Vegetable Soup Seasoning - naturally to make vegetable soup from scratch but also to make vegetable broth to use as a soup base in future homemade soups. The terms “broth” and “stock” are typically used interchangeably but technically stock is made from bones, while broth is made generally from meat or vegetables.

To make a base vegetable broth, you want vegetables with neutral, but savory flavors. Carrots, celery, mushrooms, garlic, leeks, onions, and shallots are the perfect starter vegetables for stock.

Now not all vegetables make for a good broth. We tend to stay away from potatoes and turnips as they result in a cloudy vegetable broth. Beets can overpower their less intense aromatic counterparts. We also tend to stay away from these vegetables when making broths as they can make a broth bitter - bok choy, broccoli, cabbage, carrot peels and tops, cauliflower, celery leaves, kale, mustard greens, onion skins, and too many tomato seeds.

Many cooks under season their homemade broths or soups by waiting until the end of cooking to taste and season their soup. By adding your soup seasoning early in the cooking process allows their flavors to blend into the entire soup and helps pull the flavor out of the vegetables. To get even more flavor out of your broth we like to either roast the vegetables beforehand or to let them sweat in a little bit of fat over medium low heat for a few minutes before adding the water.

Adding unseasoned ingredients to your broth leads to a dilution of flavor. Therefore we recommend adding Vegetable Soup Seasoning not just at the end of the cooking process but at every stage of the process. Sweating aromatics? Season them. Adding more liquid? Taste and season as needed. Taste constantly and adjust as you go and you will not be disappointed at the intensity that comes through when you master this technique.

This is a Vegetable Soup Seasoning, but it is right at home in a beef vegetable or chicken vegetable soup. It’s also wonderful in marinara sauce and creates a flavorful base for saucy dishes like chicken cacciatore. It is excellent on root vegetables; add to a sweet potatoes mash, or roast with acorn squash, carrots, and turnips. It is outstanding tossed on broccoli and grilled or roasted. This also makes an excellent dip; just add 1 tablespoon of Vegetable Soup Seasoning to 1 cup of low-fat sour cream. Perfect for fresh vegetables or chips.

The History of Soups

Food historians believe that the origin of soup may be almost as old as the history of cooking. Soup could not have been made without a vehicle to hold and heat liquid. Evidence of the existence of soup can be traced back more than 22,000 years. Harvard University archaeologist Ofer Bar-Yosef and colleagues reported in 2012 in Science¹ on their finding of pottery dating back to approximately 20000 BC from a cave in China. "When you look at the pots, you can see that they were in a fire," Bar-Yosef says.

The earliest recipe for vegetable soup dates to the 1st century AD Roman cookbook, Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome, believed to have been written by Marcus Gavius Apicius, a Roman gourmet. Several recipes call for the use of onions as both a main and base ingredient in creating a variety of broths and soups². Roman cuisine during this period showed the evolution of soup making filtering down from the wealthy gourmands to both peasants and soldiers³.

The term soup was first used in the 1650s and is derived from the French soupe which meant "soup or broth", which came from Late Latin suppa "bread soaked in broth," from Proto-Germanic sup "to take liquid".

William Parks printed the first cookery book in America in Williamsburg, Virginia. His Compleat Housewife was an edited and reprinted version of Eliza Smith's book, which was first printed in London in 1727⁴.

According to the bible of French gastronomy, Larousse Gastronomique⁵, the first restaurant entrepreneur is believed to have been A. Boulanger, a soup vendor, who opened his business in Paris in 1765. Boulanger's establishment near the Louvre, served mostly bouillons restaurants which translates to "restorative broths."

The Highlanders of central Appalachia, prepare a winter vegetable soup also called just vegetable soup or country soup. This hearty dish is typically made in larger pots on the weekend and consumed throughout the week. Typically made with beans, corn, potatoes, and tomatoes⁶.

Hungry for More Information

The Best Soup Seasonings
How to Build Flavors
How to Roast Vegetables
How to Make the Best Homemade Soup

References

1 Wu, X., Zhang, C., Goldberg, P., Cohen, D., Pan, Y., Arpin, T., & Bar-Yosef, O. (2012). Early Pottery at 20,000 Years Ago in Xianrendong Cave, China. Science, 336(6089), 1696–1700.

2 Apicius, M. G., & Vehling, J. D. (2021). Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome: With original illustrations. Independently published.

3 Davies, R. W. (1971). The Roman Military Diet. Britannia, 2, 122.

4 Smith, E. (1994). The Compleat Housewife (First Edition). Studio.

5 Montagne, P. (1961). Larousse Gastronomique: The Encyclopedia of Food, Wine & Cookery. Crown Publishers, Inc.

6 Sohn, M. F. (2005). Appalachian Home Cooking: History, Culture, and Recipes. University Press of Kentucky.