The cooler weather has arrived and as the temperature drops we tend to reach for comforting foods. These foods are not always the healthiest for us but if we plan ahead a bit, cooking up a big pot of soup over a weekend or one evening can mean an instant healthy nutritious meal you can heat up for lunch or dinner over the week.
Soups offer so many health benefits since they are usually made from wholefoods so offer lots of natural vitamins and minerals which can help boost our immunity, ward off colds and flus and help us get the recommended daily serving of vegetables into our diet. They are especially a good option for kids who may not realise how good they are for them they just love the taste!
Here are four tasty soups we have discovered that are packed full of health benefits from some our our favourite online nutritionist and food bloggers:
Immune Boosting Chicken Soup by The Healthy Chef
We have all been told and some stage in our lives how beneficial the good old-fashion chicken soup is for us. Teresa Cutter (AKA The Healthy Chef) has tweeked her great aunts traditional Polish soup to offer a recipe with ingredients selected especially to help beat cold and flus. It is full of garlic and takes 10 minutes to make big thumbs up from all of us busy people!
Teresa explains why this soup is so good:
Garlic, turmeric and ginger are potent detoxifying and antiviral herbs to help the body get rid of toxins, stimulate circulation, reduce inflammation, aid digestion and boost your immune system. Coriander also has antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties that can help fight disease. Adding a little protein such as chicken will supply your body with essential amino acids your body needs to heal and nourish.
Super Alkalising Vegetable Soup by Vegie Head
Integrative and naturopathic medicine aims to bring a better acid/alkaline balance in the body. This balance then allows for detoxification. Making a soup out of alkaline promoting vegetables can help you bring that balance back to your body. Well-known vegan Vegie Head offers us this soup which looks delicious and is packed full of the right vegetables which will aid detoxification. Read more about the benefits of alkalising soups and find more recipes here.
Anti-inflammatory Cauliflower Soup by The Natural Nutritionist
A daily dose of Rose-Hip Vital is a great natural anti-inflammatory for the body but since inflammation is now being linked to so many different diseases, the more you can counter-act inflammation in the body, the better! According to Steph Lowe (AKA The Natural Nutritionist) this soup is:
High in antioxidants, phytonutrients, fibre, potassium and B vitamins, cauliflower is a true superfood. It is not only anti-inflammatory, but detoxifying and anti-aging, and it helps to reduce your risk for diseases caused by oxidative stress, such as cardiovascular diseases and cancer. The addition of turmeric, ginger and chilli to this soup, really turns up the anti-inflammatory punch, making it perfect for exercise recovery.
Cleansing Soup with Chicken Meatballs by Michelle Schoeps
Michelle is a mum of three and runs Love and Bones Broth in Sydney (order home-made bone broth and amazing soups from here when you dont have time to cook!) Her cleansing soup is a hearty one and great for the kids lunch or dinner. We love how her blog provides a step by step guide with photos for all her recipes. This soup will take a bit more time to whip as you need to make the meatballs from scratch but you could leave out the meat balls and just make an awesome vegetable soup that is a nice cleanser for the body. Sometimes it also works to whizz up soups like this in a blender for a different consistency and then kids cant tell whats in it!!
Share with us your favourite winter soups below
