Soup It Up!

Easy, comforting, and endlessly customizable, a warm, slurpable meal sure hits the spot this time of year. So we asked some pros to bowl us over with their tips.

- BY JULIAN HENSARLING

RECIPES AND IDEAS FOR REAL LIFE

Start Strong

You can’t have a good soup without a really, really good stock, says Dyan Solomon, co-owner of Olive + Gourmando, a bakery-slash-cafe in Montreal. To deepen the flavor of homemade stock, Solomon roasts carrots, leeks, and other vegetables to caramelize them before simmering them in water for several hours. “Sometimes I toss those veggies with tomato paste before roasting to enrich the flavor even more,” she says. For meat stocks, she’ll roast the bones as well. Beyond vegetable, beef, and chicken stocks, Emiko Davies—author of Italian and Japanese cookbooks, including her latest, The Japanese Pantry—says to consider dashi. It’s an umami-rich broth made by steeping dried kombu (kelp) and bonito flakes (pieces of dried, smoked, and sometimes fermented tuna) in water. You can make your own from scratch or start with premade packets. “Either way, it’s as simple as making a cup of tea,” she says.

Blend with Care