Fat free soup

Tupins

Hi I'm trying to lose weight so someone suggested making some fat free vegetable soup which I can eat as much as I want.

I'm pretty hopeless in the kitchen so was wondering if anyone could help me out with a simple vegetable soup recipe (and method). I'm trying not to eat potatoes so could I put some lentils in to thicken? I assume lentils are less fattening than potatoes???

Any help is welcome.

Dizzyblonde

I make this soup a lot:

3 large carrots
a large onion
2 sticks of celery
a few slices of turnip or swede
a crushed clove of garlic
a tin of chopped tomatoes
a tablespoon of tomato puree
a teaspoon of dried basil
salt and black pepper
one and a half pints of hot water
one and a half chicken or veg stock cubes
* I add a teaspoon of sugar to sweeten the tomatoes

Dice the veg and throw everything into a big pot.
Bring to the boil, partly cover and let it bubble gently for about 50-60 minutes until the veg are tender.
Leave it chunky or stick the hand blender in and whizz some of it to make it thicker.


You could vary it and put in extra veg and stock and swop the basil for a pinch of mixed herbs if you wanted to leave out the tinned tomatoes and sugar. Blending the soup thickens it once you have put enough veg in - you'll get a feel for the amounts through trial and error. Putting in red lentils would ramp up the calories.

Alun

Surely the amount of fat in any home made vegetable soup is going to be miniscule anyway. A tbsp or so of olive oil to sweat off the veg and that's about it as long as you use vegetable stock instead of chicken stock. Hardly worth worrying about IMO.

cruizer101

Tupins wrote: »

fat free vegetable soup which I can eat as much as I want.

Just cause something is fat free doesn't mean its calorie free.

The ammount of fat in a veg soup will be very small tbh, but there is still calories which you willl need to burn off.

For thinkening the soup, oats might be a good way to go not really sure of the ammount but a handful of porridge oats in the soup should help. Also pearl barley will soak up a lot of liquid so should help thicken it.

Tupins

When I said as much as I want, I suppose I meant that I wouldn't have to be watching portion sizes and that. I'm aiming to eat pretty much fat free for a few weeks but will obviously still need calorie intake - I'm just looking for fat free but nutritious I suppose.

Thanks for the input.

superficies

As a committed and successful member of Weight Watchers I can totally recommend soups. Making soup is easy and it's incredibly healthy and good for you. HOWEVER points-free soup can not be the only thing that you eat. Make sure you eat some protein (white fish, chicken or turkey) as well. And have the odd spud. It won't do you any harm.

For soup--the recipe above is excellent and makes delicious soup. I also like to make a butternut squash or pumpkin soup.

1 butternut squash, peeled and diced; or one small pumpkin peeled and diced
Celery
Onion
A red pepper--maybe 2
1.5 pints veg stock
Salt
Pepper
Optional: curry powder (small sppon) [not if using pumpkin in which case small amount or coriander or nutmeg is really nice addition]

Bung all in big pot together. No oil or anything needed. Bring to boil, reduce heat, simmer for 20/25 minutes (until squash is soft), bung in food processor, whizz, serve with pumpkin seeds (if you have them) and small spoon of creme fraiche or natural yoghurt (if you want...one small spoon of the low fat no harm at all).
If you want some dairy a good tip is grate small bit of parmesan on the soup at the end. Or if you are finished a parmesan then is lovely to bung the parmesan rind into the pot and remove before blending. This put nice flavour into the soup with almost no fat.

Leek and potato soup also lovely, although of course there is the spud-tum to think about with that one.

Squash soup and red pepper soup can also be done post-roasting of veg, which some people like.

Other very very healthy meals, apart from soup (which you WILL get sick of), or egg-white mushroom omelettes (0 points in WW!), and veg stir fries. The latter is fantastic with some soy sauce thrown in (points free as well) and can be enormous and very filling. A 60g (dry) portion of rice is practically no fat (esp. if brown rice) and can be served with the veg stir fry for a 3 point dinner (if you are a man around 16 stone and 6 foot, for example,. WW will give you like 28 points for the day so a huge 3 point dinner is nothing!). You can also get your protein in by putting turkey or prawns into the stiry fry. Yum-my-licious!