BC Living
Recipe: How to Make Pie Crust from Scratch
Valentine’s Day Drink Recipe: Hy’s Love Is Love Cocktail
Recipe: Pork Belly and Asparagus
Nature’s Pharmacy: 8 Herbal Boutiques in BC
How Barre Enhances Your Flexibility
Top Tips for Workout Recovery
Inviting the Steller’s Jay to Your Garden
6 Budget-friendly Holiday Decor Pieces
Dream Home: $8 Million for a Modern Surprise
Local Getaway: Hideaway at a Mystical Earth House in Kootenay
9 BC Wellness Hotels to Relax and Recharge in This Year
Local Getaway: Enjoy Waterfront Views at a Ucluelet Beach House
B.C. Adventures: Things to Do in February
5 Beautiful and Educational Nature and Wildlife Tours in BC
7 Beauty and Wellness Influencers to Follow in BC
11 Gifts for Galentine’s Day from B.C. Companies
14 Cute Valentine’s Day Gifts to Give in 2025
8 Gifts to Give for Lunar New Year 2025
When the weather is dark, stormy and grey, who doesn't want to just cozy up on the couch with a cup of soup?
Here are three soup recipes that cover whatever mood you’re in. Butternut Squash for when you feel like a spicy fall purée; Pasta Fazool for a hearty dish packed with goodness; and Miso Soup for when you want something light and umami-flavoured.
This one is going to make your house smell heavenly when the squash is roasting in the oven. There’s not much more you can do to make this soup any better, except maybe do yourself a favour and make a double batch so you can freeze some for one of the grey winter days ahead. This recipe is dairy- and gluten-free—and vegan if you skip the Parmesan.
Serves 6
This soup is also called pasta e fagioli, but saying pasta fazool is so much more fun. It is hearty, full of veggies and beans, and tiny, tiny pasta pieces. If you need a solid dinner after a hard day at work or a workout, then this is for you. It’s super easy, especially if you can chop your veggies in a food processor, and I had almost all the ingredients in my house already.
There are a ton of different variations on this recipe. Add in some sausage for protein, toss in some leafy greens, or maybe change up the beans if you have something different on hand (chickpeas, for example). If you’re vegan, skip the sausage or find some vegan sausage to toss in and sprinkle some nutritional yeast on top or vegan Parmesan, instead of regular Parmesan, which is the usual topping.
NOTE: If using kale or other leafy greens, add them when you add the tomato and stock.
In many Japanese restaurants, the miso soup is about 95 percent broth with a few teeny-tiny bits of tofu, and maybe some seaweed if you’re lucky. Well, at home, you get to control how many extras go in when you make it from scratch, and it’s actually super easy.
The issue for me with most of the instant versions of miso soup is that they are full of MSG (monosodium glutamate), to which I’m allergic, so making it myself helps me control exactly what is going into the soup.
If you’re not a purist (seaweed, tofu, green onions), you can load up your miso soup with other veggies. My next batch I might add mushrooms, but you can toss in lettuce, onions, clams, bean sprouts, carrots, eggplant, anything! Just make sure that you add anything that needs to cooked/softened before you boil the dashi (Japanese soup stock).
NOTE: The homemade dashi should last about a week in the fridge. If you double the dashi, you can freeze it for a quicker soup another day!
Makes 4 cups