Rainy days mean soup for lunch in our house! And soup is the perfect opportunity to use up odds and ends from the fridge and the freezer – saving some money, avoiding food waste, and creating something deliciously different each time.

This isn’t the sort of dish you can write a recipe for, but I’ll describe the most recent ‘fridge soup’ I made, and you’ll get the idea!

I usually use the pressure cooker for soup, because it cooks most soups to perfection in 10 minutes. First into the pot, some diced vegetables.

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This time, I used one tired carrot, one and a half gold kumara, half a tired swede. They were all diced to about 1cm square. I didn’t peel any of them, just trimmed the ends.

Next into the pot – half a cup of leftover cheese sauce from the freezer, a cup of leftover homemade hummus from the freezer, and the scrapings of a tub of shop-bought hummus from the fridge.

I half-filled the hummus pot with water, put the lid back on, and shook it to get as much hummus as possible out!

I almost added in the remnants of a jar of lime pickle but I decided there was enough in the jar that it wasn’t soup-o’clock for the lime pickle yet.

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When we get down to the end of a jar of peanut butter, I half-fill it with hot water and then shake it to loosen the peanut butter. This makes a great addition to soups, stews and salad dressings.

I often add a big handful of red lentils to the soup too, but this soup was already protein- packed thanks to the hummus. I cooked the soup on high pressure for 10 minutes.

Once it had cooled enough, I blended it in the food processor – adding some extra water to get the consistency I wanted.

Often I use a stick blender to partly blend the mix, but this time I wanted it very smooth, so into the food processor it went.

Because of the ever-changing parade of ingredients in these soups, I never add any seasoning until after it’s cooked. Often this is where the real creativity comes in!

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I taste it and decide whether I want to increase the saltiness, sweetness or sourness. I add the seasonings cautiously, and keep tasting and adding until I’m happy with the result.

I love to add lots of toppings to my soups – in this case I dressed it up with coconut yoghurt, finely chopped greens from the garden (rocket, parsley, celery and chervil), sesame oil, chilli flakes and sesame seeds.

Fridge Soup Ingredient Inspiration

Base ingredients:
Vegetables:
Any raw or cooked vegetables from fridge, freezer or garden which you want to use up.

Pulses:
Red lentils for a quick-cook protein boost – they go nice and creamy when well cooked
Leftover cooked pulses such as split peas, chickpeas or black beans

Grains:
Quick-cook grains like quinoa or white rice will cook in the same time as the vegetables
Leftover cooked grains like brown rice or pearl barley

Seasonings:
Brine/vinegar from jars of jalapenos, olives, gherkins
Rinsings from jars of nut butter, tahini, relish, chutney

Toppings:
The crunchy bits from the end of a pack of crackers or chips
Mixed fresh herbs
Tahini
Coconut yoghurt
Toasted seasoned breadcrumbs
Diced red onion
Angel Food plant-based cheese – parmesan, cheddar or smoked cheddar

Enjoy!