Healthy, Low-Fat Soup: Recipes and Tips

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Looking for a great simple supper? Whip up a hearty and filling soup.

By Elaine Magee, MPH, RD
WebMD Weight Loss Clinic - Expert Column

Reviewed By Kathleen Zelman, MPH, RD/LD

One of the best "light" dinner options when the weather is cold is soup! Just pair a big bowl of soup with a wheat roll or some wheat crackers, and call it a meal. I always have some favorite canned soups in my pantry so anyone in the family can serve themselves some soup in l5 minutes. But there's something to be said for slowly simmering a homemade pot of soup over the stove until the flavors meld together perfectly. From chicken matzo ball soup to hearty lentil soup, it can really hit the spot on a cold day or night. Read on for some healthy and low-fat soup recipes, as well as tips on how to make any soup recipe lighter.

Soup for Supper

Can soup suffice as supper? If you are accustomed to eating light at night -- or if this is something you're moving toward -- a bowl of soup can definitely work as a satisfying evening meal.

Here are three reasons why:

• It's almost impossible to slam down a bowl of soup. You have to eat slowly and enjoy each spoonful.
• The high liquid content of most soups does a great job of filling your stomach.
• If the soup or stew is high in fiber (from beans, vegetables, and/or whole grains), it will also help add bulk to your meal and thus help you feel full longer.

Light and Low-Fat Soups

As long as the soup you're slurping is broth- or tomato-based, you usually can't get into too much trouble, calorie-wise. A cup of broth, by itself, is about 25 calories with 1 to 2 grams of fat. A cup of tomato juice is about 40 calories and 1 gram of fat.

But with a cream-based soup, all bets are off. One cup of light whipping cream (in liquid form) is about 700 calories and 74 grams of fat, while 1 cup of half-and-half is 315 calories and 28 grams of fat. Wowza! Switching to whole milk in your creamy soup recipes is sounding a "whole" lot better now, isn't it?

One cup of whole milk is about 150 calories and 8 grams of fat. Using whole milk will usually give your soup the creamy taste and texture you desire, but without all the excess calories and fat. The lower-fat options for "cream" like whole milk, low-fat milk, and fat-free half-and-half are more sensitive to high heat, so avoid boiling and add them to the soup toward the end just to warm.

Here's a chart of the calories, fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, and fiber found in soup base ingredients so you can compare them for yourself:

4 More Tips for Low-Fat and Healthy Soups

Here are four more tips to help you keep your soup recipes low fat and healthy:

1. If your soup recipe calls for meat, choose leaner cuts whenever possible, like skinless chicken or turkey breast, pork tenderloin, or sirloin steak trimmed of visible fat. If the recipe calls for sausage, substitute a less-fat turkey sausage (such as turkey polska kielbasa links). Remember that you can usually get by with half as much as the recipe calls for.
2. When using fresh herbs, add them toward the end of cooking or stir them in right before serving. Some fresh herbs even work well sprinkled on as a garnish. Add dried herbs in the beginning or middle of cooking so they have plenty of time to rehydrate and give off their flavor.
3. If the soup recipe calls for stirring in butter at the end of the cooking process, just don't go there. If it calls for sauteing vegetables in butter in the beginning, just use a tablespoon of olive oil or canola oil instead. If you need more moisture as the vegetables are browning, add in a couple of tablespoons of water, wine, or broth.
4. Pump up the fiber in your soups by adding beans when possible and use whole grains like barley, brown rice, wild rice, or whole wheat blend pastas instead of refined grains.