If you think that you are too busy to make homemade soup, think again! With your handy crock pot, cooking tasty homemade soup is a breeze. Just about any type of soup can be adapted to the crock pot, so you can come home after a long day to a nice warm bowl of soup. Add some crusty bread and you are all set for a relaxing evening at home.

Soup for the Crock Pot Cook

There is nothing as satisfying as ladling a warming soup into your bowl. When you use your crock pot, you can easily make soup from fresh or pre-packaged ingredients. Canned broth or creamed condensed soups make an easy base if you do not want to make one from scratch. Add vegetables, noodles, rice, or any other favorite ingredient and let it simmer all day long on low. Even if you are feeling under the weather, it only takes a few moments to throw some ingredients together and plug in the crock pot. Later in the day, you will have a wonderful, nutritious soup to soothe your throat and make you feel better.

What Kind of Soups Can You Make in a Crock Pot?

Add some stock or broth and your favorite vegetables before you leave for work. When you get home, add some noodles and let it cook for about half an hour. Before you know it, you have some lovely chicken noodle soup or beef noodle soup all ready for dinner. If you prefer dumplings, add them instead of the noodles for a filling meal. If you have leftover ham, you can easily make a tasty bean or split pea soup for a cold winter night. For bean soup, it does take a little planning, since the beans must be soaked overnight before adding them to your soup.

Chowders are perfect for the crock pot. Since they are usually milk based, scorching is a concern when making seafood chowders from scratch on the stove. In the crock pot, add your ingredients and set the pot on low. When you come home, you'll have the best tasting clam or seafood chowder you've ever tasted, perfectly prepared every time. Just drop in the oyster crackers before you serve each bowl.

Just about any combination of ingredients can be thrown into the crock pot to make soup. If you have some kielbasa in the refrigerator, make some soup! Sausage, hamburger, potatoes, broccoli... they can all be used to make soup in the crock pot. If you prefer vegetarian fare, pumpkin soup is easy to make with pumpkin or squash, parsnips, apples, potatoes and some seasonings. Just puree it at the end of cooking with a stick mixer and you will have a tasty bowl of goodness to warm you through and through.

Crock pots are also an excellent choice for stews of all kinds especially when using cuts of meat that may be not quite so tender for budget reasons. This is not so much a problem in a crock pot or slow cooker as the process naturally tenderizes the meat and makes for a very flavorful stew. All you need to do is cut up into bite sized pieces some meat and sear it in a pan and add to this some sautéed mushrooms, onions and some of your favorite vegetables in bite size pieces, cover in liquid (wine works nice), season, and let cook on low all day. At the end add a roux to this to thicken the sauce and you have a wonderful hunter's stew.