While brainstorming your next party menu, consider grabbing from our list of healthy soup recipes to feed a group. With the fall season comes parties and harvest gatherings that typically have a large group of people in attendance. Take the guesswork out of what to feed everyone by having a few soups on the menu.
Tips for Cooking Healthy Soups for a Large Crowd
Once you’ve decided to put soup on the menu, you may be wondering about practical ways to cook them. Although recipes have their own ingredients to throw together, keep these other cooking (and catering) tips in mind.
Give yourself plenty of cooking time.
Since most soups need time to simmer for the flavors to combine, you don’t want to start it right before the party. In addition, soups can be made up to a day in advance and be warmed up before gathering time. The rule of thumb is the longer a soup cooks, the more flavorful it becomes.
Use a crock pot or Instant Pot for cooking, reheating, and transporting.
These lovely kitchen gadgets come in handy when cooking soups and stews. You can cook your soup as directed, leave it in the pot, and easily transport it to the party. Simply plug it up and allow it to reheat all in one dish.
Keep it simple.
Stress-free is the name of the game when it comes to cooking for a crowd. You’re most likely already doubling (or tripling) the amount of ingredients of the recipe, so keep it simple with the fewest amount. In other words, go for recipes with five ingredients or less.
With these tips in mind, let’s look at --- crowd-pleasing soup recipes to consider cooking for your next gathering.
5 Healthy Soup Recipes to Feed a Group
Tomato Soup with Stuffed Gnocchi
Three ingredients is all you’ll need for this yummy soup. Grab several cans of tomato soup, a couple packages of frozen spinach, and a few packages of stuffed gnocchi - and that’s it! Simply throw all of your ingredients into the crockpot and cook over the low (or high) setting. This soup can easily make big batches and be served with loaves of sliced Italian bread.
Easy Lasagna Soup
This recipe will help you get rid of any pantry leftovers, especially the lasagna noodles that you’ve had every intention on using. Skip the mixing and layering of a traditional lasagna and go for throwing all the ingredients together in the crock pot. This will be one of your more hearty soups with plenty to go around. Consider serving it with garlic bread topped with cheese.
20-Minute Pumpkin Soup
We mentioned that you’ll want to give yourself cooking time; however, if time is of the essence, then this pumpkin soup recipe will come in handy. It’s also a fall classic since the main ingredient is pumpkin! It’s the spices that bring an entirely new flavor to the canned pumpkin (or you can use fresh). Check out how easy it is to make here. Go for sourdough or rye bread to pair with this soup.
Slow-Cooker Chili
You can never go wrong by bringing a pot of good ol’ chili to feed a group of people. Not to mention, a chili cookoff is the perfect theme for a fall party. Have everyone whip up their best batch using their favorite recipes, and you can confidently participate with this recipe. It’s more on the hearty side, so if you’d like it a bit more soupy, consider adding water or a beef broth. Serve this chili with Italian pull bread.
Easy Minestrone
Nutritious and low-fat are the highlights of this soup recipe, and yes… it can feed a group of any size. It’s packed with vegetables like carrots, celery, onion, and cabbage. And it has a flavorful kick thanks to the garlic, parsley, basil, and oregano. All of these herbs plus a few choice stocks come together for an award-winning soup. This soup is best served with crostini or chewy French bread.
Final Thoughts
As you’re planning for your next fall-themed gathering, take the stress out of what to cook by going with a soup bar. The recipes above can be cooked on the stove, in the crock pot, or even in an Instant Pot. Also, consider putting your soup in a disposable pan holder to make cleanup way easier!
Don’t forget to add the above recipes to your favorite recipe book. In the meantime, would you do us a favor and pin this post, tweet it, and share it with your Facebook friends? Thanks so much!