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Low Calorie Comfort Food – It Exists!

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This is a guest post by Lisa Cain, PhD, a.k.a Snack-Girl

There is more than one way to create comfort. One way involves lots of calories and icing.

How about something hot?

This won’t work if you live in the tropics, but if you are in rural Massachusetts where I started my day at 10 degrees Fahrenheit – this will work!

A fantastic way to get the comfort you need is with a delicious soup. Most soups will only set you back about 100 calories for a cup and they are incredibly nutritious.

Soups in the grocery store come in boxes, cans, jars, and in the refrigerated case. My grocery store has its own soup label and it comes in a plastic container.

There are two things to remember when choosing a soup:

  1. Stay away from the cream soups (if you are watching your weight).
  2. Homemade soup is the BEST.

Yes, I am an advocate for homemade soup because it is ridiculously easy to make and it tastes better than the packaged kind. It is also inexpensive and you can keep your sodium levels under control.

I make my own soup, and I do it often. Today, in fact, I will churn out my favorite chicken noodle soup which will make the house smell wonderful and sooth my sore throat.

It is my Martha Stewart moment of perfection in a world of dirty socks on the floor.

(don’t get me started on the socks)

Below, I have shared my recipe that I have used 100′s of times. The key to this recipe is that I make my own chicken stock. Why? Because it tastes SO much better than packaged stock (and I save money).

I use a chicken for both making the stock AND the soup. Basically, I simmer the chicken for 40 minutes to cook it, store it in the fridge, and then take the meat of the bones and add it to the soup.

This chicken soup recipe takes two days and is much more intense then the usual Snack Girl recipes. Trust me, it is worth the work.

The recipe below has a lot of pasta because I have children who love pasta. But, if you are watching your weight, you probably want to avoid the pasta. A serving size is going to vary a bit – but I would say between 1 1/2 to 2 cups of soup.

Here are the nutritional facts for one serving:

With the pasta:

304 calories, 4.3 g fat, 27.6 g carbohydrates, 36.1 g protein, 1.1 g fiber, 280 mg sodium

Without the pasta:

192 calories, 4.2 g fat, 3.0 g carbohydrates, 33.9 g protein, 0.7 g fiber, 280 mg sodium

Homemade Chicken Soup

(12 servings)

Chicken Stock (make one day ahead)
1 whole 3-4 pound chicken (rinsed and patted dry)
1 cup roughly chopped onion (no need to peel)
1 cup chopped carrot
1/2 cup chopped celery
1 pinch dried thyme
1 bay leaf (optional)
1 teaspoon salt
14 cups of water (3 1/2 quarts)
Combine all ingredients in stock pot and add water. Bring to a boil, and then adjust heat so that the mixture sends up a few bubbles at a time. Cook until the chicken is done (about 40 minutes). Strain into a large bowl and press on vegetables to get out as much stock. Refrigerate overnight so that you can remove the fat which will harden at the surface of the liquid.

Chicken Soup
Chicken Stock from day before (about 12-14 cups)
2 cups pasta (Rotini is a good shape for this)
4 carrots, peeled and cut into thin slices
4 celery stalks, minced
3-4 pound chicken from day before
Salt and Pepper to taste
Remove fat from surface of stock with a spoon. Cut chicken meat off the carcass and chop. Pour stock into large, deep saucepan or casserole and bring to a boil. Adjust heat so that the stock simmers. Add the pasta, carrot, celery and cook until tender (about 20 minutes). Add cooked chicken and adjust seasonings. I usually add a lot of salt at this step because I find the soup at this point to be pretty bland.

Anyone have a favorite soup? Packaged and recipe suggestions please!.

Lisa Cain, Ph.D. writes about healthy snacks on Snack-Girl.com. She is a published author, mother of two, and avid snacker.

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  • http://www.foodieformerlyfat.com Foodie, Formerly Fat

    I absolutely adore soup. It is my go-to food all year round. I agree with you it’s hearty, delicious, and healthy. And it’s so quick and easy to make I’m often surprised that people buy canned soup.

    I’ve recently posted recipes for turkey & rice soup, spinach & quinoa soup, and pasta fagioli on my bog. I also love the cabbage soup that is on the blog Hey, That Tastes Good!: http://www.heythattastesgood.com/2010/02/cabbage-roll-soup.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HeyThatTastesGood+%28hey+that+tastes+good!%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

    Soup soothes the soul.

    Oh, but there is one soup that comes in a box that I adore, and so do my kids. It’s Pacific Organic’s Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato soup. Absolutely delicious and healthy.

  • Joan Mercantini

    A great recipe for people who want to follow a low calorie diet, but for those of us who folow a low carb diet, the pasta is a definite no-no.

  • http://www.awakenedwellness.com Rachel Assuncao

    We eat soup all the time in winter. On this week’s menu was a black bean soup and a roasted tomato and eggplant soup, both homemade.

    For the black bean soup, I sauteed an onion, 2 stalks of celery and some garlic in a little grapeseed oil until the onion was translucent. Then I added some ground cumin, ground corriander, and a pinch of oregano, a can of black beans, 1/2 cup of tomato puree, 1 cup of chopped up cauliflower (a sneaky vegetable inclusion!) and covered the whole lot with water. Since the beans were unsalted, I added a good pinch of salt, and brought the whole thing up to a boil. I lowered the heat to a simmer and then cooked until the veggies were tender. Let it cool a bit, threw it in my blender for a few minutes, along with a small handful of fresh cilantro and voila – soup in 20 minutes. We had it garnished with fresh made pico de gallo.

    The eggplant soup is even easier. Cube an eggplant, quarter an onion and a tomato, peel 2 cloves of garlic. Toss the whole lot with a bit of olive oil and roast at 375F for 20 minutes, or until golden brown and tender. Throw it all in a blender along with 1/2 can of chickpeas and cover with hot water or vegetable stock. Blend until smooth and serve. We had it garnished with a bit of sour cream. I find the flavor of the veggies stands on its own, but you could add quite a few different seasonings to this too.

    Tonight’s soup will be roasted pumpkin. Can’t wait!

  • http://www.snack-girl.com/ Snack-Girl

    @Rachel – thanks for sharing your recipe. I can’t wait to try it!

  • http://twitter.com/humantorch Scott Kosman

    I make a dried bean/lentil soup in my crock pot, usually once every two or three weeks. It makes enough to have hot soup for a couple of days (leaving the crock pot on “low” the entire time) and then freezing a bunch to have on hand for a long time.

    Rather than re-typing it all, I’ve previously posted it on a recipe-sharing site here:

    http://forkd.com/recipe/crock-pot-lentil-soup-1761

    The basic idea is: 2 cups of dried beans & lentils, 8-10 cups of water, and then add *anything else you want.* Keep it vegan, add meat, whatever. Impossible to screw up, easy as sin, and delicious.

  • Mari

    Great post! I like to tweak this and add black (or kidney) beans, chili powder and lime with diced tomatoes. It’s instantly a chili soup! Just for variety (and for the low carb person). Red lentils instead of pasta might also do the trick.

  • zigzagza

    We live in the tropics (1 deg north of the equator) with year-round summer and soup is a common comfort food.

    One of our favourites is rice noodle or rice vermicelli soup. The soup can be chicken stock, topped with shredded chicken, or it can be an anchovy/soybean stock and topped with sliced fish. Add a handful of green leafy vegetables and bean sprouts, garnish with your choice of coriander leaves, spring onion, ginger strips, garlic oil and pepper. Dig in!

  • Amelia

    A super low calorie soup I love is egg drop soup.

    Boil 4 cups of water
    add bouillon (i do 2 cubes, or 2 tsp) or replace water with stock
    chop 1/8 tsp of ginger
    1/4 of chives or green onion
    2 eggs beaten. use a fork to drizzle the eggs into the water.

    reduce cholesterol and calories by using only one yolk.

  • Kelly C

    I used Fiber Gourmet pasta when I made the chicken noodle soup. It has 40% less calories and 18g fiber per serving.

    Also, those who want to reduce carbs & calories even further can use Tofu Shiratiki noodles. They have only ***20 calories & 3g carbs*** per serving!

  • Alex

    This is hardly a low calorie soup with a stock from an entire chicken, which I understand is not even skinned, and all that pasta.
    Granted, a home cooked soup is infinitely better than the carton alternative, but this is by no means a low calorie food.

    Try squash soups they are extremely easy and fast to make:

    Butternut squash soup:

    Peel and cut in bite size pieces – 1 butternut squash, 2 carrots, 1 celery stalk
    Add water to cover the vegetables and boil until the veggies are tender
    Blend with a stick blender or a food processor, season to taste with salt, paprika and cayenne pepper.

  • http://www.livingitupcornfree.com kc

    @Amelia I suggest you pay less attention to “low calorie” and pay more attention to msg, gmo corn derivatives and chemicals in processed food. Start reading the labels on that bouillon cube and you’ll wonder that you ever let it pass your lips. Rocks are low in calories, too, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to eat them.

    @Alex Fat is a flavor and vitamin carrier that is necessary for good health. Add some extra virgin olive oil to that soup or maybe even get real daring and add a tbsp of raw organic butter from grass fed cows so you can absorb some of the nutrients in that butternut squash and nourish the connective tissue in your body.

  • http://www.junowebdesign.com/ Shelly Cooke

    Always expected to eat Homemade Chicken Soup though can’t make it as like you guy. My husband love it amazingly. Thanks for you recipe ingredients. It makes me the real cook. Thanks! 

  • http://www.vibegraphics.co.uk Web Design

    Always expected to eat Homemade Chicken Soup though can’t make
    it as like you guy.