For today’s Happy Homesteading post I’m going to show you how to make pioneer soup from scratch. Back in the old days, soups and stews were on the menu a lot. They used what they had on hand from their gardens or from their weekly trips to the town stores. When the pioneers only had potatoes or radishes in season, how they could still make a nice soup to feed the hungry men working all day? Today I am going to share this amazing secret to making soup out of what you have on hand.
PIONEER SOUP FROM SCRATCH
Even if you have just a few ingredients in your pantry you want to use up, you can make a delicious soup! This is a basic recipe so you can add different ingredients. Every time I can make a different soup, and it’s always yummy. You just need to use something from each of these food groups and you will be successful.
Use one or more things from each group:
- FAT: oil, margarine, butter, lard, tallow, or bacon
- FLAVOR 1: garlic, onion, celery or carrot
- FLAVOR 2: parsley, tomato, spoonful fo tomato paste, oregano or basil
- STARCH: potato, any kind of pasta, rice or barley
- LEGUMES: beans, chickpeas or lentils
- GREENS: lettuce, escarole, spinach, swiss chard, kale, cabbage, endive, turnip tops, radish tops, or celery leaves
I have made soup where I have used all 4 of the flavors and there have been times I have only used one flavor from each group. That’s the beauty of this recipe, use what you have on hand. You can use 2 or 3 items per group or just one.
Here’s one recipe so you can get the idea on how this works:
Homesteader’s Soup
- 1/4 cup olive oil or butter
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 1 medium tomato, chopped
- 1 potato, peeled and cubed
- Handful of penne pasta
- Handful of macaroni noodles
- Can or freezer bag of beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 handful of cabbage or salad greeens
- 4 cups of water
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Heat the oil/butter in a large saucepan over high heat. Add the onion and saute until soft (about 5 minutes.) Stir in the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer about 30 minutes or until the potato and pasta are done. Add more water or seasonings if needed.
WORTH THE COST? YES – cans of soup cost $1.00+ at the stores, you will make a whole pot of soup for around $2 worth of ingredients here.
WORTH THE TIME? YES – you can have a big pot of homemade soup in 30 minutes using ingredients you have in your pantry.
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup olive oil or butter
- 1 medium onion chopped
- 1 medium tomato chopped
- 1 potato peeled and cubed
- 1 cup Penne pasta
- 14 oz Can of Beans, drained and rinsed
- 1/2 cup cabbage or salad greens
- 4 cups of water
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
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Heat the oil/butter in a large saucepan over high heat. Add the onion and saute until soft (about 5 minutes.)
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Stir in the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil.
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Reduce heat, cover and simmer about 30 minutes or until the potato and pasta are done. Add more water or seasonings if needed. Serve.
Love this recipe!
This is how i cook, with a skeleton i fill in with what’s on hand.
I think cooking this way is also an adventure..you never now how it’s gonna turn out, but everytime I love it!
I love experimenting in the kitchen but hate when I make something so awesome I want to make it again but don’t remember how much of everything I used. haha
Not only do I love the recipe, but I love that outfit!!!
I love your website and all the goodies too. I am 64 and the mother of 2 and grandmother of 4. I just need to tell you that I just love you. I never leave the site without learning something and looking at your pictures with a big smile on my face and feeling God’s love streaming from you.
Thank you so much Sue!!
You are amazing!! I have 8 kids and I have been doing homemade laundry soap but the liquid kind for years now but i saw your site and I love it!! I am excited to do many of your recipes! My hubbie is all for finding ways for us to save money as I am so it works out great.
Just as a side note the recipe print page for your Pioneer soup is missing a few things, but I just copied and pasted the one up above it. Keep up the good work.
I’ve been making “pioneeer” soup for years, never learned how formally though. Just trying to make some good use of the items in the crisper I seem to have forgotten about. I just start with a little oil or butter and some onion and garlic, maybe celery (stems leaves and all) chopped up well, and add whatever is filling up my fridge and pantry. Cut off the browning or spoiled spots on the veggies and put it all in the pot. Leave it as it or sometimes I blend it up to make it more homogenous. Cost benefits are out the roof when I think of just throwing away those half spoiled veggies. What doesn’t go in the soup goes in the compost pile for the next season(or raccoons that dig it up for dinner)
Love your style and thanks for putting things to the test so we don’t have to go through the motions. Your chickens are gorgeous by the way.
I can have little to no starch in my diet, among other things, and I’m wondering if there is something that I can substitute the grain?
I am sure you don’t HAVE to have grain, try it without the grains! I am sure it would be just as delicious.
I can’t possibly thank you enough for putting together such a doable list for us all. I’ve been making homemade soups and stews and such for almost 40 yrs now; so I can appreciate the amount of work that went into this article.
Each of the basic ingredients laid out by types; the shear number of flavor and texture combo’s will keep us making a large variety of soups for years to come. Your recipe you provided to us looks amazing and I’ll be making it very soon.
This will also make it much easier for me to explain the cooking of homemade soups from scatch to my daughter, son & daughter-in-law and grand-daughters much easier for me and for them to make their own versions. You ARE an Angel !!!
Thank you! Let me know how it goes!
Another tip for making the most out of food and always having soup ingredients on hand: keep left over veggie water (from when you steam or boil veggies) in a container in the freezer – I use a couple of quart size plastic wonton soup containers. I just throw it in on top of what’s already there. I think it makes a good starter for any veggie based soup
I love this! I always end up having remnants of various things in the fridge that end up going to waste, so this is a great way to use them up. I made a batch and it ended up really bland. How much salt and seasonings do you end up using?