Okay, now that you’ve made your amazing stock, you can make all kinds of amazing soups. Once you have your soup, serve some of it for supper and freeze the rest in ziplock bags for later meals. To complete a soup meal, you can add bread and butter, or crackers and cheese, or potato chips, salad, raw veggies with dip, etc. Serve some fresh fruit or applesauce and you’ll have a feast!

The simplest soup you can make is to heat up the stock and add leftover cut up meat and vegetables. You can also add leftover rice or pasta, if you have some. The trick is to get a good balance of broth and fillers—you can have mostly broth with a few fillers, but don’t have so many fillers that no one can taste that great broth you made. Soup is more liquidy with fewer fillers, and stew is more chunky with lots of fillers.

You can also add fresh meat and vegetables and allow it all to cook until done. The same goes with dry rice, pasta or pearl barley. Don’t add too much of these or they’ll absorb all of the liquid. Usually 1/2 cup is sufficient. If you want your soup to have a tomato base, add lots of chopped up tomatoes or some tomato sauce or paste.

You can take this amazing broth and follow any favorite soup recipe. You can also make up your own combinations. Here are some great things to add: cooked beans, chopped or sliced onions, cut up sweet or regular potatoes, fresh greens or spinach (add at the last 5 minutes of cooking), leeks, green onions, a minced hot pepper if you like spice, corn, green beans, peas, broccoli, carrots, charred sweet peppers, celery, fresh or dried herbs, tomatoes, zucchini, squash, dried or fresh mushrooms, cooked split peas or lentils, garlic, tofu, pitted olives. For meat you can have cut up chicken, turkey, beef, pork, lamb, game, dried meat, cooked ground meat, meatballs, sliced sausage or hot dogs. Don’t forget all the myriad of herbs and spices you can play with. I suggest you first follow some recipes, then start experimenting over time.

When you make an Amazing Soup which your family loves, be sure to write down the recipe so you can make it again!

Once you have your soup, you may want some fun toppings on the table for guests to embellish their soup with right before eating. Here are some ideas: chopped nuts or seeds, shredded cheese, sour cream, minced onion, fresh herbs, crackers to crumble, tortilla strips fried in olive oil until crisp, croutons. Homemade croutons are the best—simply sauté cut-up pieces of bread in butter and garlic. Most of these toppers have to be prepared right before eating—don’t try to freeze and thaw these.

Freeze your soup in ziplock bags and label. When you heat one to serve for supper, just add whichever sides you have on hand (crackers & cheese, fruit, etc.). If you have the time and energy, put together a topper or two and your family will be thrilled.

See more Make Ahead Meal recipes