Soup, those bowls of comfort and warmth, complete a hearty lunch or dinner. It’s usually served at any part of the meal, depending on one’s eating traditions. It can serve as appetizer along with a good loaf of bread, be a separate second course, or included in the main course if it happens to be soupy. From the pot, it’s best ladled on the bowls steaming hot and fogging up your eye glasses as you sip from it.

Being enveloped in this warmth brings into the body a positive response. Perhaps, that’s why when one is sick, the usual prescription aside from bed rest, lots of water, and a cold tablet, would be a bowl of chicken soup. There’s indeed truth to “chicken soup for the soul,” because it does heals in the metaphoric sense. And usually, soup is simply good.

For summer days, soup is still comfort food especially if it’s refreshing cold soups from pureed fresh fruits or cold minestrone soup (a thick Italian soup with vegetables and pasta or rice). Aside from temperature (the hot and chilled soup), other easy soup recipes can simply be meat (beef, pork, chicken) or vegetable stock or as complex as a bouillabaisse. But always, it’s easy to prepare, eat and digest.

To make stock, the meat and bones of chicken, beef or pork are simmered with herbs, spices and seasonings until tender. Sometimes, vegetables are added into the broth. A soup stock or broth may be clear or light brown and served as is or used as a cooking liquid.

Chowder is thicker and creamier than the broth or stock since it’s made with milk or cream using seafood or vegetables as main ingredients. Usually, clam, corn, and fish are made into chowder. Clam chowder has shelled, chopped clams and chopped potatoes. In the collection of easy soup recipes, try the broccoli and tuna chowder which uses chicken stock as its base, in addition to sautéed broccoli, quick melting cheese and the tuna.

The Newfoundland seafood chowder (where the name is said to have originated), uses cream of mushroom soup, chicken broth, chicken pieces, cream and chives as the main ingredients. Everything is just thrown into the pot and the chowder is done after a 10 minute simmer—a really easy soup recipe. Potato in your soup? In potato bacon soup, it’s possible. The potato contributes to the thick and creamy texture as well as making it substantial while the bacon bits infuse the soup with its savory flavor.