Progresso Soups Add ins?
 

Howdy,
I am venturing out into the canned soup world and bought Progresso Light Soups 80 cal/ 1 cup serving. If you use them, do you add in more veggies to make it more filling? I am finding that my homemade soups with 2.5 oz of protein, and oodles of veggies are very filling for supper without the usual carbie addins or add ons. So I am willing to try the canned variety for lunch as the weather gets cooler.
Thanks,

Personally, if you like your homemade soups, I would just take them to work. The canned soups are just a shadow of a decent soup.

I eat a lot of Progresso Light Soup because I'm lazy. If I eat a whole can and some fat-free yogurt and fruit, that keeps me full from lunch to dinner.

Hubby and I both make great soups (my hubby is 4 star restaurant trained, and I just learned from my mom and grandmother). I like to start with soup bones or a poultry carcass, hubby likes to use a commercial base and canned stock. His specialty is chicken soup and mine are meat and veggie soups and oriental soups (like hot and sour).

Even so there are times when a can or packaged soup comes in handy. Hubby and I both have health and pain issues, so if we're both flaring and neither of us is in the mood for cooking, canned or packaged soups come in handy.


When I do use a canned soup, I usually doctor them. I add a can of low-sodium chicken broth or a can of V-8 (not the reduced sodium V-8, because that contains potassium chloride which I cannot tolerate the metallic taste of), and I add frozen veggies or leftover cooked veggies.

I also like canned tomato soup with noodles. It was a comfort food from my childhood. Because I avoid wheat, I now add corn or rice noodles instead of wheat egg noodles.


Because I like creamy soups, but hate to make cream soups (and canned cream soups are usually much lower in fat and calories than homemade cream soups), I like to use canned tomato soup and Cream of Mushroom soup as a creamy base for other soups.

A couple months ago, I added some leftover steamed crockpot onions and mushrooms to a can of cream of mushroom soup and a can of chicken broth with some garlic and a dash of thai fish sauce (brings out the flavor, sort of like a dash of worcestershire sauce does). Very, very yummy. I couldn't have made a soup as creamy for the calories, so the cream of mushroom was an effective short cut.

The nice thing about soups whether from a can or from scratch, is how well the "throw whatever you've got into the pot" method works.

Gratis

I realize this doesn't answer your question, but I have been diddling around with making my own stocks. I sometimes buy chicken specifically on the bone so I can save the bones.

I have bags in the freezer. One for chicken bits and one for veggie cuttings (ends and seeds from peppers, veggies that are over-ripe that I don't want to eat but are still good - like tomatoes when they are JUST starting to wrinkle, peels - except carrot peels, etc.) . I add to them until I have "enough".

Then I toss all the veggies (or all the chicken parts) into my crockpot. I top off with water. I add a bit of salt, some ground pepper and whatever spices I feel like (I like to go lots of garlic, soemtimes dill, etc.)

Then I set my crock pot to about med or low. And I cook the ever livin' daylights out of it (I usually let it go all night long).

Strain.

Violla! Base for soup. And it comes OUT SO FLAVORFUL in the crockpot. And so EASY!