15 Tips You Need When Seasoning Soups

Many people equate soup with winter, which is fair: There are few dishes as warm and homey as a hearty bowl of soup in the colder months. This said, cold soups also work well in the warmer part of the year, so it's important to remember that soup is a versatile, year-round dish.

Whatever season you're in, sometimes it can be hard to get the flavoring on soups right. Sometimes, they're too salty or not flavorful enough; other times, they lack something, and you're not quite sure what it is. It can be frustrating, especially after spending a considerable amount of time prepping ingredients, carefully following a recipe, and letting the dish simmer over the heat.

Every soup is different, so there's no one cure-all for under-seasoned soups. Still, there are a few tips that can offer a good "rulebook" to follow and help ensure that the soups, stews, chowders, and similar dishes you make turn out as flavorful as possible.

Adding many different vegetables to soup is certain to enhance its flavor, right? Well, it depends. Simmering vegetables in water or broth is definitely bound to impart some flavor: After all, this is how broths and stocks are made. This said, "pre-cooking" your vegetables before adding them to a soup can actually significantly boost the ultimate flavor.

The easiest ways to do this are by either sautéing your vegetables at the start of your recipe or roasting them prior to beginning the soup. How does this help? It basically helps to draw out the flavors of the veggies, making whatever you're using more vibrant than if it were just dropped into boiling liquid. 

Caramelization, in particular, helps enhance the flavor by oxidizing sugars in the vegetables, giving them a particularly sweet and rich flavor. This is especially important with high-sugar ingredients like carrots, onions, beets, and other roots.

Sometimes a soup is just missing some key flavor. Occasionally it's easy to put your finger on it: For instance, maybe your soup just isn't salty or sweet enough. Other times it may be a little more ambiguous, and in such cases, it may be worth adding some umami flavor to your dish.

What is umami? If you're not familiar with the term, it is a particular "taste" (like salty, sweet, bitter, and sour) and derives from the word "delicious" in Japanese. It was identified and given its name by a Japanese chemist, Kikunae Ikeda, in the early 20th century. The particular flavor derives from glutamic acid.

Umami is, in some ways, the kind of flavor where "you know it when you taste it." It's found in seafood, aged cheeses, mushrooms, tomatoes, and a host of other foods; the addition of these foods and others (like dried shiitake mushrooms, tomatoes, miso paste, and more) can all bring that rich umami flavor to your soup.

Acidity in itself can actually be a critical and sometimes overlooked flavor in soup. This might sound counterintuitive: After all, "acidic" is not often heard as a complimentary descriptor for soup. But "sour" is a key flavor, and balancing and properly amplifying the different tastes (sweet, bitter, sour, salty, umami) is important to crafting a delicious dish.

Various ingredients can effectively impart an acidic flavor into soup: These range from the more conventional (like lemon, black limes, or a little vinegar, which can be a good choice in broth) to the more complex (like fermented dairy products or even coffee). 

It's a good idea to add a little at a time so as not to overwhelm your recipe. But it's an important flavor to experiment with, whether at the beginning, middle, or end of the soup-making process. Need a reminder of how good acidity can be in soup? Try this hot and sour soup recipe, in which (as the name indicates) sour is key.

If soup feels a little boring or under-seasoned, another thing it might be missing is heat! Adding a little kick to your soup can be an important way to jazz it up and make the flavor more complex (even if spicy foods aren't really your thing, a little bit of spiciness can add a subtle dimension to the dish without being overpowering).

Spiciness is great because it's so dynamic: Different types of peppers, sauces, and other additions will all add spiciness in their own unique way. Sometimes all you need is a little Sriracha or other hot sauce at the end of the cooking process. Alternatively, slow-cooking the soup with spicy flavors from the beginning can really let those flavors sink in. It may even have health benefits. 

For instance, according to Healthline, cayenne pepper, which gets its heat from capsaicin, may be a good source of vitamins A and C, along with other nutrients, and may even benefit cardiovascular health. Finally, as always, spiciness helps balance out the other flavors, as in this spicy sweet potato soup recipe in which chili powder helps to offset the creaminess of the sweet potatoes.

Adding herbs to soup is important, but it can come with some downsides. First, sometimes it takes a lot of herbs to add enough flavor, and the prep (particularly if you're starting with fresh herbs) can be tedious. Herbs can also be a mixed blessing in soups: While herbs like rosemary, thyme, oregano, and bay leaves can impart crucial flavors, not all herbs break down well (or in the case of bay leaves, at all), and they can be a textural problem in your finished product.

One remedy for this that still allows you to infuse a depth of herby flavor into your dish is using a bouquet garni. A bouquet garni (French for "garnished bouquet") is a bundle of herbs that is added to soups and other dishes, allowed to infuse into the recipe, and then removed before serving. 

It typically uses fresh herbs like parsley, thyme, bay leaves, and others, but this can be varied with herbs like oregano, rosemary, marjoram, or whatever else you think will go well in your soup. It's easy to assemble, packs lots of flavors, and avoids unpalatable issues that can otherwise arise with fresh herbs.

Chicken broth and chicken stock are particularly common when cooking, but it's important to remember that these are hardly your only options for seasoning a soup. Other bases, like beef, turkey, and fish stocks, can all be readily found in stores and can easily lend a variety of flavors to all sorts of different recipes. 

For instance, a seafood soup, like a hearty bowl of clam chowder, might benefit especially from using fish stock. That said, a chicken base can also work well and may serve to effectively balance out the fishier flavors of the clams.

In short, if a soup is coming out under-seasoned, consider altering its base. Whether you buy it at the store or make it at home (see this tasty beef stock recipe), you may be surprised to see how much more expansive the flavor becomes when its main cooking liquid is altered.

One frustrating thing that can happen when making soup or stew is ending up with a greasy oil slick on the top. While it won't necessarily ruin the flavor of your dish, it can be a little unpalatable and can distract from the otherwise notable flavors in your meal.

One simple way to avoid this? Lower the fat content in your soup. If you're using meat, be sure to trim off as much fat as possible so that this fat then can't end up making an unappetizing slick on top of the dish.

But if it's too late, there are ways to remove the fat. Skimming the soup, in other words, slowly using a spoon to remove that fat that's boiled to the top, can be effective, though a little tedious. For a novel trick, this TikTok video shows how to do something similar with a ladle full of ice cubes: You sit it gently on the surface of the soup, which attracts grease to the ladle's underside, allowing for convenient removal.