Rose Prince makes thrifty (and delicious) soups

Nourishing, nostalgic and cheap as chips, nothing beats a good broth, says Rose Prince. Photographs and styling by Yuki Sugiura. Food styling by Valerie Berry

IN ALMOST ANY discussion about food, the cost of it will come in at some point. I cannot count how many times a week I hear someone mention the price of some item or other. Usually, this will be in the form of a price comparison. Did I know that Aldi’s butter is cheaper than Tesco’s? Or that Lidl sells sourdough for so much less than the high- street baker? I hear about deals: threefor-twos, special offers, prices for chicken so dramatically slashed you can’t help wondering if the poor fowls themselves are paying us to eat them.

Before getting into a debate about the hidden costs of cut-price groceries, and talking of chicken (namely, broth), let us remember there is an art to eating thriftily, and it does not necessarily mean heading out to a budget supermarket. The best counter to the bargainhunting boaster is, quite simply, that the secret of frugality is a four-letter word: soup.

Soup recipes in their thousands transcend the globe. They are easy to make, easy to love and perhaps above all other

dishes the one most often recalled with affection. The actual taste of a grandmother’s chicken-noodle broth is often remembered with emotion half a century later, such is the power of our olfactory memories.

Back on the topic of souponomics, the filling, nourishing benefit of soup is equal to its economy. If you are one to make your own stock from a leftover roast chicken, you will know the combined satisfaction of a full tummy and pride in your thrift. That is not to say you should be boiling bones all day long – that is what good-quality stock cubes were invented for.

I am a bone-boiler, on the whole, but I have often made smooth vegetable soups with water too. You just need to increase the quantity of butter or other fat at the outset when softening the vegetables over a low heat. It is surprising

The taste of a grandmother’s chicken-noodle broth is often remembered with emotion

how little salt will need to be added in the final stages.

I sense that some will be thinking: why make soup when every supermarket chain sells dozens of ‘fresh’ soups? Well, ready-made soups are a little like smoothies. They may be the right colour, though I think never bright enough; they can even taste homemade – but they are not fresh in the real sense. The goodness of your own when eaten immediately is much greater. You can even feel it. Last March I made a smooth soup from stinging-nettle heads, bright grass-green and delicious. Afterwards, I had the energy of two people.

The soups on these pages have additions, popped in at the last moment to make them whole meals. You can use the base recipes then adapt with seasonal ingredients, or anything lurking in the kitchen that you feel will work. Think of this as a blueprint – and welcome to the thrifty, heartening world of soup.

I made a smooth soup from stinging-nettle heads, grass-green and delicious