Soups of the world: 15 bowls every cook should know

If you want to understand how the world cooks, start with its soups. The fifteen below cover almost every idea soup has to offer: the patient vegetable pot (minestrone), the cold raw purée (gazpacho), the egg-thickened broth (avgolemono), the spiced noodle bowl (pho), the hot-and-sour (tom yum) and the creamy chowder. Learn one from each family and you can cook most soups without a recipe. Each entry below says what makes the soup work and the one thing that trips people up.

How we chose the fifteen

This is not a list of "the best" soups, which would be a pointless argument. It is a list of soups that each teach you something, so that by the time you have cooked a handful you will recognise the same moves everywhere: a slow start on onions, a good stock, acid at the end, a garnish that adds texture. The table gives you the overview. The notes that follow tell you what to watch for.

Europe: patient pots and clever cold soups

1. Minestrone (Italy)

A thick soup of whatever vegetables are in season, usually with beans and a little pasta or rice. There is no single correct version. Start with onion, carrot and celery softened slowly in olive oil for 8–10 minutes, then add the vegetables in order of how long they take to cook. A Parmesan rind in the pot adds savoury depth. Common mistake: adding everything at once, so the courgette turns to mush before the potato is tender.

2. Gazpacho (Spain)

The Andalusian cold soup of ripe tomato, cucumber, pepper, garlic, a little bread, olive oil and sherry vinegar, blended until smooth. Because nothing is cooked, it depends entirely on how ripe the tomatoes are and how you season it. Chill it for at least two hours, then taste again. Cold dulls salt and acid, so it almost always needs more of both.

3. French onion soup (France)

Onions cooked slowly in butter until deep brown, then simmered in beef stock and finished under the grill with toasted bread and melted cheese. The browning is the whole soup, and it takes 45 minutes to an hour over a low heat, not the 15 many recipes promise. If the onions catch, add a splash of water and keep going.

4. Caldo verde (Portugal)

Potatoes simmered and roughly mashed into their broth, then finished with very finely shredded greens and slices of chouriço. The greens should be cut almost as thin as threads and cooked for only a few minutes, so they stay bright. A thread of olive oil over the bowl is traditional.

5. Avgolemono (Greece)

Chicken broth with rice or orzo, thickened at the end with eggs whisked into lemon juice. It is silky, sharp and comforting, and it curdles if it boils once the eggs are in. We cover the technique step by step in our guide to avgolemono and how not to curdle it.

6. Borscht (Ukraine and Eastern Europe)

A beetroot soup made in many versions across Eastern Europe. The Ukrainian one, usually with cabbage, potato and often meat, is the best known. The famous colour fades with long cooking, so many cooks add a splash of vinegar or lemon juice and some of the beetroot near the end to keep it deep red. Serve with soured cream and dill.

The Middle East and Africa: pulses, spice and body

7. Mercimek çorbası (Turkey)

Red lentils cooked with onion, carrot and a little tomato paste, then blended smooth. They collapse in about 20 minutes, so this is one of the quickest proper soups there is. Finish with a squeeze of lemon and butter warmed with dried chilli flakes.

8. Harira (Morocco)

A thick tomato soup with lentils, chickpeas, fresh coriander and parsley, warmly spiced, and often served to break the fast during Ramadan. A slurry of flour and water, stirred in towards the end, gives it its velvety body. Stir constantly for the last few minutes, or it will catch on the bottom.

9. Egusi soup (West Africa)

Ground melon seeds cooked in palm oil with leafy greens, peppers and usually meat or fish, and eaten with pounded yam or another swallow. The ground seeds thicken the soup and give it a rich, nutty flavour. Let them fry in the oil before adding liquid, and the flavour deepens noticeably.

Asia: fragrant broths and noodle bowls

10. Pho (Vietnam)

A clear beef broth scented with star anise, cinnamon and cloves, poured over rice noodles and thin slices of beef, with herbs, lime and chilli added at the table. It is generally traced to northern Vietnam. Char the onion and ginger over a flame or under the grill before they go into the pot. That is where the smoky sweetness comes from. And simmer gently: boiling clouds the broth.

11. Tom yum (Thailand)

A hot and sour broth flavoured with lemongrass, galangal and makrut lime leaves, often with prawns. Lime juice and fish sauce go in off the heat, because boiled lime juice turns bitter and flat. Taste, and adjust until sour, salty and hot are in balance. Its creamy cousin is tom kha gai, made with coconut milk and chicken.

12. Miso soup (Japan)

Dashi, the quick stock of kombu and dried bonito, with miso stirred in and tofu, seaweed or spring onion added. Dissolve the miso in a ladle of the hot dashi first, then stir it back into the pan and do not let it boil again, or you lose its aroma. If you have never made stock, dashi is the one to start with: it takes about 40 minutes, most of it just soaking. Our guide to making stock from scratch covers it alongside the others.

13. Laksa (Malaysia and Singapore)

A family of spicy noodle soups. Curry laksa is rich with coconut milk, while asam laksa is sour with tamarind and flaked fish. For the coconut kind, the key step is frying the spice paste in oil until it smells toasted and the oil separates, which takes 5–8 minutes. Cut this short and the soup tastes raw.

The Americas: chillies and chowders

14. Sopa azteca (Mexico)

Also known as tortilla soup: a tomato and dried chilli broth poured over crisp fried tortilla strips, with avocado, fresh cheese, soured cream and lime. Toast the dried chillies in a dry pan for a few seconds a side, until fragrant, before soaking them. Take them further and they turn bitter.

15. New England clam chowder (United States)

Clams, potatoes and onion cooked with salt pork or bacon, then enriched with milk or cream. The dairy goes in at the end and should only ever steam, never boil, or it can split. The clams need only a few minutes, or they turn rubbery. The tomato-based Manhattan chowder is the old rival.

Where to start

1. Weeknight: mercimek çorbası or miso soup, both on the table in under 40 minutes.
2. Weekend: pho or French onion soup, for when you have time to let things develop.
3. Summer: gazpacho, made in the morning and chilled.
4. Technique practice: avgolemono, which teaches you tempering in one go.

All fifteen styles, and several hundred more, are in Soups of the World, which is arranged by region and opens with the basic stocks. You'll find the Harira, the Mercimek Çorbası, the Laksa Lemak and the Tom Kha Gai there, each with its own photograph. If you would rather browse by ingredient, the recipe finder searches every book at once.

Questions people ask

What is the most popular soup in the world?

There is no reliable global measure, so be wary of any list that claims one. Chicken soup in some form is probably the most widespread, since almost every cuisine has its own version, from Greek avgolemono to Polish rosół and Jewish matzo ball soup.

What is the difference between a soup and a stew?

Mostly the proportion of liquid. A soup is eaten with a spoon, and the liquid is at least half the point. A stew has less liquid, bigger pieces and is often eaten with a fork. Many dishes, such as gumbo or harira, sit comfortably between the two.

Which soups freeze well?

Puréed vegetable and lentil soups, bean soups and clear broths freeze very well for two to three months. Soups thickened with egg or cream can split. Soups with pasta or rice freeze better if you cook the starch fresh when reheating.

Do I need homemade stock for these soups?

It helps most in the clear soups, such as pho, avgolemono and miso soup, where the broth is the dish. For thick, strongly spiced soups like harira or mercimek, a good low-salt shop-bought stock works well.