There are four main categories of soup: Thin, Thick, Cold and National. These types of soup are widely recognised in today’s modern kitchen. These categories cover multiple different types of soup, including clear soups such as consommé, condensed beef consomme and broth and thick soups including purees, velouté and cream soup, such as the classic Campbell’s range. Thin soups are delicate soups with no thickening agent in them.
Contrary to perception, thin soups can be full of bold and distinct flavours. Good thin soups never taste watery. Thin soups can be further split into more categories, including clear, broth, bouillon and chunky. Clear soups are a type of thin soup. Clear soups are also called passed soups, as any chunks of ingredients are taken out of the soup, and you are left with a liquid soup. Consommé, a French clarified meat or fish broth, is a classic version of a clear soup. Clear soup can offer a wide range of nutritional benefits while keeping your digestive tract clear.
This is why clear soup is so popular in hospitals or as food when you’re feeling under the weather. Broth, or bouillon, is a common clear soup. Broths come in a variety of flavours, including chicken, turkey, beef, vegetable and mushroom. Bouillon can also come in a powdered form, and stock cubes are a famous example of a powdered broth or bouillon base. Many cooks and writers treat bouillon and broth interchangeably. This is understandable because they are essentially the same thing: a soup made from water in which bones, meat, fish or vegetables have been simmered. Leave broth to simmer for long enough and the gelatine begins to thicken it, creating an intensely flavourful stock.
The secret to making a high-quality consommé is in the simmering. Simmering and stirring bring impurities to the surface, which are further drawn out due to the presence of acid from the tomatoes. The resulting concoction is a clear liquid that has either a rich amber or yellow colour. It is carefully passed through a filter to ensure its purity and then the fat is skimmed from the surface. Chunky soups are stock based with the vegetables, meat or combination of both left in. A minestrone is a famous example of a chunky soup, and the Jewish Matzah ball soup is another way to create a tasty soup. You can also call a chunky soup an unpassed soup, as the soup has not been strained of any chunks before serving.
Thick soups are soups that are thickened using flour, corn-starch, cream, vegetables, gelatines and other ingredients. Depending on how you thicken a soup, you can get different textures and flavours. For example, a potage of boiled meat and vegetables results in a thick, mushy soup. Conversely, a bisque is thickened with rice, which creates a smoother soup.
A bisque is a creamy, thick soup that includes shellfish. Bisque is a method of extracting flavour from imperfect crabs, lobsters and shrimp that are traditionally not good enough to send to market. In an authentic bisque, the shells are ground to a fine paste and added to thicken the soup. Bisques are thickened with rice, which can either be strained out, leaving behind the starch or pureed during the final stages.
Cream soups are traditionally a basic roux, thinned with cream or milk and combined with a broth of your preferred ingredient. Typical flavours include cream of tomato soup, cream of mushroom soup and cream of chicken soup. The addition of cream creates a thick and satisfying soup that is filling and flavoursome. Condensed soups were created by Campbell’s back in 1897 by Dr John T Dorrance and have been a staple on shelves ever since. It’s what we’re most known for, and across the world, cupboards are stocked with our condensed cream soups, and used as a standalone flavour, or as an ingredient in another recipe. Condensed soups are made to be diluted with a can full of water, and the flavour and cream is packed into the smaller tin. This makes them much better for cupboard storage, while resulting in a tasty and rich soup.