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Salad Soup. How to transform your leftover salad leftovers into a delicious creamy and flavoursome salad soup in the soup machine.
Even better, you can freeze this salad soup and use it as a last minute reicpe of your salad leftovers to avoid any food waste.
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Salad Soup
We have all done soup maker spinach soup and soup maker celery soup. But have you considered using your leftover lettuce and other salad greens and making them into a soup?
What you get is a lovely brown coloured creamy soup that you can eat right away, or you can freeze for later. Even better it makes a fantastic vegetable stock alternative for your instant pot and slow cooker one pot meals.
You will probably be expecting a bright green salad soup. But in reality, you have brown as the tomatoes and the lettuce get blended together for an earthy brown colour.
If you want it to be more green then add in more lettuce and if you want it red like a tomato soup, then add more peppers and tomatoes.
Plus, if I can improve my food waste, then I am in!
Do tell me in the comments what your food waste issue is? 15 years ago, I used to waste way too much food.
I would go grocery shopping with good intentions with the hubby. Then I would get lazy (and so would the hubby) and we would eat takeout too much and be left with too much food that would eventually get wasted.
When we moved to Portugal in 2008, I made an effort to combat my food waste and went to frozen fruit and vegetables (where possible) and looked at what food I was still wasting.
I noticed that lettuce and leftover salad items was always a problem. When you buy some lettuce for one salad, or for one BLT sandwich and realise you still have 75% of your lettuce left.
That was when I came up with a salad soup recipe. That way, when there were a few salad items in the fridge that needed using up or I had a salad the night before and didn’t all get eaten, I could make this.
It has now become a Milner family tradition for salad leftovers.
What To Do With Leftover Salad?
Make this delicious salad soup of course. You don’t have to come up with something different, just do it the old school way of loading it all into the soup machine.
Its also great for leftover salad that you already served the day before.
It is already chopped, and you can just load it into the soup machine.
What To Do With Leftover Salad Greens?
However, if you have leftover salad greens and nothing else, then think of them as a replacement for kale or spinach in your favourite recipes.
You can sauté your lettuce and add garlic butter like with garlic spinach, make an extra salad, do salad sandwiches, or just stick with soup or stock.
I like soup or vegetable stock the most as it is less effort.
Lettuce In Vegetable Stock
We always associate celery, carrots, onion, and potatoes with vegetable stock. But lettuce is amazing as a flavoursome garden green to add to your stock.
Imagine you are looking in your fridge and you see carrots, celery, onion, and lettuce that have seen better days.
Then instead of panicking load them into the instant pot and make a delicious stock.
Then find some small freezer containers and load the stock into the freezer and use them as you need them.
How To Make Salad Soup?
If you are wondering how to make salad soup from scratch in the soup maker, then this is how it is done:
- Load main ingredients into the soup maker.
- Set the smooth soup setting.
- After 10 minutes add the lettuce.
- When it beeps serve.
Note that we do the salad soup in two stages. This is because the soup maker is medium sized and can’t fit everything in at once. We wait until its reduce and then add the lettuce last.
Any Salad Greens In Salad Soup
Don’t think you must use a specific type of salad green in your salad soup. Any will do the trick.
You can go more traditional and use a salad associated with soup such as watercress or you can use iceberg lettuce, or any other type that needs using up.
What we had was a bag of salad in the fridge (similar to watercress) that needed using up before it went bad.
But on other occasions we have literally grabbed our leftover air fryer cobb salad and thrown it all in the soup machine.
The Ultimate Diet Soup
This soup maker salad soup recipe is also a fantastic alternative to our slimming world speed soup, soup maker cold Spanish soup and our soup maker cabbage soup.
Because if you think about it, all that is entering the soup machine is low calorie salad items. It’s like having a salad without oil and without any heavy carbs.
I put it into My Fitness Pal and these are how the calories worked out:
I must admit I was rather shocked with how low calorie it was. I was expecting it to be about 25% higher like the cabbage soup diet.
If you are on a diet like the 5:2 then this is perfect for fasting. Or if you want a quick Slimming World alternative to the speed soup, then this is for you.
What To Serve With Salad Soup?
You can serve any of your favourite soup sides with salad soup. Just because it’s a salad soup recipe, doesn’t mean it should be any different.
Here are a few of my favourite serving suggestions for salad soup:
- Air Fryer Grilled Cheese
- Air Fryer Chickpeas
- Air Fryer Croutons
- Air Fryer Dinner Rolls
- Bread Machine Bread
Soup Maker Leftover Salad Soup
Ingredients
Kitchen Gadgets:
Salad Soup Ingredients:
- 2 Celery Sticks
- 1 Medium Cucumber
- 5 Medium Tomatoes
- 50 g Diced Red Pepper
- ¼ Medium Courgette/Zucchini
- 2 Spring Onions
- 1 Tsp Garlic Puree
- 1 Tsp Thyme
- 1 Tsp Oregano
- 1 Tsp Basil
- Salt & Pepper
- 125 g Salad Greens
- 1 Can Tinned Tomatoes, optional
Instructions
- Slice and clean your celery and cucumber. Remove the cores from your tomatoes and dice your courgette.
- Load into the soup maker making sure that either the cucumber, courgette or tomatoes are on the bottom. Add the seasonings and the garlic on top. Place the lid on the soup maker and cook for 10 minutes on smooth soup.
- After 10 minutes add in the lettuce and cook for a further 20 minutes on the same setting.
- When it beeps serve.
Notes
Nutrition
Can’t make it now? Then pin it for later!
Interesting stuff! Can I use a VitaMix to do the same thing. If so, what are the settings that I would set at each stage of soup prep?
Hi Pat,
Unfortunately, we have never used a Vitamix so i cannot help you with how to make the soup in it, i am so sorry 🙂
My wife made me try this and to my surprise i really liked it and with me needing to lose weight it is ideal, would be great with some bread 😉
I love soup and i am watching what i eat at the moment and this was delicious and so easy to make, i just love my soup maker when im in the mood.
I am on a diet and this is just what i need to help it was delicious and will become a regular.