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The great thing about instant soups is that most of them are as easy to make as a cup of tea. They may not pack a lot of calories, but on a cold day or when you actually have a cold they can be a welcome addition to your diet.
One of the primary benefits of adding instant soups to your food storage is that they tend to have a long shelf-life and are inexpensive to put together. Variety is sometimes a challenge with long-term food storage and instant soups can create a lot of flavor options for a potentially monotonous menu.
Instant soups can also be added to larger meals to add flavor beyond salt and pepper. Whether you’ve wild foraged some greens or did a quick garden harvest, an instant soup mix can turn a mix of bland vegetables into a hearty feast.
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Some Minor Challenges
If you want to make your own instant soups you’ll need to assemble a lot of different dry ingredients. Some are easy like Ramen noodles and instant rice. Others can be a little more complicated like dehydrated chicken chunks or dried vegetables.
You can buy a lot of these ingredients ready-made but it’s always less expensive when you make your own. That’s up to you. The challenges are easily overcome with a food dehydrator or even a hanging dehydrator that you hang in the sun and the wind. All you need is a little time and patience.
The Easy Part
Easy ingredients include bouillon cubes or powder, herbs, and spices. Use store-bought or make your own. Here’s a link to how to make your own bouillon cubes and how to dry your own herbs. If you want to make your soups truly instant, use bouillon powders rather than cubes. Cubes can take a little while to fully dissolve.
Another easy addition is a range of freeze-dried vegetables. These you could also buy in bulk and there are mixed vegetable options available as well. If you’re ambitious you could dehydrate your own but freeze-drying is a bit more complicated and expensive.
Notes on Packaging
The best packaging for instant, dry soups are Mylar bags. They’re durable and keep out the moisture. You can vacuum seal them if you like or seal them as-is.
Standard resealable plastic bags can work too and you could also enhance the shelf-life by vacuum sealing them as well. What’s good about clear plastic bags is that you can see the contents of the soup. On the other hand, even though they’re opaque, Mylar seems indestructible.
You could also use small canning jars. The size you use depends on how much you plan to make. When it’s time to eat, just spoon out your soup mix and add to hot water. The only thing to remember with an instant soup mix in a canning jar is that once it’s opened it will have a shorter shelf-life.
You could also process your soup mix in your canning jar in a hot water bath. That might be a good idea if you have homemade dehydrated vegetables or meats in the mix.
About Store-Bought Ingredients
A lot of these ingredients are inexpensive at the grocery store and make for good additions to your soup mixes. However, there’s one thing to keep in mind: buy “instant.” If you want to add rice to a soup mix, add the instant rice.
The same applies to noodles. Ramen noodles quickly soften in hot water. Regular pasta noodles require boiling and time. Look for those ingredients that have the word “instant” on the label. Potato flakes are another good example of a soup ingredient that will quickly and easily incorporate into hot water for an instant soup.
Noodle Notes
If you want instant noodles the best choice are those noodles in the “Ramen” category. Most pasta noodles require a few minutes of cooking in boiling water to soften up. Ramen noodles are pre-cooked and reconstitute quickly in hot water. For that reason we’re going to use Ramen noodles for any instant soup recipe to keep things “instant.”
And keep your eyes peeled for other instant options at the grocery store. Couscous cooks quickly when steeped in boiling water and there are various other instant-noodle possibilities including egg noodles, angel hair pasta or rice noodles.
Then Again…
You don’t have to make everything instant. If you have the time to patiently boil or simmer hot water to make your soup you can add just about any dry ingredient to your soup mix as long as it is dried and has a decent shelf-life. Just be mindful of what you add and make sure you write on the soup package any unique instructions beyond “just add hot water.”
10 Instant Soup Mixes
Here are 10 recipes for instant soup mixes. You can vary ingredients any way you like. If the recipe calls for onions as an ingredient and you don’t think the kids will like onions –skip ‘em. Just make sure you think ahead with things like salt or spices. You want to get the proportions right with things like salt (bouillon)and spices.
The basic recipe for each of these instant soups requires one and a half cups or 12-ounces of boiling water. If the soup ends up being too thick or spiced for your taste, add a tablespoon or two of hot water.
In all instances you stir in the boiling water to the soup mix in a cup or bowl or right in the bag; cover or seal and let sit for 2 minutes before you stir it again and eat. If you want to make a larger portion, just double, triple or quadruple the amounts, but make note of the change on the package.
You can add the ingredients to your storage bag or container in any order before you seal.
Cooking directions for all recipes:
Rather than repeat this over and over again, here are the cooking directions for all 10 of the recipes below. You might want to add this to a label on each package.
- Shake all of the ingredients in the bag to blend.
- Add ingredients to a cup or bowl or leave in the bag.
- Add boiling water and stir.
- Wait 2 minutes.
- Stir again and eat.
And feel free to garnish with whatever fresh herbs or vegetables you have on hand.
? Creamy Potato/Bacon Soup with Chives
This recipe uses instant mashed potatoes and bacon bits with dried chives. The bacon bits can be either real bacon or bacon flavored TVP. The TVP will give you a longer shelf-life.
Ingredients:
- 1 tsp. powdered chicken bouillon
- 1/3 cup instant potato flakes
- 1 tsp. corn starch
- 2 Tbsps. bacon bits
- 1 tbsp. dried chives
- ¼ cup powdered milk
- 1/8 tsp. ground black pepper
- 12 ozs. Boiling Water
? Vegetable-Chicken Ramen Soup
A simple and basic recipe using freeze-dried corn and carrots.
- 1 Tbsp. powdered chicken bouillon
- ½ tsp powdered ginger
- 1/8 tsp. garlic powder
- ½ cup broken Ramen noodles
- ¼ cup freeze dried chicken
- 2 Tbsps. freeze dried corn
- 1 Tbsp. freeze dried carrots
- 12 ounces Boiling Water
? Cheesy Mac Soup
We’re using the word “Mac” with some license here. Crushed Ramen noodles are the substitute for traditional macaroni. You could also use egg noodles.
We’re also using a cheese powder you customarily see in mac and cheese boxes. Cheese powder is hard to make from scratch but you can buy it in bulk in #10 cans and use it for a variety of recipes –including this one:
- 1 Tbsp. powdered chicken bouillon
- ¼ cup cheddar cheese powder
- 1 tsp. corn starch
- ½ cup powdered milk
- ½ cup broken Ramen noodles or broken Angel Hair pasta
- 12 ounces Boiling Water
? French Onion Soup
This is a classic addition to other recipes and makes a great and flavorful soup on its own.
? Tomato-Pepper Soup
We’re combining tomato powder with freeze-dried bell peppers to make a flavorful soup perfect for a cold winter day.
- 1 Tbsp. powdered chicken bouillon
- ½ cup tomato powder
- ¼ cup powdered milk
- ¼ cup freeze dried bell peppers
- 12 ounces Boiling Water
? Vegetable-Beef Noodle Soup
A basic favorite made with beef bouillon and freeze-dried vegetables.
- 1 Tbsp. powdered beef bouillon
- 1 tsp. corn starch
- ¼ cup broken Ramen noodles
- ¼ cup mixed freeze dried vegetables
- 12 ounces Boiling Water
? Chicken Rice
Instant rice is the key along with freeze-dried chicken and powdered milk.
- 1 tsp. powdered chicken bouillon
- 1 tsp. corn starch
- ½ cup instant “Minute” rice
- ¼ cup freeze dried chicken chunks
- 12 ounces Boiling Water
? Potato Mushroom Soup
You can use any variety of dried mushrooms with instant potato flakes for this hearty soup.
- 1 Tbsp. powdered chicken bouillon
- 1/3 cup instant potato flakes
- ¼ cup freeze dried mushrooms
- 1 Tbsp. chopped freeze dried green onions
- 12 ounces Boiling Water
? Spicy Chicken Polenta Soup
You can buy instant polenta and with some freeze-dried peppers and the right combination of spices you’ll have a southwestern flavor in a cup.
- 1 tsp. powdered chicken bouillon
- ¼ cup polenta meal
- ¼ cup freeze dried bell peppers
- ½ tsp chili powder
- Pinch red pepper flakes (optional)
- 12 ounces Boiling Water
? Medicinal Herb Soup
This variation uses herb either from your garden or purchased that have medicinal properties. It also uses bouillon with the addition of some powdered electrolytes to make a revitalizing immune-system boost.
- 1 Tbsp. powdered chicken bouillon
- 1 tsp. electrolyte powder
- 1 tsp. dried lavender
- 1 tsp. dried oregano
- ½ tsp dried sage
- ½ tsp dried chamomile
- ¼ tsp ginger powder
- 12 ounces Boiling Water
Using These Soups as Flavor Ingredients
You can use many of these soup combinations as a flavor base for more ambitious recipes. Think of them as flavor enhancers for spaghetti sauces, chili; add them to bread recipes or use them as a flavor base for stews or casseroles.
What you have to do is look at the fundamental ingredients and determine how they would complement any other meals you may cook.
Storage Tips
- Jars can be stored wherever you store your other foods preserve in canning jars. Just remember that once they’ve been opened they should be moved out of storage into an active pantry area and eaten within a few months.
- Mylar bags can be stored in dedicated boxes or simply stacked or lined up on a shelf. Vacuum sealed Mylar bags will have the longest shelf life.
- Clear plastic bags can be contained in a box, a large canister or even frozen or refrigerated if you have the room. That’s not necessary but will extend the shelf life, particularly if you did any homemade dehydrating or drying.
- If you really want to extend shelf-life you can add oxygen absorber packets to your soup mixes. This is probably better to do with larger portions that you might store in a canning jar or large Mylar bag, otherwise you’ll be using dozens and dozens of oxygen absorbers.
- Homemade instant soup mixes are best stored in a cool, dry storage area and out of reach of rodents if stored in plastic bags. That’s why storage canisters or plastic boxes are a good idea.
- Whenever you open an instant soup package, remember to look carefully at the contents, smell it and think about how it tastes. If anything seems off, discard it and check a few other bags to see if things have been somehow compromised or spoiled.
And don’t forget to continue to experiment with your instant soup mixes. Add new ingredients; vary proportions of spices and think of the other things you could add to create variety and flavor. They’re a great and easy addition to your long-term food storage and could make every meal you make from any stockpile easier and better.
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Instant Soups – Creamy Potato/Bacon Soup with Chives
Ingredients
- 1 tsp. powdered chicken bouillon
- 1/3 cup instant potato flakes
- 1 tsp. corn starch
- 2 tbsps. dried chives
- 1/4 cup powdered milk
- 1/8 tsp. ground black pepper
- 12 ozs. boiling water
Instructions
-
Shake all of the ingredients in the bag to blend.
-
Add ingredients to a cup or bowl or leave in the bag.
-
Add boiling water and stir.
-
Wait 2 minutes.
-
Stir again and eat.
-
And feel free to garnish with whatever fresh herbs or vegetables you have on hand.
