Soup is like a warm hug: it's good for your health, it's comforting and it's the antidote to a cold winter's night.

And soup doesn't have to be boring! Here's how to make your soups even more nutritious and exciting.

How to make soup healthier

Give your broth a dietary boost using these tips.

• In 2022, 94% of Australian adults didn't consume the recommended 5 serves of vegetables every day. An easy way to get your fill is to keep a pack of frozen veggies in the freezer, or tinned veggies (with no added salt) in the pantry, to add to your soups at home.


• Increase your dairy intake to what's recommended by the health experts and make soup creamy by adding yoghurt to homemade soups. Stir reduced-fat Greek yoghurt into soup after it's been cooked and well-combined.


• Store-bought barbecue chicken is an easy way to get lean protein into soup to help your body grow and repair. Simply remove the skin, shred chicken into pieces and stir through your soup as it cooks.


• If you follow a vegan or vegetarian diet, you can increase the iron content of your soup by adding legumes (for example, lentils, beans or chick peas), tofu, pumpkin seeds or kale. If you follow a plant-based diet, you will need to eat about 80% more iron to meet your dietary requirements.


• Opt for low glycaemic index (GI) grains in soup, such as barley. Generally, foods with a low GI are considered healthy because the carbohydrates in these foods break down more slowly, releasing glucose more gradually into your blood stream. Other factors also contribute to choosing healthy food options, such as the total number of kilojoules, saturated fat content and added sugar.


• For added vitamin E and protein, blend almond meal into your soups. Almonds are also a rich source of healthy monounsaturated fats, which help decrease the 'bad' (LDL) cholesterol in your blood while increasing the 'good' (HDL) cholesterol.


• If your recipe calls for coconut milk, make it healthy by making your own. Mix 1 cup of skim milk or evaporated skim milk with 2 teaspoons of corn starch, 1 teaspoon of coconut essence and a little sugar to taste.

Pass on the salt

Having too much salt in your diet can raise blood pressure, which puts you at increased risk of health conditions such as heart disease and stroke. It may also speed up the body's loss of calcium.

Canned and packaged soups, as well as soy sauce and stock, may contain a lot of salt. The recommended amount of salt for adults is about 5g per day or less, equivalent to 1 teaspoon of salt.

Check labels on store-bought soup for sodium (salt) content and be careful not to add too much salt to your homemade soups.

Can chicken soup cure a cold?

There's no conclusive evidence that chicken soup can effectively treat the common cold. But a study published in 2000 suggests that chicken soup may have a mild anti-inflammatory effect that could be helpful in treating a cold. Ultimately, warming up with chicken soup may just nourish you if you have a cold. And that's good medicine.

For more information

Visit these sites for more advice on healthy eating:

• Dietitians Australia
• Nutrition Australia
• Diabetes Australia
• Heart Foundation

This post was originally published on 25 July 2019 and has been updated to include the most recent details on this topic.