As a student, you’re generally low on cash, cooking skills and if we’re honest effort to make ourselves proper meals. Soup is a great way to prepare loads with minimum effort whilst providing you with healthy meals. It’s super cheap because vegetables literally cost pennies but you can feed yourself for a week. I particularly like having soup prepared and in the freezer for lunches but if I treat myself to a nice loaf of bread for dipping, it can make a great dinner too. They are totally easy to make, the timings may make it look like a long, arduous process but a lot of the time you’re just chucking things in the oven and leaving it for a while. It’s also beneficial to keep us poor students warm when our flats maybe aren’t the cosiest – for other student life insights and tips, click here!

I’m gonna share the recipes to three of my favourite soups that I make all the time and I, personally, think they are delicious. Some wee disclaimers: I am opposed to lumpy soups so the following are all lovely, smoothly blended and I like my soup to have a bit of a kick so I am a big fan of chilli to spice things up. Also if you make it and the soup seems too thick, you can always stir in some more water!

Spicy Coconut and Sweet Potato Soup
Makes: 4 portions | Takes: 1 hour 15 minutes

Ingredients:
1 large sweet potato (or roughly 70g)
1 regular white onion
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tbs Thai red curry paste
400ml tin of coconut milk
700ml of vegetable stock
3 tsp lemon juice
Pinch of salt
Sprinkle of chilli flakes (optional)
Hot sauce to garnish (optional)

Method:
1. Preheat oven at 200°C, bake sweet potato for roughly 45mins or until soft, allow to cool then remove skin and cut into chunks
2. In a large soup pan, fry the chopped onion until soft then add ginger and stir
3. Add in curry paste then stir and cook for around a minute
4. Add the coconut milk and vegetable stock and bring to the boil then reduce heat and simmer for 10mins
5. Add sweet potato chunks and continue to simmer for 10mins
6. Blend until lovely and smooth
7. Add lemon juice then salt and chilli flakes to taste

Autumn Soup (not seasonally exclusive)
Makes: 5 portions | Takes: 1 hour 30 minutes

Ingredients:
1 butternut squash
1 sweet potato
1 bell pepper (any colour)
2 parsnips
1 onion
1 chilli (deseeded)
400ml of chicken or vegetable stock
Honey (optional)

Method:
1. Preheat oven at 180°C
2. Peel, deseed and chop all of the vegetables into roughly the same sized chunks
3. Place on a tray (I usually need two for all that veg), drizzle with olive oil and a smaller drizzle of honey
4. Roast vegetables in the oven for around 45mins
5. In a large soup pan, make the stock, add in the veg and leave to simmer for 30mins, stirring occasionally
6. Blend

Tattie and Leek Soup
Makes: 5 portions | Takes: 1 hour 30 minutes

Ingredients:
400ml of chicken or vegetable stock
4 medium-large potatoes
2/3 leeks
Salt and pepper
Chilli flakes

Method:
1. Chop and part boil potatoes for 15-20mins
2. Finely chop the leeks and fry off in a pan until soft and slightly caramelised
3. In a large soup pan bring stock to the boil, then add potatoes and leeks
4. Bring to boil then simmer for around 1 hour, stirring occasionally
5. Blend then season to taste

Hope you give one, two or three of these a go and enjoy them as much as I do!