4 top tips to bulk up and thicken your soup

1. Blend bread into your soup

Abi's first suggestion is to freeze stale bread that you can then blend and add to your soups when you need it. Plus, this is a great way to use up stale bread so you don't have to throw it out. You can also cut up the stale bread and toast it to make home-made croutons.

2. Add leftover rice or lentils

Another way to minimise food waste and stretch your soup is by adding leftover cooked rice into the mix. If you don't have leftover rice, you can add a cup of lentils instead.

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3. Flour and butter make great thickening agents

If you want to make a thicker soup, mix 2 T flour with 2 T melted butter. Whisk this mixture with 3 cups of soup and add to the pot. This is called a roux, and results in a much nicer texture than adding cornflour, which can be gluey.

4. Add a can of samp and beans

You don't have to wait hours to make samp and beans to add to your soup. Woolworths' canned samp and beans in brine will do the trick. Adding it to your soup will instantly bulk up and thicken your soup. We also recommend using the canned samp and beans to make Keletso Motau's one-pot chicken, mushroom and samp this winter.

ALSO READ: The batch-cooked chicken soup that’ll feed you for 3 days

BONUS TIPS: Freezing your soup

Now that you've bulked up your soups, you may want to freeze them for later. Here are Abi's tips for freezing soups and stocks:

1. Home-made stocks make the best soup, so freeze chicken carcasses, beef bones or vegetable scraps to add to the stock pot.

2. Most soups freeze well, so always make a big pot and freeze in portions for those days when the loadshedding schedule is looking particularly bleak.

3. Soups containing cream can split, so rather freeze a batch before adding dairy, which you can do once thawed and reheating.

ALSO READ: 10 soup recipes you can always count on, every winter