Traditional borscht recipes call for beets and sour cream. This soup recipe from the Ukraine varies depending on the chef. As a result, health benefits can vary. Beets have several health-protective qualities, making for a potential nutritional powerhouse.

As a way of tenderizing onions before you add them to a soup, you can boil them. For a delicate onion flavor, consider using small white or yellow varieties in your soup recipes. However, avoid Vidalia or Walla Walla varieties since they may make your soup come out overly sweet.

Bitter leaf soup, also called onugbu, is a Nigerian specialty. The bitter leaf, or onugbu, is commonly found around homes in southeastern Nigeria. There are many variations of bitter leaf soup. Common ingredients include fish, beef or goat meat, cocoyam, crayfish and locust beans.

Nothing beats the smell of soup simmering on the stove on a cool winter evening, and even in warm weather, the comforting taste and texture of soup is just what you need at the end of a long, hard day.

Prime rib roast can be pricey, so it's worthwhile to cook down the bones into a rich soup stock to use as a base for a few more meals. Making beef stock takes time but very little effort.

Soup makes for an economical meal, especially if you make a large batch and store portions for future meals. Various soups will keep for two or three days in the refrigerator and for over two months in the freezer, saving you the trouble of dirtying up another set of cookware.

French onion soup has epitomized rich taste and hearty fare since the first written recipe in 1651 in France. Balance the rich, savory cheese, sweet caramelized onions, hearty bread and salty beef broth with the tastes that are missing from the soup: sour and bitter.

Canned soups are generally economical, and they can add richness to otherwise bland dishes. Cream soups are especially versatile because of their flavors and consistency.

The name of a rice-cooker may imply that it's meant to cook only one thing; However, all a rice cooker does is boil a liquid until it reaches a set temperature, then keep the contents warm until you tell it otherwise. This is essentially the same process for making many soups.

Cooked or raw soup bones can enhance the flavor of your any soup. Once you have carved out most of the meat from your turkey, lamb, chicken or ham, save the bones to make a hearty soup with fresh vegetables and broth. Adding cooked rice or uncooked, broken spaghetti noodles provides filler in your soup.

Vegetable soup can be a hearty and low-calorie way to satisfy your hunger while also filling your body with beneficial vitamins and minerals. Combining several different colors and varieties of vegetable will increase the nutrition of your soup and provide new flavors.

The multiple types of lentils, which include black, green and red lentils, can be used to make dozens of different lentil soups. One popular recipe variation for lentil soup from LIVESTRONG.COM's MyPlate calls for chicken or vegetable broth and olive oil combined with lentils, celery, onion and carrots.