Simple Ways to Turn Kitchen Scraps Into Delicious Soups

Vogue magazine recently described Alison Roman’s new pantry cookbook, “Something from Nothing,” as the perfect guide for “money-strapped-millennials” — but millennials aren’t the only ones feeling the pressure these days. As food prices have creeped ever upward and climate anxiety is at an all-time high, there’s never been a better time to root around your pantry or freezer and make something from nothing. There are many ways to approach that challenge, but when it’s sweater weather, we think soup — namely, scrap soup — is just what the season ordered. You can grab a cookbook to help you, like Roman’s, or Tamar Adler’s “An Everlasting Meal,” or the James Beard compilation “Waste Not,” but you can also just ground yourself in some principles, and wing it from there.

Scrap soup, you ask? Also known as kitchen-scrap soup, stone soup or, less appetizingly, garbage soup, it’s a soul-warming, ever-adaptable dish that makes use of the leftover food bits you stash away in the freezer or fridge. But it’s also scrappy in another sense: It borrows from the kind of creative, roll-up-your-sleeves ethos employed by generations of budget-minded cooks, who had to stretch their ingredients to make do. In this time of uncertainty and scarcity, scrap soup can actually be an edible ode to abundance. As Roman says, “abundance doesn’t mean you need 20 dishes of caviar. It’s the joy of will, a well-stocked pantry, delicious wonders.” This approach not only makes good financial sense, but it’s better for the planet. By using every part of a vegetable (or chicken or fish or piece of cheese) you’re saving it from the landfill, where it will decompose and eventually produce methane, a greenhouse gas that’s up to 86 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.

Plus, soup is a forgiving canvas — you can throw a whole bunch of stuff in a pot and still not mess it up. Read on for our best scrap soup–making tips.