If you love a mug of “bone broth,” I’m happy for you, truly. I just also think we should talk about what’s actually in your cup and why the name makes every old-school cook twitch a little.
Once you’ve lived through a winter winter, the way you think about food changes.
I’m not talking about a couple of chilly mornings where everybody dusts off their boots and pretends it’s suddenly “soup season.” I mean real northern winters. Minnesota winters. The kind where the cold settles in like a long-term tenant and absolutely nobody is popping out for a casual stroll unless something is on fire. The kind where you do not see your next‑door neighbor for months because you are both in your respective houses living your best hibernation life.
When winter lasts that long, food stops being about trends and becomes about taking care of yourself in a practical, everyday way. Soup is no longer a Pinterest aesthetic; it is survival.
That’s where soups and stews come in for me.
They aren’t always aesthetic.
They aren’t always fussy.
They’re how I stay fed, warm, and at least halfway sane when winter drags on and all I really want is my couch, a good book, and a blanket.
What’s funny is that I did not grow up loving soup at all.
How I went from avoiding soup to relying on it
Growing up, soup in our house mostly meant chicken noodles, but almost never as the main event.
After Sunday dinner, once the roasted chicken, rice, gravy, and green beans were gone, my mom or grandmother would take what was left of the chicken, shred it, add water or broth, cook plain egg noodles, and season it with salt and pepper. It was comforting, familiar, and perfectly fine, but it was not something I counted down the days to eat.
Outside of that, soup was something other people ate. My dad loved canned soup. I did not. The textures felt off, and the flavors always seemed either flat or aggressively processed, like someone turned the salt knob up to 13 to distract you from everything else. A lot of soups were also cream based, which just isn’t my preference.
I use cream and milk when they make sense and when there aren’t good substitutions. But at the time, most soups just did not appeal to me enough to bother. For a long stretch, soup simply was not part of how I cooked.
That changed when I started making my own stock. Once I could control the base, I realized I am much more of a broth girl than I ever thought.
If you want to see what that actually looks like in my kitchen, below is a video of me and my daughter making homemade chicken stock together. It is very real life, not Food Network.
Homemade chicken stock with my daughter
Stock vs. Broth (and why “bone broth” makes my eye twitch)
Let’s clear something up before the culinary gods smite us all: stock and broth are not the same thing, and “bone broth” is not helping.
Stock is what you get when you toss bones (usually with some scrappy bits of meat still clinging on), plus vegetables and aromatics, into a pot and let them quietly bubble away for hours. The long simmer coaxes out collagen from the bones, which turns into gelatin, so a good stock has body, a silky mouthfeel, and often turns into meat Jell-O in the fridge. It is usually barely salted because its job is to be a versatile, behind the scenes workhorse for soups, sauces, gravies, and braises. Remember stock is gelatinous!
Broth, on the other hand, is usually made with more meat than bones and cooked for a shorter time. It is lighter, cleaner, and generally does not gel when chilled because it has far less gelatin going on. Broth is the extrovert of the two: properly seasoned, ready to sip from a mug, and perfectly happy to be the main event in a lighter soup.
Now, about “bone broth”. Somewhere along the way, someone decided that “stock” did not sound wellnessy enough, so they slapped “bone” and “broth” together, sprinkled on some health claims, and here we are. If you are simmering bones for hours to extract collagen, congratulations: you are making stock. Calling it “bone broth” is like calling water “hydration juice”. Technically not wrong enough to arrest you, but spiritually offensive.
So if you love “bone broth”, that is fine, do your thing, drink it, enjoy it, live your best cozy mug life. Just know that, classically speaking, you are sipping a nicely marketed stock. I am just the messenger. If you like it, I love it.
That said, not everyone wants to make stock or broth from scratch. And you do not have to.
There are some solid store-bought options that work beautifully as a base when you season them well. For a richer, more flexible base, I like Kitchen Basics Organic Chicken Stock. It has enough body to make soups, stews, and jambalaya taste like you tried, without coming pre-salted to death, so you can still be in charge of the seasoning.
If you just need something budget friendly that still tastes like actual chicken and not sadness, College Inn Chicken Broth is a great everyday option. It is affordable, has a real chicken-forward flavor, and holds up nicely in soups, stews, and casseroles when homemade stock is not happening today.
Why stock- and broth-based soups work so well
Almost every soup or stew I keep stocked starts with a good stock or broth. Nothing complicated, just intentional.
These soups reheat well, they freeze well, and they adapt to whatever I am in the mood for that day. That flexibility is the real benefit for me.
You can make one base and turn it into several different meals without feeling like you are eating the exact same thing over and over again. Instead of “leftovers,” it feels more like “options.”
The batch-cooking habit that changed everything
One small habit completely changed how I use soups: I stopped adding starches right away.
When I make chicken soup, I cook the chicken, onions, celery, carrots, and mushrooms in stock and let it simmer for hours until everything tastes like it belongs together. Then I portion that soup base into containers and freeze it. No noodles. No rice. Just a flavorful, flexible base waiting for its moment.
When I am ready to eat, I cook fresh noodles, rice, dumplings, or nothing at all. I reheat the base, combine it with whatever I want that day, and it feels like a new meal every time.
That one batch can turn into:
- Chicken Noodle Soup
- Chicken and Rice Soup
- Chicken and Dumplings
Efficient without feeling repetitive. That is my happy place.
If you want to see how I turn that stock into a full chicken noodle soup, here’s a video of Sabrina’s favorite Chicken Noodle Soup from our Tasty Tin test kitchen.
When I batch cook, I usually work out of a big pot that can handle long simmers without scorching. I use a Le Creuset enameled cast iron Dutch oven because it holds heat like it takes the job personally and it has basically become a member of the family at this point.
I also have a soft spot for Staub Dutch ovens. They cook just as beautifully, and their deep, moody colors make me unreasonably happy every time I pull one out for soup or stew.
If you are not quite in your Le Creuset or Staub era yet, a Lodge enameled Dutch oven is a great budget friendly option. It is nice and heavy, holds heat well, and absolutely can do the job for long-simmered soups and stews without wrecking your budget.
How I season soups (without overthinking it)
I season soups the same way I season everything else: in layers, early and often.
I start with Garlic Dust
It builds a solid base without overpowering anything or turning your kitchen into a garlic crime scene.
For chili and heartier soups, I lean on A Sprinkle of Spice
It is warm and layered without tasting like a single-note chili powder that yells “TACO TUESDAY” no matter what day it is.
For mushroom-heavy soups and stews, Pryme Thyme
Thyme and mushrooms just belong together. They are that couple that makes sense even if you cannot explain why.
Soup does not need a long ingredient list. It needs the right ones.
A creamy soup without cream
As winter starts to loosen its grip, asparagus soup makes its way into rotation. It is my way of reminding myself that green things still exist.
It looks creamy, but there is no cream involved. The base is stock, fresh asparagus, lemon, and time. The texture comes from blending everything until it is smooth and velvety.
For silky soups, I like to blend right in the pot. I use a Cuisinart Smart Stick immersion blender for that. It is simple, sturdy, and powerful enough to turn a pot of vegetables and stock into something that looks way fancier than it is.
When I want things ultra-smooth or I am making bigger batches, I pull out my Vitamix blender. It is not cheap, but it has earned permanent counter space in my kitchen by absolutely obliterating anything I put in it, from soups to sauces to smoothies.
The soup turns bright green. Clean. Fresh. I finish it with a drizzle of olive oil and sometimes add sautéed shrimp or scallops to make it a full meal.
- Creamy (no-cream) Asparagus Soup recipe coming soon!
This one always reminds me that winter does not last forever, even when the forecast is trying to say otherwise.
Chili took me a while
I did not grow up eating chili.
My husband did, and my first attempt at making it was so bad it ended up in the trash and we went to McDonald’s instead. Sometimes the most loving thing you can do for everyone involved is admit defeat and order fries.
Eventually, I figured out a version that works for me. I do not eat beans, so my chili is bean-free by default. I build it with ground beef, chunks of chuck roast, and A Sprinkle of Spice
If you want beans, add them. If you prefer chicken or turkey, that works too. Chili is flexible like that.
One thing I will always stand by is that chili is better on day two. The flavors have time to settle down and get to know each other, start dating and eventually marry and it always pays off.
Want to try our chili recipe 👈🏽 click here?
When soup becomes stew
Somewhere between soup and chili lives stew, that thick, cozy middle ground that basically tastes like a hug.
One of my staples is a beef and mushroom stew that is deeply savory without being heavy. Mushrooms matter here. Use whatever kind you like; they all bring a little something different to the pot.
This is where Pryme Thyme really shines.
That same flavor base is also what I use for French Onion Soup
Once you understand how those flavors work together, you can build multiple meals from the same foundation. Cook once. Eat well many times. That is the kind of math I enjoy.
Staying ready without being extreme
I like knowing I have food. Not because I am stockpiling for the apocalypse, but because life gets busy and winter gets long.
Keeping soup bases and stews in the freezer gives me breathing room. I do not have to start from scratch every night. I reheat, adjust, and enjoy.
That is what soups and stews give me. Comfort, yes. But more than that, flexibility. And that is why they stay in rotation, season after season.
