Allergy-Free Soup Recipes

By Kelley Lindberg


Snowflakes were falling this morning outside my window. There’s a fresh layer of snow on the mountains, making the few remaining yellow and orange leaves look especially lovely. Fall is giving way to winter everywhere I look.

It’s turning into soup weather.

So let’s try some new allergy-free soup and stew recipes together, shall we?  

• Minestrone. Those Italians are wizards with veggies, and a good minestrone is a thing of veggie beauty. Try this recipe from the Food Network magazine. Just skip the parmesan cheese, which is just a garnish, and make sure your chicken broth and pasta are safe for your allergies.
• Creamy Vegan Baked Potato Soup. For me, potato soup is the ultimate comfort soup. This recipe from Marni Fogelson-Teel on www.inhabitots.com is dairy-free but still has a creamy texture, and it is as straightforward as it gets, plus it has step-by-step photos! For toppings, you can try dairy-free cheese, like Daiya brand, crumbled bacon, diced green onions, sautéed kale or spinach, or anything else you like on a baked potato (even salsa or chili!).
• Roasted Butternut Squash Soup. Steph Davis, at www.highinfatuation.com, serves up this great-looking bisque-type squash soup. She describes the recipe as “ridiculously easy,” because “it requires almost no actual cooking, uses 5 ingredients, and tastes like it’s from a gourmet restaurant.” Works for me!
• Southwestern Corn Chowder. This recipe by Knorr, on the Yummly website, only takes a half-hour to make. Just use a safe margarine and safe chicken stock (or another type of broth/stock if you’re avoiding chicken). Believe it or not, a can of “cream style corn” doesn’t contain any cream, so it’s safe (at least the Del Monte can I checked was dairy-free – be sure you read the ingredients before you buy it!).
• Beef Stew. If you're looking for something filling and warm, this recipe from Martha Stewart couldn’t be simpler, and you can cook it in either a crockpot (my favorite cooking buddy!) or in the oven. Yep, that’s right. The oven. My carnivorous husband will love this one! (It calls for 2 Tbsp of all-purpose flour, mainly for thickening, so if you can’t have regular flour, try it with gluten-free flour, or skip the flour altogether. It will probably work out just fine without it – just perhaps not quite as thick.) Also, note that the crock-pot variation neglects to mention that you should add water, so be sure you add water or beef broth/stock (like the oven version says).
• Chili. Craving some chili? I posted a Chili Recipe Round-Up last January, so check it out for ideas.

Got a favorite soup or stew recipe? Post the recipe or a link to it in the Comments. In the meantime, get out those fuzzy slippers and toasty throws and stay warm!

Warming Up with Soup

by Kelley Lindberg


Winter is a great time for curling up with the ultimate comfort food: a big, steamy bowl of soup. It’s even more comforting when you don’t have to make it from scratch! With food allergies, that can be challenging.

So I was happy to find a line of soups from Boulder Soup Works that are free from eggs, shellfish, fish, wheat, peanuts, soy, sesame, and gluten. The founder, Kate Brown, was eating a gluten-free diet when she founded the company, so she decided that all of the soups her company made should be gluten-free. “We realized the need for a gluten-free soup with dairy-free options, as consumers in our area are highly cognizant of food-related challenges,” says Kate. Over half of their soup flavors are vegan or vegetarian varieties, too.

Their soup comes in a variety of flavors. Some of their soup flavors contain milk and casein (Roasted Tomato Basil, Potato Leek, and White Bean with Tomato). The other flavors don’t contain milk as an ingredient. However, all of their soups contain a “made in a facility that processes tree nuts and dairy” warning. When I spoke to a representative, she said the only tree nut in their facility is coconut – and it’s only an ingredient in two of the varieties (Carrot Coconut with Ginger, and Red Lentil Dahl). Because my son isn’t allergic to coconut, I would be fine serving this soup to him. However, when I asked the representative about dairy contamination, she said the Boulder Soup Works factory uses good manufacturing processes, but she obviously couldn’t guarantee that there would be no risk of dairy contamination (if she could, they wouldn’t need that warning).

In the mood for something a little out of the ordinary, I picked up some of their Red Lentil Dahl soup to take to a party where several of the party-goers are eating gluten-free diets, and they all loved the mild curry flavor and tasty texture. All the soup varieties from Boulder Soup Works are fresh and made with local, organic ingredients, and they don’t use preservatives or artificial ingredients. You can find them in tubs (not cans!) in the refrigerator case at Whole Foods in Salt Lake City.

To read more about why Kate Brown started making gluten-free, fresh soup, see the article “Boulder Soup Works Brings Fresh Soup to Grocery Stores.”

Allergy-Free Soup Recipe Contest Continuing

by Kelley Lindberg


There’s about an inch of snow outside this morning, which is making my son really happy. Just yesterday he was asking if I thought we’d have a white Christmas this year. Today’s snow may not last until Christmas, but it does make the world lovely, soft, and more beautiful – at least for a while.

So, while I’m looking at the frosty world outside, I’m still hankering for some new soup recipes. Many thanks to Julie for posting her delicious-looking recipe for White Chili – if you haven’t seen it yet, go to the Comments from last week’s post.

Now, for the rest of you… come on! Let’s see those yummy soup recipes that are free from peanuts, tree nuts, milk, egg, soy, wheat, seafood, and shellfish. There are plenty out there – and if you post a recipe, you’ll be entered in my random drawing for a free food-allergy cookbook!

Let’s get soupy!

Allergy-Free Soup Recipe Contest!

By Kelley Lindberg


Brrr. January has come early this year. Most of November was unusually cold, with temps in the single digits and piles of snow in the parking lots. December hasn’t warmed up much. It looks a lot more like Minnesota than Utah, if you ask me.

All this cold weather has put me in the mood for a nice, hot bowl of soup. Doesn’t that sound yummy… a pot gently simmering on the stove, filling the house with delicious smells…

The only problem is, I’m tired of most of my soup recipes. So let’s share some soup recipes! Pull out your favorite soup recipe that doesn’t have any of the Big 8 allergens (or which can use easy substitutions, like gluten-free noodles instead of egg noodles). Just post your recipe in the comments section, and remember to say where you found the recipe (or if you made it up!).

And here’s the best part. After a week or two, I’ll have a random drawing from everyone who posted a recipe, and the winner will win a food allergy cookbook. (I haven’t decided which one yet, but I’ll pick a good one, I promise!)

To get us started, here is a recipe I really like.

Rustic White Bean Soup
from Mr. Food Diabetic Dinners in a Dash, printed in an American Diabetes Association’s publication

1/2 lb. hot Italian-style turkey sausage, casing removed (or any safe sausage)
2 medium onions, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 cans (15.5 oz. each) white navy beans, undrained, divided
2 cans (14 oz. each) reduced-sodium chicken broth (or home-made safe broth)
1 package (10 oz.) fresh spinach
1/4 tsp. black pepper

1. Coat a soup pot with nonstick cooking spray; heat over medium heat.

2. Add the sausage, onions, and garlic, and sauté for 8 to 10 minutes, or until the onions are tender and the sausage is no longer pink, stirring to break up the sausage.

3. Mash 1 can of navy beans until smooth. Add to the soup pot along with the chicken broth and the remaining can of whole beans; bring to a boil.

4. Add the spinach and pepper, cover, reduce the heat to low, and simmer for 5 minutes, or until the spinach is wilted.

5. Ladle soup into bowls and serve.

Soups That Warm the Heart

Friday night we got together with some friends for an annual soup pot-luck holiday party. For the five families involved, getting together for a holiday party has been a tradition for many years. The soup part of the tradition is a more recent development, but it’s turned into a great idea.

There’s nothing like a cold, snowy night (which Friday was) to make the thought of five steaming crock-pots full of hot, delicious soups and stews all the more enticing.

In this group of friends we have to accommodate two kids with allergies (nuts, peanuts, milk, egg, seafood), one family that prefers vegetarianism (although they do make exceptions), at least a couple of husbands who thrive on red meat, and one diabetic (me). Sounds complicated. But as the years go on, it becomes easier and easier to roll them all into your recipe criteria.

At Friday’s party, I think we may have had the best soups to date! There was a delicious taco soup, a bean chili, a peasant-style minestrone chock full of veggies, and a steak-and-potato soup. I made a Rustic White Bean Soup made of navy beans, turkey sausage, broth, and spinach (from Diabetic Dinners in a Dash by Art Ginsberg – you mash half the navy beans, which gives the soup a creamier texture without the cream). Everything was wonderful, and everyone tried at least a small serving of each soup (some more than once). We added some dinner rolls that were milk- and egg-free, a punch for the kids made of equal parts of Cran-apple juice and ginger ale, Lorie's fabulous milk- and egg-free chocolate cupcakes, and voila! We even got the kids to stop racing around the house long enough to eat. It was that good.

Accommodating allergies (and other dietary restrictions) is extremely challenging in the beginning. We all know that. But over time, you find friends and family members who are willing to explore new options because they care enough about you to make the effort. Between you, you begin to experiment and discover new recipes, good substitutions, and new ways to prepare old favorites that make them safe. Then one day you look around and realize you’ve got a safe environment for your child where before you saw only a minefield of potential disasters.

Our annual holiday get-together is a safe environment where our kids know they are welcome, they can play freely, and they can eat whatever is on the table. It just doesn’t get much better than that.