With leaves crunching underfoot and evenings getting darker earlier and earlier, now is the perfect time to stock your freezer with soup. A soup swap is the best way to get a whole week’s worth of meals for only the effort required to make one (rather large) pot of soup.
Just pick a date, invite your friends and neighbors and swap! A quart is generally a good size to swap; it makes a nice lunch or dinner for two people. Make sure everyone decides ahead of time on the size and number of containers to bring. Glass jars work if you don’t fill them too full. You can also reuse plastic yogurt containers and the like.
Soups with potatoes and cream-based soups don’t freeze as well. Although we’ve had those at our soup swaps and simply kept them in the fridge and ate them first. My favorite soup to make for a swap is a roasted butternut squash. It’s easy to make in large batches and freezes beautifully. To ensure I make enough I often pour as many quart jars of water as I plan on making into my large soup pot. Then I have a visual for how much soup to make.
When swapping, it doesn’t matter if you have the same number of people as types of soup (i.e. you can invite more than six people even if everyone’s only bringing six containers), it just means not everyone will get to try each type of soup. But they’ll all get to try something new! For more details on the how to of a soup swap you can visit the official Soup Swap website. I like to host at least two swaps a winter. It’s a great way to have a casual get together and having a freezer full of ready made dinners is often just what I need on a lazy, cozy winter night.
