3 Warming Soup Recipes for Cool Fall Evenings

These gluten-free soups are perfect for preparing in advance, so you and your loved ones can enjoy them throughout the week. (Cat update included below!)

From left to right: creamy lentil, leek and potato, and beet and beef soup.

Temperatures are dipping into the 40s Fahrenheit overnight (the single digits in Celsius), and I’m thinking more and more of how nicely a hot bowl of soup would hit the spot. Some soups I make are smooth and creamy, others are chunky, thick with sliced cabbage or bites of meat.

One thing that is great about all of the soups below is that they can be prepared in advance, so you can take some time on the weekend to cook, then keep them in the fridge to eat over the coming days. Personally, when I make one of these delicious soups, I look forward to eating it over the next 2 or 3 days—the flavor improves as the ingredients meld, especially in the first 24 hours. To reheat any of these soups, I put a splash of water into a sauce pan, then add the chilled soup and heat it on the stovetop over low to medium heat—don’t turn it up too high, or you may end up burning it! Or you can use the microwave, if you prefer.

Each of these soups is hearty enough to be a meal in itself, along with a green salad and some buttered gluten-free toast. With the beet and beef soup, you won’t even need the salad, because the soup is already loaded with vegetables—beets, red cabbage, carrots, and celery.

First, here is a wonderfully creamy lentil soup. It is flavored with sauteed bacon and is pureed for a smooth texture. A bonus is that it is inexpensive to make and is quite filling—sometimes the most economical dishes are the most hearty and delicious.

Next, I have a leek and potato soup that serves double duty: it can be served cold in the summer or hot in the winter. Again, this is very economical to make, as the main ingredient is potatoes. Leeks aren’t available at every supermarket, so it may take a little searching to find them, but believe it or not, I have found beautiful bunches of very fresh leeks at Walmart!

Soup number 3, beet and beef soup, is definitely a meal on its own. And the purple color is beautiful in the bowl. So the next time you see beets and red cabbage at the market and wonder what you could make with them, here is you answer.

Cat Update

Seraphina wears a collar now. It’s pink and has an engraved plate that says “Seraphina Text or call” followed by 2 phone numbers. It also has her current rabies vaccine tag dangling from it. It also has a break-away feature, so if she gets it caught on something, she won’t end up strangling herself. We found the collar on Amazon, in case you’re wondering where to get one for your pet.

Why put her in a collar now, after 10 years? Lia and I figured that, since Seraphina is a traveling cat, moving back and forth with us in the car from Washington, DC, to South Carolina fairly regularly, we should take this extra precaution. What if she got out of the car at the Buckee’s parking lot? If that happens and someone finds her, now they’ll know who to call. She also spends time out on the porch at the Aiken house. It’s too high up from ground level for her to jump down and wander into the neighborhood—but you never know, as she is still quite agile and athletic. Better safe than sorry.

Seraphina modeling her new collar and rabies vaccine tag.