Eat soups!
With winter comes the cold and the desire to warm up. And what better way to do it healthily than to make a good soup?
In fact, soups are wonderful preparations. If they are prepared without excess, they are full of benefits for our diet and for our health.
Let us take a closer look. First of all, soups allow us to create an almost infinite variety of recipes, since all vegetables can be cooked. We can therefore adapt our soup to our favorite tastes. In addition, soups allow us, thanks to the water they contain, to rehydrate. We often forget, but we must be careful in winter and hydrate well, especially if we live in a heated house.
Soups also have the advantage of providing a lot of nutrients, while they are usually low in calories (as long as you don’t pour too much cream, butter or bacon into it, of course). This allows us to balance our menus and not feel hungry.
Soups can also have great health benefits. Plant fibers are best assimilated when the vegetable is cooked and help in intestinal transit and to lower "bad" cholesterol. Depending on the choice of vegetables in the soup, our soups may also contain large amounts of antioxidants and minerals.
Here is our choice of the 5 dried vegetables you should always have at home!
Eat soups!
With winter comes the cold and the desire to warm up. And what better way to do it healthily than to make a good soup?
In fact, soups are wonderful preparations. If they are prepared without excess, they are full of benefits for our diet and for our health.
Let us take a closer look. First of all, soups allow us to create an almost infinite variety of recipes, since all vegetables can be cooked. We can therefore adapt our soup to our favorite tastes. In addition, soups allow us, thanks to the water they contain, to rehydrate. We often forget, but we must be careful in winter and hydrate well, especially if we live in a heated house.
Soups also have the advantage of providing a lot of nutrients, while they are usually low in calories (as long as you don’t pour too much cream, butter or bacon into it, of course). This allows us to balance our menus and not feel hungry.
Soups can also have great health benefits. Plant fibers are best assimilated when the vegetable is cooked and help in intestinal transit and to lower "bad" cholesterol. Depending on the choice of vegetables in the soup, our soups may also contain large amounts of antioxidants and minerals.
A soup for each of us!
As we said earlier, there is a wide variety of different soups. If you like sweet and delicate flavors, you can opt for carrots or pumpkin. If you like green vegetables, then we will recommend for example broccoli, a very remineralizing superfood.
If we want a light soup, you can limit yourself to vegetables. If you want a whole dish, nothing simpler, just add for instance potatoes and protein, like chicken or shrimps. For a more pronounced taste, you can play with spices.
And if you want something even more exotic, you will opt for soups from other places, such as Borsch from Ukraine or Tom Yam from Thailand. Endless possibilities to combine health and happiness!
Why use dried vegetables in a soup?
When it comes to preparing lunch or dinner, we already have a long day of work and activities behind us. Often, in addition, our imagination can be limited by the ingredients we have available in the fridge, because the stores may already be closed, or by the necessary time needed for the preparation...
It is because they allow you to avoid all these setbacks that dried vegetables are your best allies in the kitchen!
In fact, low-temperature dried vegetables retain most of their nutritional properties. They are easy to store, do not take up space, can be kept for months (even years) and are ready to use. Enough to wake up the artist sleeping inside you!
How can I dry my vegetables?
You can dry your own vegetables to create your reserves and always have them ready.
To dry vegetables, it is best to use a dehydrator. If you don't have one, you can use the kitchen oven. Ideally, you should have an oven capable of heating to only to 40-50 degrees C to avoid excessive drying of food and subsequently loss of the vitamins and minerals they contain.
Dehydrating (drying) vegetables is a great way to conserve them. It also requires less energy than freezing. As long as they are kept in a cool, dry place away from light, dried vegetables can be stored for years.
As an advice, please take care of cleaning and cutting your vegetables before drying them as if you were going to use them immediately.
How do I use dried vegetables?
If you have followed our advice, then your dried vegetables remain raw (they start cooking as from 47 degrees C). Therefore, you should use them the same way as raw vegetables (a vegetable that cannot be eaten raw such as green beans, will have to be cooked before eating) and according to your needs.
For example, you can use dried vegetables to vary textures in your salads or dishes by adding tomatoes or dried peppers (flavors are concentrated). You can also add them to your soups and stews where they will be rehydrated and cooked at the same time. This is exactly the case when soups are made.
To make soups with dried vegetables, it’s very simple: add dried vegetables inside the hot water!
Here are the 5 vegetables to dry for your winter soups.
To conclude this article, we would like to propose our choice of the five vegetables thatwe believe can servete best in thepreparation of tuswinter soups. We explain step by step how to proceed to dry them properly.
Here they are:
Onion
Peel the onions, cut them into dice. Place them on the dehydrator plates or baking sheet previously covered with parchment paper. Cut parts should not be too close to each other. Adjust the dehydrator temperature to 45 degrees (in the oven - at the minimum temperature that the oven allows). Dehydrate for 12-15 hours.
Carrots
Peel the carrots. Cut them into dice or in slices. Place them on the dehydrator plates or baking sheet previously covered with parchment paper. Adjust the dehydrator temperature to 45 degrees (in the oven - at the minimum temperature that the oven allows). Dehydrate for 12-15 hours.
Leek
Wash the stems of the leek well. Cut into pieces of about 1 cm. Place them on the dehydrator plates or baking sheet previously covered with parchment paper. Cut parts should not be too close to each other. Adjust the dehydrator temperature to 45 degrees (in the oven - at the minimum temperature that the oven allows). Dehydrate for 10-12 hours.
Green beans
Wash green beans well.
Separate the two ends with a short and energetic hand movement. Then cut them into two or three pieces of 3-4 cm.
Place the pieces on the dehydrator plates or baking sheet previously covered with parchment paper. Cut parts should not be too close to each other. Adjust the dehydrator temperature to 45 degrees (in the oven - at the minimum temperature that the oven allows).
Dehydrate for 8-10 hours.
Paris Mushrooms
Remove the earthy or sandy part of the mushroom feet. When the mushrooms comes from the shops, they are usually not really dirty because the soil (or substrate) on which they grow is pasteurized. So clean them by rubbing them with a paper towel. Then cut them into thin strips 3-4 mm thick. Place the strips of mushrooms on the dehydrator plates or on the baking sheet previously covered with parchment paper. Cut parts should not be too close to each other. Adjust the dehydrator temperature to 45 degrees (in the oven - at the minimum temperature that the oven allows).
Dehydrate for 8-10 hours.
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