Here is a soup that elevates the vegetable to an elegant course, perfect when served with a holiday dinner.

In keeping with the spirit of fresh starts, let’s celebrate with a simple aromatic mushroom soup. You can make this just as is or if you can get your hands on wild foraged mushrooms!

Many years ago, I enjoyed a delicious chilled almond soup, ajoblanco, native to Spain, at a wonderful restaurant called Feast in Houston. The dish was garnished with a drizzle of good olive oil, sliced grapes and was delicious to the last spoonful. Ajoblanco is often called white gazpacho and predates its more popular tomato version, since tomatoes did not arrive in Spain until the time of Columbus. The classic version is made with slices of white bread pureed with almonds. Preferring my bread warm, grainy, toasted and slathered in butter, I use plain white rice as the thickener here. The quality of rice will not matter, as it will all get pureed in the end. The addition of aromatic cardamom to the base balanced the garlic, and a pop of mustard seeds and kari leaves was the final flourish. If you can find Spanish Marcona almonds, the soup will be even more delicious.

This soup is eaten more like a curry with rice. There are umpteen variations: some made with tomato, tamarind, coconut milk or buttermilk. It is usually eaten during summer months for lunch.

Every restaurant — and perhaps every home — should have a “kitchen soup” recipe that allows lots of flexibility, creativity and, of course, bold flavors. So skip the preservative-filled bouillon or canned stock and make a simple from-scratch soup like ours.

Here is a melon soup that you can make in minutes and serve topped with another summer fruit like diced cherries or mango.

For most Sindhis, this tamarind fragrant soup, or Sindhi kadhi, as it is called, is synonymous with a lazy Sunday afternoon lunch. Usually eaten with steamed rice and sweet laddus, this was one of my favorite memories of growing up in a traditional Sindhi household.

Fennel fronds (the skinny stems with tiny leaves on top of the bulbs) can often be toothsome and chewy if eaten raw. In this soup, we cook them down to a soft, deeply flavorful finish and garnish the bowl with finely chopped fronds.

Best made in spring when asparagus and fennel are in season, this soup is creamy with the simple addition of sesame seeds.

This smooth and creamy soup is supremely simple to make as we drift into the autumn season. If you do not have asafetida, which is a natural spice that mimics the flavor of onions and garlic, slice a few cloves of garlic instead.

This soup is creamy enough to pass off as a luxurious indulgent soup even though it is entirely plant based. Use roasted carrots instead of butternut or keep it really simple and top it off with pomegranate seeds. Instead of almonds, use cashews or hazelnuts – it’s delicious either way.

Turnip greens sometimes end up in my compost bucket but this time, I decided to add them to a soup and to my surprise, they turned out delicious, mellow and a gorgeous green with the roasted turnips. Please note I used the Hakurei Japanese turnips. Regular turnips greens may behave a little differently.

This soup, with a spice infusion and a pop thrown in for good measure, is soul satisfying in the middle of a cold winter!

When we are preparing for a possible onslaught on our immune system, a small cup of garlic soup a day may be just what we need.

Every region of the world has its version of a chicken noodle soup, but this variation may be the best one I’ve tasted on a trip to Nepal a few years ago. Perfect to eat during colder weather, it’s infinitely adaptable, tastes even better the next day and can be made with or without meat.

Steamed in with the dal and all its tangy spices softens the kale to a much more palatable bite and adds even more nutrition to the legumes.

A few small spoons of aromatic spices elevate the soup; the cardamom adds a sweet aroma and the coriander a lemony flavor to accentuate the tomato. Enjoy it warm or chilled.

Here is a delicious South Indian inspired shrimp soup with mango, a fruit much more likely to show up in savory foods in India. Enjoy it on its own or with noodles or rice.

Crushing spices helps incorporate their flavor into the broth and black pepper and cloves have been a home remedy for sore throats for millennia in India. Dairy can often make congestion worse, so I used coconut milk instead – it’s also easier to digest. The soup has more vegetables than chicken, which makes it even more nourishing.

A couple of weeks back, a customer with a great green thumb dropped off a bunch of these limes ~ I had never set my eyes on them previously and was immediately intrigued by their peculiar rind and intoxicated by their aroma.

This soup is satisfying on its own, topped with your favorite melting cheese, or even as a sauce for grilled fish.

Here I bring you a hearty shrimp soup made with the liquid extracted from the roselle. The tart flavor of the roselle pairs very nicely with sweet shrimp!

A classic idea rooted in Indian techniques, the chickpea flour acts as a binder for the yogurt and also prevents it from ‘breaking’. The pureed spinach adds an herby and fresh flavor to the soup.

Here is a soup inspired by the coast of Kerala using cardamom and black pepper native to that region.

Roasting okra in the oven at high heat preserves its integrity and flavor without turning it slimy. This yogurt soup is an adaptation of the classic Punjabi kadhi, usually eaten with rice — the chickpea flour is the binder that keeps the yogurt from “breaking,” and turns it viscous and creamy.

With an abundance of local yellow and green squash, here is a chilled herby soup reminiscent of gazpacho but with varied flavors. Remember to leave the peels on, this is where the fiber rests and all our bodies could use more fiber.

When combined with the earthy flavor of fresh turmeric and the haunting note of cloves, this is a healing soup if there ever was one!

My favorite way to cook beets is to combine them with a small amount of lentils, which helps balance the flavors. This soup also works well as a sauce for grilled portobello mushrooms or fish.

Kohlrabi is a vegetable within the nutrient dense brassica family however it is sweeter than your average broccoli or cabbage. I turned the vegetable into a soup and added boiled eggs to it.

The broth like soup will absorb and enhance any flavor you put into it – so use what you have and enjoy it as a light dinner or with some rice on the side.

Given the cold weather, I decided to make a warming soup with the golden beets and, on a hunch, instead of the perfunctory turmeric, added saffron threads and sesame seeds to the broth, with delicious results.

Drizzled on this good-luck black-eyed pea soup, a single-origin olive oil with strong notes of fruitiness, bitterness and pungency beautifully complements the sweetness of the cardamom, cinnamon, and carrots.

This soup uses moringa in the traditional Indian way, stewed in a soup. The mango adds a nice contrast of sweetness to the savory soup.

Chinese Indian mashup has a very special place in India. Today, many restaurants in India have a Chinese Indian section and the sweet corn soup has been a staple for decades. It’s one of my favorite nostalgic food memories and you can eat the soup many which ways.

When heirloom tomatoes are in full bloom, this chilled raw soup is the delicious epitome of a hot summer. I’ve omitted the onion, switched out garlic for ginger; the soup takes minutes to make. The color of the tomatoes will deeply affect the color of the soup, so pick the reddest ripe tomatoes you can.

A good source of nutrients including collagen, bone broth helps hydration as well as skin elasticity. While most people’s food choices have become highly specific, bone broth is still popular, especially during this colder weather. Here s a way to make bone broth tastier by amping it up with aromatic spices and herbs.

This lobster curry is rich and creamy, definitely one for a special occasion. The creamy tangy saffron sauce feels luxurious enough to match the lobster.

When it comes to food, I am all about breaking the rules so why not make a Texas version of clam chowder with crawfish and a hint of Mexican flavors?

In Hyderabad, Yemenis are known to have brought an Arabic meat broth called Marag that the Indians evolved into a simple yet spicy and aromatic soup. On a recent trip, I tasted many versions, loved each one because of the complex aroma it exuded yet deliciously simple in flavor.

Ginger and cloves add remarkable depth, while cumin, garlic and black pepper create a warming complexity that lingers even when the soup is served cold.

It is easy to purchase chicken stock but once you make your own, you may never go back to boxed or canned stock. For homemade stock, one can use all the bones from chicken to oxtail to lamb. Your house will smell wonderful also!

Khatti simply means sour, in this case with the addition of tamarind or lemon. Khatti dal is a preparation from the Hyderabad region of India and is usually made with toor or masoor lentils. It can be soupy to be eaten with rice, just as a soup or thick and stew like, to be eaten alongside kebabs or roti.

Legend has it that one time an Englishman asked his South Indian cook to prepare a soup as a starter — and soups being unfamiliar to his Indian cuisine, the ingenious cook created the Mulligatawny (“molo tunny” in Tamil means “pepper water”) by combining rasam, a traditional peppery lentil broth with vegetables.

Every winter usually during the colder weeks, I make this stew at least once or twice and enjoy it for a couple of days. It almost amplifies in flavor the next day.

This is a perfect make ahead stew — tastes even better the next day! Lamb may be replaced with beef or venison. It is delicious when served with rice or crusty warm slices of bread.

A bean native to the United States, the yellow buckeye bean is extremely creamy, more like a classic turtle bean than anything else. Thought to be originally from Montana, it’s dense without being too intense in flavor.

This stew is a crowd pleaser and whether you celebrate Ramadan or not, you can enjoy harira during this wonderful spring weather.

In many versions of this soup, the beans are what create the magic in the minestrone, however, do use this recipe as a guide when making your own. Given the enormous popularity of new mushrooms on the market, try using your choice of mushrooms.

Every region eats different treats for Diwali from decadent meat curries, kebabs, & pilafs to sweet laddus, mithai and dried fruits. The Sindhis from the province of Sindh typically eat a 7 vegetable stew with pooris (fried balloon bread) and halwa.

Every home in South India has its own version of a vegetable coconut stew. Here is one using the bounty of spring vegetables but feel free to substitute different vegetables to suit the season.