I am not a soup during summer person. Now I know this might have something to do with the fact that I live in Oklahoma, where the weather in the summer is often above 100 degrees. We can go weeks where the thermometer never dips below 80. That does not exactly motivate me to put soup on the menu plan.
If I lived up north where the summer weather, especially in the evenings, can be quite a bit cooler, maybe I would be a soup in summertime type person.
But you know what, I kind of doubt it. There is just something about a hot bowl of soup that says fall and winter to me.
What about you? Do you like soup during the summer or are you a fall and winter soup person like me?
You know, I live in SC and I do still like soup in the summer. Well, maybe not July and August, but the rest of the year I do. My husband doesn’t though!
I live in a suburb of Chicago, so we can get some really hot and humid days in summer. However, I like the fact that making soup doesn’t heat up the kitchen, and with the air conditioning running, the house stays around 73 degrees anyway. Therefore, soup is still on the menu in our house, even during the summer months!
I absolutely LOVE soup in the summer. Maybe not stew, but soup works for me. I like that soups make for lighter meals and don’t “weigh me down”. The hotness doesn’t bother me… but, then again, I also drink hot coffee right through the summer. 😉
@JessieLeigh, I always thought it was strange that my mom drank hot coffee all summer long. It could be 90 degrees out and she drank hot coffee. 🙂 Of course I am not a coffee person at all even in the winter. 😉
We’re in oklahoma also, but definitely keep some soups on the menu plan year round. I reserve our stone soup for fall/winter months and, like JessiLeigh said, stews are also delayed through summer. Me and the kids are inside most of the hot days during summer and my husband works inside (in A/C all day) so we don’t mind the warm dishes at night. If we didn’t keep the A/C so low or didn’t have access to A/C all day then it would be much different I’m sure 🙂
It rains every afternoon in northern FL and yesterday I made a delicious pot of mashed potato and cheese soup! Serve with cornbread and yum, yum!!
I live in central Europe, which means that summers are hot and humid, but also that soup is a traditional part of the main meal of the day. People here will eat hot soup all year round, regardless, but that also have cold fruit soups that they begin the meals with. They are sweetish, so it initially seemed strange to me, but I have grown accustomed to it and they really are delicious. This past week I made a sour cherry soup and a plum soup. Grape soup is one of my favourites, but I’ll have to wait another month for that one!
@JenT, I have never made much for fruit soups, but I do enjoy cold tomato soup every once in a while. In fact I have a recipe for cold tomato soup soon. Sour cherry soup sounds very good. I love cherries.
No soup in the summer for us either. It’s funny, in the winter we eat a lot of soups and stews with cornbread, biscuits, bread on the side. In the summer, it’s usually a lot more sandwiches, hot or cold. We live in IN.
I’m right there with you, Lynn! Living here in the Texas panhandle, it has been over 100 all summer long and I can’t even begin to think about hot soup for a meal! I’m even having serious issues trying to make a menu without using the oven, however, tomorrow I am going to break down and make a Chocolate Texas Sheetcake – ’cause it’s been way too long!!!
I would be happy to have soup in the winter – but my husband enjoys soup every day – usually with lunch and dinner. We’re here in SE Pennsylvania, and it gets pretty hot here. Not as hot as Oklahoma, but we’ve had about 15 days this summer over 90 degrees. And he still enjoys his soup.
Right there with you. I’m in central Illinois and soup just doesn’t fit with summer weather for me. I even forsake most casseroles and heavier dishes for sandwiches, salads, and grilling. I think of it as having summer and winter menus to choose from.
We don’t go for soup in the summer either, but that doesn’t really make sense since much of the food we do eat is cooked anyway so it’s eaten hot. It must be a psychological thing – go figure…
We don’t much go for soup in the summer either. Doesn’t make sense though, because much of the food we do have is cooked and eaten hot. Must be a psychological thing – go figure…
I love soup all year long! I don’t make it a lot though. Mostly due to the fact my children are 5, 3, and 9 mos. It is just too messy. I drink coffee all year too. Wecare in nc and it is hot and humid here.
It’s been in the 100’s for 2 weeks here in OK. Way to hot for soup Yuck!
@laurie, My thoughts exactly! And have you seen the forecast for the next week? 🙁 It looks like it is going to continue being hot for awhile….I guess it is summer in Oklahoma after all, but this year is just a little too hot too soon.
A few weeks ago, the freezer in our side-by-side fridge went out and I thawed out the small portions of leftovers that were in the freezer. I had a bit of tomato soup that I thawed and gave to my 12 year old son for lunch (in the winter it’s his absolute favorite meal). He looked at the soup, then at me and said “Why are you feeding me this? It’s soup.”
Obviously, my family is anti-soup in the summer. Something about the hot, humid air in Kentucky that doesn’t seam to match up well with soup for us.
Here in Southern Utah, our summer days are routinely over 100 degrees. Nonetheless, I DO like soup in the summer, for a few reasons:
1. I can use left-over summer veggies and bits of grilled chicken, etc. from other meals to make the soup.
2. Soups made in the crockpot mean the oven/stove stays OFF and don’t heat up the house.
3. Soup and salad is a nice, pretty light meal.
4. I am ALWAYS looking for meals that can be frozen in single-serving portions for later use – I am a schoolteacher and need something to take for lunch 180 days per year. Husband works from home, but also likes the convenience of a single-serve frozen lunch he can pop into the microwave during his work day.
5. We just like soup!
I do tend to make “brothier” soups in the summer, rather than thick stews or chowders.
Making chicken & dumplings for out of town guests coming this week. Soup & salad feed a large crowd well. I cook a lot of soups in the crock pot to keep it cool in the kitchen. Soup is also economical too!
Soup has always been a fall/winter food for our family (my husband and I both grew up that way). I love that first day in fall when it gets cold enough for soup! Garden produce, cold vegetable pizza (the one made with a mayo) and BLT’s are summer foods in our house. (We live in Southern Kansas.)
@Tammy,
Love the idea of cold pizzas w/mayo base. Good reminder! 😉
We don’t do soup in the summer either… unless it’s an unseasonably cool day (like in the 70s – HA!). We’ve had rain the past few days, which has been WONDERFUL, but ordinarily, humidity is near 100%, and temps are in the high 90s/low 100s with heat index soaring even higher than that. The only thing soupy we’re eating is melted ice cream!
We do cold fruit soups during the summer – peach and strawberry are our favorites! Other than that we don’t do too many soups – maybe when we have a cooler spell but that isn’t happening here(MO) right now either.
When I was growing up we at “garden” soup in the summer. My mom would make soup with what was ready in the garden. We loved it and looked forward to it. My husband doesn’t care for soup in the summer, but just this week, we was ill, and I suggested potato soup, something soothing and easy to digest. He jumped on that idea. So, we do eat some soup in the summer. And we are in Alabama, 98 degrees outside with 100% humidity! I made the potato soup outside on the carport to keep the heat out of our house.
Definitely no chili or stews…. but a nice, spicy, brothy beef pho is not completely ruled out… I figure that if your inside is spiced up hot enough – the outside won’t feel as hot!
My grandma said that hot foods on hot days were good for you – made you feel cooler – but I still don’t think of soup very frequently in the summertime. We’re in Michigan, on the big lake, so it stays comfortable for the most part; it’s been sticky today and hot in my house last night, so we ate at the beach! 🙂 Good luck keeping cool, everyone!
I’m with you no soup in the summer! It just doesn’t even sound good to me. We eat ALOT lighter in the summer, so it’s not just soups. My hubby and I both work outside in the nice humid TN summer so to come home and eat something hot/ heavy for dinner is out of the question. I do vehicle inspections so not only is it hot outside I’m around hot cars all day too! I have thought about cold soups but never really found any we liked. We grill alot and do salads and pasta salads. I like to plan ahead and grill alot of chicken and then use it through the week in sandwiches or salads. In the winter we will eat soups, stews, chili or casseroles and I kind of like that we sort of have summer and winter recipes so that no one tires of them:)
I haven’t made many soups this summer as it’s been a busy one, but usually I make veggie soups using lovely summer veggies such as squash. Farmers’ markets in Chicago are super!
I live in the desert where it is triple digits for most of the summer. I love soups in the summer (though we do more veggie & less meat than in the winter). It is one pot on one burner, which saves me on heating up the house so much with firing up the oven or multiple pots on the stove. We have been doing a lot of bean soups these days. Even better, I can make many soups in my crock pot, which puts off even less heat than the stove (& can be cooked outside when it is extremely hot).