Make your own broth....it's really easy....really REALLY easy. Put bones and skin into a pot....add celery, onion garlic carrots parsley a bay leaf half a lemon and simmer....if you have a big roaster or a Dutch oven you can put it into a 200 degree oven over night...after you have first brought it to a boil...
Strain...
The difference in your soups will amaze you!
You can spend more time and roast the bones and vegetables first or add lots of other stuff....but just boiling up some veggies and bones will make a pretty damn good broth.
Linda C

Those thinkgs that make canned soup thicker and tastier are usually the things you cant pronounce on the label and msg and/or salt.

I like Better Than Boullion to add just a little chicken/salt boost to soups. You can add as much or as little as you want without changing the other proportions. Also to make your home made soups thicker, you might try adding a chopped potato to the stock then blend it with a stick blender. It will have that thick consistency.

Good luck!

Alexa

Also try carmelizing onions and other veggies before adding to soups.
Roasting your veggies is another option.
Get crazy with some herbs.
I love rosemary, thyme, bay, oregano, basil, etc. Not necessarily all in the same pot, but try some to see if you like them.
Plenty of pepper (pick a color!) can take it up a level.

Lemon, cream, flavored vinegars might help too, depending on what kind of soup you're making.

Post a recipe and I'll guarantee great advice from several here to make it plenty flavorful!

Deanna

First, if you refuse to make your won stock (though it really is as easy as Linda said--also search for the matzah ball soup thread), see if you can buy "stock" instead of "broth". Broth is thinned down and has more seasoning. Stock is meant to be used as the base for other cooking so is richer and has little to no seasoning so that you can season your own food.

Homemade stock freezes well, even in the little freezer on an inexpensive fridge. You can freeze in small containers and ice cube trays, then pop out the frozen blocks and put them in a freezer bag, with portions ready for you to start cooking.

If you want a thicker soup with what you've been using, don't add water if your recipe says to, or use more broth instead. Let it boil down and concentrate before you put in your fresh ingredients.

Purees, as has been said, will add thickening agents to soups. Fats will too if you need a richer diet (most Americans don't!). Fats also help flavor. I used to make vegetarian (not vegan) pea soup, to which I always added a little butter. It wasn't much considering the size of the pot, but it improved the mouth feel of the texture immensely and kind of steadied the flavor.

BTW, going the other direction, you can easily remove the fat from homemade stock if you freeze it. All the fat will rise and you can just cut it off the solidified block of stock.

You can also thicken soup with starchy grains, like rice, barley and cracked wheat. Or even flour, though flour will give it a mysterious wheaty taste. If there's actual rice in the soup people don't wonder that there's a rice taste.

Some other easy ways to thicken soup:

- Add a little cornstarch, by pouring a bit of the stock/broth into a bowl, letting it cool, mixing in cornstarch until well dissolved, then pouring back into the soup, simmer a few minutes. Just use a very little bit (like, - You add flour the same way and could try same amounts. But I think cornstarch add less unwanted taste than flour.

- Another quick way is by adding some cut-up pieces of soft bread, like sandwich bread, not hard or crusty or stale or toasted bread (those will work too, but slower). 10 min of simmering will break it down and thicken the soup. Try 1 slice per 1 qt to start.

- Gelatin is another quick thickener. You can try If you are simmering your soup for longer - say, two hours or more - then you can get more thickness in a tastier and less contrived way, by adding pieces of meat that have a lot of connective tissue that breaks down into gelatin with long slow heat. You can fish the meat out before serving. The best pieces for this purpose are the odd bony bits that most people never think of using, like knuckles and necks, pigs feet and cow tails.

Here for example is the start of a stew. Beef tails, seared and smeared w/ tomato paste. Red wine and water. And the white things are beef tendons, $2/lb at the local Asian grocery. The tendons break down into lots of gelatin, you will discard them six hours later. This stew is so full of gelatin, it will "set" at room temperature, but when hot it has a luxurious glistening taste.

But I agree w/ pillog, just make your own stock. Go buy a large (20+ qt) cheap ($30) stockpot, a few chickens (use the skin, carcass, wings, and about 1/2 the meat, I like to chop the meat up with knife or food processor), onions carrots and celery, spend a lazy afternoon making stock (start w/ 5 gallons of water and chicken, reduce to 2 gal stock), freeze in ice cube trays or gallon-sized ziplock bags doubled. At least do it once, you'll like it.

Just don't make pea soup. That stuff is nasty :-)

Oh, canned and processed food tastes good, if it does, due to huge amounts of salt. A single can of condensed soup can have several hundred mg of sodium. Plus various ingredients that never came from a farm. It has a heavy, thick taste and often an oozy, glue-like texture.

If you make your own soup - as you do! - from your own stock - as you can! - it will have a rich, interesting, subtle taste, with body but not ooze, and it will have a fraction of the sodium.

Pea soup is NOT nasty. If it's made right. John's right that there are a lot of nasty ones out there, but there are good ones.

If you don't have room to store 10+ qt. of frozen stock, you can use (and store) a smaller stock pot. Giblets are great in stock (never gizzards) as well as bones and necks. You can even make stock a quart at a time--it's just that it's as easy to make more if you can store it, and it cuts the work.

If you're looking for the cheap 20+ qt. pot, the small Graniteware canner is great for stock, light in weight, and easy to clean because of the enamel.

Just kidding, I have a bad history with the green stuff.

I don't do the ham thing. The smoky flavor is good with peas, but then there's the fat, salt, etc. Use fresh dried peas. Peas get funky when they're dry dry. Use good stock and fresh herbs (great with dill). As I said above, a little butter if you use vegetable stock and aren't vegan. (Is there soy butter? And is it any good?)

And don't over cook it!!! You don't want that gummy rind thing.

Another "Better Than Bouillon" fan here...or "Minors Beef or Chicken Base" when I can find it. I often do make my own stock, but keep cans of chicken and beef broth on hand for when I haven't gotten 'round to it or want a quickie soup without defrosting a chunk of stock. Either product stores forever in the fridge, and you can add a little any time you think your soup needs just a bit more mmmphf.

There are other things you can add to jazz up your soups as well. In some other topic thread recently, several people mentioned adding some V-8 juice, which I also do on occasion. Some wine or a small amount of sugar sometimes will supply the missing "something" as well. Fresh herbs, if you've a bit of a green thumb are terrific. A few slices of ginger add a certain something to chicken or seafood based soups.

For a lot of soups, just sitting in the fridge overnight makes them better. The flavors sort of settle in together, my husband and I say the soup "moogles." Most soups, except for the light, fresh Asian style soups are better for sitting overnight before serving.

Canned soups are tasty mainly because they are loaded with sodium and sugar of one sort or another. I very rarely add table salt when I'm cooking...because it can be added at the table! But getting used to foods without added salt can be difficult...garlic and lemon juice are good substitutes while you make the shift.

And yet another Better Than Bouillon fan! If I'm using homemade or boxed broth to make a soup recipe I will add about 2-3 teaspoons of the BTB paste to enrich the flavor. I also add about 1 teaspoon when cooking 1 cup of rice in 2 cups water. BTB comes in chicken, beef, ham, turkey, mushroom and many other flavors.

If you are making a cream soup, try using canned evaporated milk in place of cream. It still adds the creamy taste without the calories and fat of the cream.

Boost your homemade broth by adding a chopped onion, celery rib and leaves, carrot, bay leaf, and a few whole peppercorns to the chicken. This helps flavor the broth even if you don't take the time to roast the vegetables. I use chicken necks, backs, wing tips, and carcasses that I have saved in the refrigerator. Others often buy one rotisserie chicken each week, use the meat for meals, chicken salad, casseroles, etc. and cook the carcass for several hours to make broth. If you simmer the broth for several hours until it is reduced in quantity you will have stock.

Here is a good web site for soup making and recipes. Those are my soup bowls for the April 24 entry on Seven Soups every Saturday.

Here is a link that might be useful: Soup Chick web site

Another easy way to make a thicker soup is to stir in some mashed potatoes or even mashed potato flakes.

I'm not a fan at all of "soup base", it's all too salty for me, but I've not tried the "Better than Bouillion" stuff.

Like Rachelellen, I like to let soup sit overnight, I think it just gets better.

Stock or broth really is easy. I like to roast the bones and vegetables first and I can lots of broth/stock when I have cattle or chickens slaughtered because I never have freezer room, but it can just as easily be frozen.

I use a big Nesco roaster, roast the bones and vegetables, add my water/liquid and let it simmer all day on a weekend when I'm home. You don't have to do anything else, just let it go.

You can also do a smaller sized batch in the crockpot, just roast the bones the night before, dump everything in the crockpot before you go to work and let it cook all day. If you prefer you could just let it cook all night while you're sleeping. Cool, skim the fat and freeze it.

Voila! Homemade stock/broth.

Annie

A couple computers ago someone posted a link to an online French Cookbook collection.

I've not had the chance to try it and probably never will but one recipe in an older book struck me as interesting. It called for 15 lbs of beef bones, a pound of veal, and an old hen. I've wondered... it seems very rich.

Anyone remember the link? I'm not one for reading cookbooks but then they don't make them like that anymore.

: )
lyra

Lyra, I know Michigan State University has a lot of old cookbooks on line as part of a cookbook preservation project, it was called "Feeding America, the Historic American Cookbook Project". Not French, but maybe it's in there?

Anway, here's the link.

Annie

Here is a link that might be useful: Feeding America

Rivkadr:
I use Tallarico's Chicken Flavored Soup Base,
to beef up the soup flavor.
Just add whatever it takes, to tingle your taster.

It comes in other brand names.

You will hear a lot of negative opinions, about all the bad things, that are in it.

I use it in Spaghetti Sauce and other things also.

It was originally a Restaurant Supply item,
so I guess the restaurants use it too.
They also have Gourmet Soup Bases.

You can Google the Co. ( Tallarico's ) I think they are in Bethlehem, Pa.
Lou

Do check the ingredients on bouillon and soup base. A lot of them have a lot of sodium. Even the reduced sodium Better Than Bouillon has a goodly amount of sodium (though no MSG). If you're buying the low-sodium soup for a health reason, be cautious with these. If you're not, taste before adding salt.

BTW, one of the "secrets" of 20th C. Italian cookery (in Italy), as well as French, is bouillon cubes, which have been used by great home cooks basically as a shortcut to adding salt and MSG. (MSG gives the umami.)

I just posted this info in another thread about soups but now that I see this thread, it seems more appropriate since it's about broths. So I'm re-posting it here:

Just thought I'd add a few more ideas for broths since that seems to be the heart and soul of soups. I often use the water leftover from either boiling or steaming veggies that will be used for a side dish rather than in soup. It's remarkable how much that process can flavor a 'broth'. So I'm always seeing 'broth' potential when I'm cooking and treat it accordingly.
In fact I've boiled/steamed veggies in a water/chicken broth combo with the intention of keeping it as stock afterwards.

In that same vein, a little apple cider vinegar added to the water that is used to steam/boil/blanch greens (such as collard greens) leaves a nice flavor residue on the greens as well as a nice broth that's delicious in some soups.

Of course I can't save it all, but here's how much I hate to see good veggie nutrients tossed down the drain -
if I don't save the 'broth' after steaming veggies then I pour it on my potted plants after it cools or mix it in my pet's food. I mean SOMEone/thing should benefit!

About salt levels:

Some posters have commented on the high salt content of V8, however they may not know that V8 comes in a low sodium version as well. There are other brands that are cheaper or are organic tomato juices that also make delicious broths. I just happen to enjoy the spices and flavors of V8 and rarely feel the need to add more.

Just heard in the news that the government FDA is going to begin cracking down on the levels of salt used in processed foods by slowly weening us off of it over the next decade or so (rather than doing it cold turkey).

It's really not necessary to add "soup base" or lots of salt to get a good tasting broth...
Just leave a mix of bones and those flavorful vegetables on a low heat all day and you will have it....then you are free to add salt as needed....your body will be glad it doesn't have to pump all that salt out of your system!
Linda C

Just wanted to second Pllog's warning about the Better Than Bouillon low salt varieties. I just threw out the lower sodium beef base because it was so salty and had very little beefy flavor. I've got to watch sodium content in my cooking because of my husband's health restricitons. So far, the only good base I've found is Minor's low sodium chicken stock base. The lower sodium packets from Trader Joe's taste pretty good although they're higher than Minor's. But they're in individual packets and require no refrigeration.

The original poster expressed a desire to continue using canned broths. I've found that even the low sodium versions are too salty for my husband's diet, but I've discovered Kitchen Basics No-Salt Added stocks on my grocer's shelves. The product is very low in sodium and also doesn't have the same murky flavor some other lower sodium broths have. I linked below the post on my blog that discusses in greater detail the low sodium broth options I've found.

Here is a link that might be useful: Supermarket Broths

I've switched from Better Than Bouillon to Trader Joe's Savory Broth packets. They are very tasty and remarkably low in salt. Rather than opening an entire jar (home canned stock - small freezer) of stock when I need a small amount, I use a packet of the TJ's concentrate.

The O.P. may miss the high salt content of pre-made food. That's an acquired taste. Persist in eating a less salty diet and you will eventually recalibrate your tastebuds.

I make a really dark beef broth by roasting a halved onion or two with the bones to get a good caramel color.