Mo' Soup For You!

With the weather turning cold, it's time to start eating soup again. Soup is often a problematic food for vegetarians, as it's easy for a restaurant to mess up what should be a great soup by using chicken or beef stock. Here's my quick guide to traditional soups done right.

The first choice in vegetarian soups here in Austin is our local Soup Peddler. This is a really cool company that delivers soup on a fleet of bicycles on a weekly basis. You also can place a pick-up order. They almost always have at least one vegetarian soup, and often do several. It's a really neat local business, and its worth your support.

For hot soup now, you can head over to Mother's Cafe where they usually have two soup selections, one vegetarian and one vegan. I've always been a big fan of their spinach rice soup, but the selection changes daily. I like the veggie soup at Veggie Heaven with a spoonful of chili paste added to spice it up; it's a thick soup with tofu, carrot slivers, and mushrooms.

Several chains here in Austin can help you our as well. Jason's Deli has several vegetarian soups on their menu. I really like their soy-based French Onion soup, but they also have tomato basil and vegetable soups. These are available every day at their Austin and Round Rock locations. In my opinion, their soup and salad bar combo is a great way to get a variety of veggies.

Bear Rock Cafe, a short walk from my house on Parmer Lane, has a few veggie soups on their menu. According to their site, the Fire-Roasted Veggie soup and Sunburst Tomato & Fennel Bisque are both vegetarian. They don't have these soups every day, but as long as you skip Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, you'll have at least one on the menu.

What places have soups that you like? Leave feedback in the comments section here.