Want to go all-liquid but dread the hunger pangs and headaches? Switch to souping! Juice fanatics might have sworn by cold-pressed kale smoothies over the last few years, but this is the year that soup reigns. Why? One, soups don’t strip fibre off your drinks, so they’re filling as they are nutritious. Two, if you’re on a low-sugar diet, soups offer a better way to get your fill of veggies than a sweet juice. And using a chicken or vegetable stock as base will pump up the goodness of your already healthful meal. The key to a good soup is good stock. It’s a combination of aromatics and vegetables – mainly carrots, celery, leek and onion, and herbs such as coriander, mint, thyme, sage and rosemary. Woody-tasting and pulpy-textured vegetables work best. Reach for pumpkin, acorn squash and zucchini. Fruit lends an intense dimension to vegetable soups. Apples, pears, peaches and grapes work best. Experiment with temperature. Cold soup made of roasted leek and walnut, orange and celery are apt for beginners. Skip butter and cream-garnish with cold-pressed oils instead. Soup is a primarily liquid food, generally served warm, that is made by combining ingredients such as meat and vegetables with stock, juice, water, or another liquid. Hot soups are additionally characterised by boiling solid ingredients in liquids in a pot until the flavours are extracted, forming a broth. Traditionally, soups are classified into two main groups: clear soups and thick soups.