Soups on the Zone: How to Balance Any Soup

Fall is soup season. Soups are warm and filling, and one pot lasts several days. On the Zone, though, a bowl of soup is rarely a balanced meal on its own. The good news is that almost any soup can be balanced with a few simple changes.

Why soup is often not balanced

Most soups are mainly carbs and water. Potatoes, noodles, rice, beans, and the flour used to thicken them are all carbs, while the protein is often a little meat or none at all. Vegetable and cream soups have almost no protein, and the cream adds fat. That's why you often get hungry soon after a bowl of soup.

Three steps to a balanced soup

First, put protein in the pot. That can be meat, meatballs, chicken, egg, or a yogurt-based thickener. As a guide, about 42 g of lean ground beef or 25 g of cooked chicken is 1 protein block.

Second, measure the carbs instead of eyeballing them. About 60 g of potato or 14 g of dry vermicelli is 1 carb block. Onion, carrot, and pepper add very little, so you don't need to hold back on them.

Third, count the whole pot and divide it into portions. Add up the protein and carb blocks of all the ingredients and divide by the number of portions. That way you know how many blocks are in one bowl without measuring every time. We explain how to get blocks from a food label in this article.

Fat is usually already in the soup: olive oil, butter, or the sour cream in the thickener. Count it like any other ingredient.

Three soups from ZoneIt

Meatball soup

In this meatball soup, the protein comes from lean beef meatballs and the carbs from potatoes, vermicelli, and a little flour. The whole pot is about 13 protein blocks and 12 carb blocks, so it's nearly balanced as is. A quarter is about 3 blocks, enough for one lunch or dinner. It's thickened with egg yolk and sour cream, a classic Bulgarian finish, and takes about an hour.

Chicken soup

This chicken soup has cooked chicken, potatoes, carrot, vermicelli, and the same egg and sour cream thickener. Here protein is higher: the whole pot is about 14 protein blocks and 8 carb blocks. A quarter gives about 3 protein blocks but only 2 carb blocks, so add a thin slice of bread, a salad, or fruit for dessert. It's ready in about 40 minutes.

Tarator

Tarator is a cold Bulgarian soup. This light version uses yogurt, a little skyr, cucumber, olive oil, garlic, and dill. The whole recipe is about 2 protein blocks and 2 carb blocks. Half is 1 block, good as a small snack or as a starter before a main dish. If you have it as a starter, count its block in that meal. It takes 10 minutes.

If your soup isn't balanced

• Bean, lentil, or potato soup: these are mostly carbs, so add protein. A boiled egg, some chicken, or a spoonful of skyr on top does the job.
• Soup with lots of meat and few vegetables: add carbs, such as a slice of whole-grain bread or a salad.
• Cream soup: cream is fat, so count it and skip the extra olive oil or butter.

How to do it in ZoneIt

All three recipes are in ZoneIt with the blocks already calculated, and you can add them straight to your diary. If you cook your own soup, save it in the Zonator: enter the ingredients and it calculates the blocks for you. Meatball soup and chicken soup also appear in our 7-day meal plan.