End-of-Market Vegetable Soup

You know that feeling when you come home from the farmers market with a little bit of everything?

A few tomatoes.

Some carrots.

An onion.

Maybe green beans, zucchini, corn, or peppers.

Everything looked so good at the market that you couldn’t resist—and now you have to figure out what to do with it all.

That’s where End-of-Market Vegetable Soup comes in.

There isn’t one perfect vegetable combination for this soup. In fact, the whole idea is that you use what you have.

It’s a practical, flexible soup for the end of the week, when the refrigerator contains a collection of odds and ends that are all still perfectly good but don’t necessarily make a complete meal on their own.

Put them in a pot.

Add some broth and tomatoes.

Season it simply.

And suddenly those little bits and pieces become dinner.

That’s Waste Not, Want Not in action.

simplegoodfood

End-of-Market Vegetable Soup

A flexible, no-waste vegetable soup designed for all those little bits of produce left after market day.

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Prep Time 10 minutes mins

Cook Time 30 minutes mins

Total Time 40 minutes mins

Servings: 4

Course: Dinner, Lunch, Soup

Cuisine: American

Calories: 180

Ingredients Method Notes

Ingredients

  

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 small onion diced
• 2 carrots sliced
• 2 celery stalks sliced
• 2 cloves garlic minced
• 4 cups mixed vegetables cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1 can 14.5 ounces diced tomatoes, with juices
• 4 cups low-sodium vegetable or chicken broth
• 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
• 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon salt or to taste
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley optional

Use whatever you have. Good choices include:

• Zucchini
• Green beans
• Corn
• Peas
• Bell peppers
• Cabbage
• Mushrooms
• Spinach
• Potatoes
• Roasted vegetables left from another meal

Method

 

Start with the aromatics.

1. Heat the olive oil in a large soup pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion, carrots, and celery. Cook for 4–5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables begin to soften.

Add the garlic.

1. Stir in the garlic and cook for about 30 seconds, just until fragrant.
2. Add the vegetables.
3. Add your remaining vegetables to the pot. If you’re using potatoes or other firm vegetables, add those first. More delicate vegetables such as zucchini, spinach, or already-roasted vegetables can be added later.

Add tomatoes and broth.

1. Pour in the diced tomatoes and broth. Stir in the Italian seasoning, parsley, black pepper, and salt.

Simmer.

1. Bring the soup to a gentle boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 20–25 minutes, or until the firmest vegetables are tender.

Add delicate vegetables.

1. If you’re using spinach, leftover roasted vegetables, or other already-cooked vegetables, stir them in during the last 5 minutes.

Taste and adjust.

1. Taste the broth and add additional salt or seasoning if needed.

Serve.

1. Ladle into bowls and finish with fresh parsley.

Notes

🌾 The End-of-Market Rule

There are really only three rules for this soup:

Use what you have.

Use what needs to be used first.

Don’t overthink it.

If the zucchini needs to be used today but the carrots will be perfectly happy for another week, the zucchini goes into the soup.

If you have leftover roasted vegetables from earlier in the week, they can go in, too.

If you have a lonely tomato sitting on the counter, dice it up and add it.

This is not a recipe where someone needs to run to the grocery store because they are missing one particular vegetable.

The refrigerator is the ingredient list.

🥔 Make It Heartier

Want to turn this vegetable soup into more of a complete meal?

Add one of these:

• 1 cup cooked rice
• 1 cup cooked pasta
• 1 cup cooked barley
• 1 cup diced cooked potatoes
• 1 cup cooked beans
• 1 cup shredded cooked chicken
• 1/2 pound cooked ground beef

If adding cooked ingredients, stir them in during the final few minutes just long enough to heat them through.

🧊 Freeze the Extras

This soup is a great candidate for freezing.

If you’re cooking for one or two, portion the cooled soup into individual freezer containers rather than freezing the entire batch together.

Label each container with the name and date.

Then future-you has a homemade lunch or light dinner waiting in the freezer.

That’s one of my favorite forms of food preservation because the preservation and the meal happen at the same time.

🏕️ Campground Version

You can make this soup almost anywhere you have a pot and a heat source.

An electric skillet with a deep lid, Dutch oven, or large saucepan will all work.

And because the vegetables are flexible, this is particularly handy when you’re cooking with limited refrigerator space.

Instead of trying to keep every little leftover ingredient until it becomes a complete meal, turn several small leftovers into one pot of soup.

Less storage.

Less waste.

More dinner.

🫙 Pantry Builder Connection

This soup also shows why a practical pantry doesn’t need to contain dozens of specialty ingredients.

If you have:

• Canned tomatoes
• Broth
• Rice or another grain
• A few basic seasonings

you already have the foundation for turning a refrigerator full of vegetables into a meal.

That’s the idea behind Pantry Builder this month.

We’re not trying to create a perfect emergency pantry.

We’re building a collection of useful ingredients that help us make good meals from whatever happens to be available.