Healthier Soups

Food developers are all too aware there are a number of ways to create any finished product. Formulating healthy soups is no exception.

To score a wining product, you need to know the marketing parameters before perusing the shelf for ingredients. Will the soup be sold to an upscale audience looking for fresh quality? To boomers hoping to reduce salt content? To the diet conscious searching for lower-fat products? Or will it be sold to moms scanning ingredient labels for natural-sounding ingredients?

Garden varieties

Fortunately, soups are generally thought of as nutritious. It totally depends on how its made, but the bones of most soups are healthy, says Dianna Fricke, CRC, CWPC, executive chef, R&D, J.R. Simplot Company, Boise, ID.

Vibrant vegetables with fresh-cooked texture signal a vitamin-packed, carefully prepared product. This format is more easily achieved with frozen or refrigerated soups. You have the ability to have vegetables that still have texture, because youre not retorting, says Fricke. Refrigerated or frozen products give the product developer an opportunity to add things at different stages.

In foodservice, the key to quality is not holding items for extended periods. Even in the best conditions, vegetables in a soup held in a jacketed kettle will lose color and turn mushy.

Its important to not overprocess vegetables, notes Christopher Stepan, corporate chef, Vegetable Juices, Inc., Bedford Park, IL. The standard kitchen technique for setting flavor and color is to blanch vegetables at approximately 180°F, and then shock them with cold water. Industrially, pasteurization helps accomplish the same effect. It sets it, so that it has a longer life at high temperatures, he says. Our products have been pasteurized, so the colors are very good.

Vegetable purées also help provide a longer life, notes Stepan. They will maintain color, he says. The flavor is better. You dont have to worry about losing texture. The purées are going to stay what they are. Theyre not going to break down to any noticeable degree.

Its important, though, to be aware that certain additives, like acidulants, can sometimes affect color over time.

Puréed vegetables have many uses in soup. Fricke offers puréed apple-ginger soup as an example, or vichyssoise (a cold, creamy, potato-and-leek soup).

Vegetable purées and blends can be added to any soup base, such as broth, cream or potatoes, as a simple way to incorporate regional flavors, says Cathy Katavich, director technical sales, Gilroy Foods & Flavors, Gilroy, CA. She cites a blend of a variety of herbs and vegetables, including peppers, onion, cilantro and lime, to give a distinctive Latin taste to soups.

Purées can add color, bold flavor and vegetable nutrition to soups. Some also incorporate bits of herbs and vegetable chunks to also add appealing texture, Katavich says, and to give the purées authentic, fresh flavor.

Broccoli purée has long been a key ingredient in cream of broccoli soups. Mirepoix purées, blends of onions, carrots and celery, are used in many applications. Stepan recommends using 15% to 20% butternut squash purée in a butternut cream soup.

For stealthy healthy nutrition, cauliflower, at very low percentages, can be used to up the vegetable value in a soup, says Stepan. Adding 5% to 10% would increase the vegetable value without affecting the flavor of the soup. Cucumber can be used in a purée, about 10%, and depending on what other vegetables you put in there, then it could be cloaked. Butternut would be a good one to cloak it with, he says, noting that pumpkin also has a strong flavor capable of masking cucumber. He also suggests a combination of beet and cucumber for a beet soup to tone down the cucumber flavor.

Cucumber can also be added to a Greek egg lemon soup with a chicken stock base. Without curdling, you process it so that you cook the eggs in to create a cream, says Stepan. There is no cream in the soup, but the cream comes from the blending of the egg and the slow cooking of the chicken stock. Some lemon and a garnish of rice then finishes the soup, and it wouldnt be unusual to put diced cucumber in that, he notes. The foodservice operator can add the finishing touch. Instead of chicken stock, you can use vegetable stock and turn the whole thing into a vegan extravaganza.

Classic gazpacho has cucumber, diced onions and vegetables, plus sherry vinegar. In industrial applications, as soon as you put the sherry vinegar in, the cucumbers turn into pickles, cautions Stepan. Recently, Ive taken some sherry concentrate and Ive used that in place of the sherry vinegar. So I get the flavor without pickling the cucumber, and it keeps the fresh top notes.

Stepan recently created a gazpacho using clarified, microfiltrated tomato juice. We keep all the flavor of the tomato, but you dont get a lot of the aftertaste and heavy mouthfeel from the fibers, he says, just all the top notes from the tomato.

To tomato juice, Stepan adds a salsa blend of chiles, onion and garlic for the basic seasoning, along with just a touch of garlic juice, like 2%, to give it a little warm note. Then the sherry concentrate and a little bit of Worcestershire to put some age on it so its not too bright. We garnished it with an aji verde cream. Its an iceberg lettuce purée with jalapeño, cilantro and scallions, and this is all puréed with some mayonnaise. This basic sauce is traditionally used for grilled meats, but in this case, he folded it into some unsweetened heavy whipping cream and whipped it up and floated it on top of the clear gazpacho. When it blended down, it was interesting because you have this clear, clean soup. As the cream melts down, it starts becoming creamy. Youve got the cilantro along with the cream. You have high notes and cream. It works well and its got a great mouthfeel.

Purées are especially suited to formulate the drinkable, lunch-type soups that are becoming trendy for at-the-desk dining. These dont have many particulates.

Reducing fat

The old term fat-free doesnt have a strong importance like in the past, because consumers understand that fat, in moderation, is good for you and makes the soups taste yummy, says Mindy Edwards, senior flavor chemist, Wixon, Inc., St. Francis, WI.

Fat produces texture and mouthfeel; it lingers on the tongue and satiates. Fat is an important part of soups, especially cream soups, where it affects the flavor and appearance, flow properties and mouthfeel, says Dan Berg, food scientist, Tate & Lyle, Decatur, IL. The right choice of starches can replace a significant portion of that fat to give you the same texture and mouthfeel at a lower fat level. Specific-molecular-weight specialty starches have been designed for this type of application. It mimics the lubricity of fat so you are able to make a soup that has the same mouthfeel qualities of a higher fat at a lower fat content, he says. Because fats also contribute to the overall viscosity of the soup, he says, a wide range of starches can give you the textural qualities that you expect from cream soup, down to a thinner broth soup that would use less starch.

Stepan recommends very fine, micropuréed vegetables to replace fat. Its not a proportional replacement. Less purée will produce the same mouthfeel as a greater amount of fat, he says. If fat is running 30% to 40% in the soup, maybe a 20% micropurée might replace that. Using butternut as an example, he notes that purées provide more to the eating experience than merely mouthfeel. Youre going to have a lot of flavors. Theres going to be florals in there. Theres going to be sweetness along with whats coating your tongue. When its over, its all going to wash away because its a purée, where the fat sticks to your tongue and you have this after-feeling coating. The purées work better in terms of a clean finish.

Flavor houses offer products for fat-free or lower-fat applications. A fat-mouthfeel enhancer, notes Christopher Warsow, corporate executive chef, Bell Flavors & Fragrances, Northbrook, IL, works quite well in cream-based soups to accentuate and enhance whatever fat is already present.

For cream soups, a dry dairy system containing dairy cream coprocessed with our proprietary ingredients and flavor technologynatural flavors, other dairy ingredients, other nondairy ingredients produces a 1:1 match for liquid cream when rehydrated at roughly 20% solids, says Marc Janssen, commercial director, Kerry Ingredients & Flavours, Beloit, WI. This delivers all the flavor and functionality of heavy cream, half-and-half and milk, with the added benefit of roughly half the fat of liquid dairy.

In the flow

Fricke often uses dehydrated potatoes as a thickener. You adjust the consistency when youre cooking by using a little bit, she says. You can use it as a base in a purée soup. She recommends using 1% to 2% for thickening and up to 10% as a base.

Often, starches are used for processing, and for suspension of pasta, vegetables and meats. With instant soups, the biggest challenge is good dispersion. Berg recommends an agglomerated-type starch for ease of use, including in foodservice applications where a foodservice operator will have boiling water and needs to make soup very quickly. A standard starch may lump up if you add it directly into the boiling water, even if it is dispersed in the other dry ingredients. Agglomerated starches will mix in quite easily in close-to-boiling water. The product is ready to go right out to the steam table and serving area. We also have low-temp starches that hydrate at between 120°F and 140°F. Its not quite a standard cook-up starch, but it doesnt hydrate immediately upon adding water. It starts to thicken when you start to heat it a little bit. This provides another way of thickening, without thickening too quickly and causing lumps.

In a typical broth base, Berg recommends a standard, waxy, cook-up starch to give slight viscosity. For steam-table stability, you typically use cross-linked starches, he says, a modification that binds the starch molecules together in the starch granule, which helps maintain stability. Viscosity of starches comes from the swelled starch granule that can hold a lot of water. If you continue to heat that, it can break down. By cross-linking the starch, it will maintain its viscosity and maintain its integrity, he says. A properly chosen starch thickens to the right level and maintains its thickness when held on a steam table.

The challenge with developing frozen soups is protecting against syneresis from freeze/thaw cycles. Berg suggests using substituted modified starches. In substitution, hydroxyl groups are removed on the glucose polymer, and some are replaced with a functional short-chain molecule called a hydroxypropyl unit, he says. That unit prevents the starch molecules from reassociating with themselves. It increases the water-holding capacity of the starch, so you can use less starch.

Any ingredient that changes the pH will have an effect on stability. In a tomato-based soup, starches and thickeners must be stable in low-pH conditions. Starch suppliers have a wide range of levels of cross-linking of starches. Its simply a matter of choosing the one that will fit the application, continues Berg.

Salt content affects how starches cook out. The viscosity has a little effect on how you perceive salt, and a thick soup may be perceived as less salty than a thinner-broth one, says Berg.

Sodium reduction

The challenge in reducing soups sodium levels is that salt has long been used in processed and canned soups. I believe soup is one of the toughest products to reduce salt in, because salt drives a lot of flavor in soup, says Warsow. American consumers have become accustomed to a certain degree of salinity in their chicken soup. When you remove that salt, people instantly pick that up.

More flavor can be derived from rich, meat-based broths and herbs. The more flavor you build into a system, the less the mind misses the salt, says Warsow.

One potassium-chloride-based salt-replacement product is plated with a proprietary flavor system that does two things, says Warsow. First, it enhances salt that is present in the product. Second, it changes the way that your palate perceives the potassium chloride. Our flavor system brings the perception closer to the beginning of the flavor response curve. Potassium chloride has a bit of a late onset of perception, unlike salt, which is immediate. The system also blocks the bitter, metallic notes that are objectionable when tasting plain potassium chloride, he says

Another product allows a 50% reduction in sodium levels with all the taste of salt, and it can be used pound-for-pound as a replacement, according to Bob Kaminski, Wixon, Inc. Other ingredients can mask the bitter, metallic aftertaste normally associated with potassium chloride.

Kaminski suggests another alternative. Limited benefits in reducing sodium have been realized using autolyzed yeast and/or lactic acid to replace a portion of the salt in some formulations, he says. Yeast-based products can provide a umami taste that can make up for lack of salt because they are good sources of free amino acids and nucleotides, among other flavor and taste-enhancing compounds.

Many customers are attempting to achieve their targets with yeast extracts or savory flavor systems, says Janssen. Formulators understand that there is no silver bullet that works for all applications, so we address each application uniquely.

Stepan uses onion to replace salt, because it increases sweetness and builds flavor. Vegetable Juices has a catalog of onion products that might be used in different soups. Celery sometimes helps with that, too, but you have to be careful, he cautions. It can tend to get bitter. To a certain degree, wild celery used to be used as a salt substitute a long time ago. Celery juice can be added to compensate for a certain reduction. He also notes that some vegetables, such as tomatillos and tomatoes, naturally contain some sodium. Garlic, of course, helps a lot with replacing the need for salt, he says.

Processors now have the ability to use a lot of herbs, individually quick-frozen. I think they add character and work as a salt replacer, says Fricke. By using vegetables, and giving them more flavor and more complexity, you can reduce the amount of salt in your formulation. Roasted vegetables can add depth.

Some vegetables can boost flavor and reduce the need for monosodium glutamate (MSG). MSG is just umami, says Stepan. I use a cayenne mash that we offer. Its slightly fermented. The fermentation process produces the umami effect. A lot of the Asian applications use some sort of a chile. He notes that the cayenne mash performs two roles at once. It creates the heat, but at the same time it adds the fermented notes, he says. It has more flavor than just heat. You get the added value of the umami. If you have powder, you wouldnt have anything like that. If you just had fresh chiles, youd just get the piquant aspect to it. Once you mash it and let it ferment a little bit, it starts to get rich and develop a broader flavor profile. However, unless seeking a lot of heat, start with use levels of around 2% to 3%.

Other healthful ingredients

Most soups are not sweet, but some soups, such as tomato, typically contain sugar and corn syrups for flavor and mouthfeel. To make these healthier, Berg suggests soluble corn fiber. That can be an easy plug-in to a tomato soup. Replace the sweetener ingredient with something that provides fiber, he says. The soluble corn fiber is available as a dry and a liquid. The dry product is 70% soluble fiber. Its certainly feasible to have a good source, and even an excellent source, of fiber3 to 5 grams of fiber in a serving of soupwithout a detriment to the overall flavor, texture or other qualities of the soup. The liquid product is 72% solids, so its basically 50% fiber content on an as-is basis.

Berg recommends replacing corn syrup 1:1 with soluble corn fiber. With the soluble corn fiber, you would need just a very small amount of sucralose to match sweetness. At very low levels, the potency becomes greater. In quantities of 0.005%, sucralose can give you a tiny little bit of sweetness and boost the flavor.

Although herbs and spices can kick up the flavor a notch, fresh isnt always the best option, due to loss of flavor during processing, notes Warsow. In such cases, he suggests herb flavors that resemble fresh-cut herbs. These are available in oil- and water-soluble versions.

Flavor selection will depend on the system. In a retortable soup, flavors usually become muted or lost because of the extreme processing conditions, says Warsow. Heat-stable flavors must be used to ensure flavor perception. The flavors will need to be more resistant to thermal breakdown.

Dry soups need to rely on dry flavors or potent oil-soluble ones that can be plated on one of the granular, dry components of the soup mix.

Getting anything to stay flavorful on a steam table for extended periods of time can be challenging, says Warsow. All of the lighter flavors have a tendency to flash off during extended holding. The use of oil-soluble flavors will increase the chances that your soups will still have flavor after extended hold times.

When formulating healthy soups, its important to remember that many consumers seek labels with natural ingredients and ingredients commonly found in their kitchens. Kaminski sees a trend toward using natural flavors, meat stocks and natural flavor enhancers, recommending flavor modifiers labeled as natural flavor, that improve flavor. One masks the grassy flavor from broccoli, cabbage, green beans and other vegetables. Another masks undesirable flavors from soy protein. One reduces sourness perception without affecting pH, allowing low pHs in refrigerated soups to extend shelf life and for hot-packed soups with high protein, such as meat-based soups. Still another increases sweetness without sugar or artificial sweeteners.

Highly concentrated stocks with a paste consistency can help build flavors found at home. Depending on the target quality of the soup, our customers use between 1% to up to 5% to 7% concentrated stock paste in a finished soup, says Kaminski. These can build in desired flavor profiles, such as fatty beef, rotisserie-type chicken or pork-pan scrapings.

Soups can contain all of the basic food groups in one bowl. Adding legumes and whole grains, like barley, can boost nutrition. Fricke see more manufacturers using higher-end components, such as whole grain or whole wheat noodles, and other nutrient-dense ingredients.

As Kaminski says: Healthy soups are not a fad. They are definitely a trend that is here to stay.

Cindy Hazen, a 20-year veteran of the food industry, is a freelance writer based in Memphis, TN. She can be reached at [email protected].