The Easy, Creamy Way To Give Soup A High-Protein Boost

Some of our favorite cold-weather meals include hearty plates of pasta and creamy bowls of soup. If you also enjoy comforting meals like a classic and creamy potato leek soup, but wish there was more protein per serving, there's one ingredient you should include in your next pot. When it comes to adding creamy appeal to all your favorite soups and stews, try ditching the heavy whipping cream and using some cottage cheese in your recipe instead. 

Cottage cheese is creamy like milk, but comes packed with extra protein. As a matter of fact, a ½ cup of low-fat cottage cheese contains almost 14 grams of protein, and adding some to your next meal couldn't be easier. First, take your pick among the best and worst cottage cheese brands at your neighborhood supermarket. For the creamiest result, we recommend using whole milk cottage cheese, as its slightly higher fat contentwill add more richness to the bowl. Still, both whole milk and low-fat varieties can effectively give your next batch of soup a satisfying boost of protein. 

Believe it or not, there are countless ways to incorporate this rich, high-protein food into a variety of meals. Similar to heavy cream or milk, cottage cheese tastes best in soup recipes when added toward the end of the preparation process. This way, the curds can gently melt and blend with the other ingredients in your recipe without curdling.

To give cottage cheese the same smooth consistency as an ingredient like heavy cream, we recommended blending it before adding it to a soup. Whether you plan to make a creamier tomato soup with a scoop of cottage cheese, or add a small amount to a broth-based chicken and rice recipe, blending cottage cheese gives the ingredient a creamier, more uniform texture. Still, how you should blend and incorporate cottage cheese into your soup depends on the recipe.

For soups that already have a creamy base, such as pumpkin or mushroom soup, feel free to add cottage cheese directly to your pot and use an immersion blender to blitz all of the ingredients together. Conversely, if you want your soup to retain a variety of textures, add a few ladles of the base to a high-powdered blender along with your preferred amount of cottage cheese and blend. From here, simply pour the combined mixture back into your pot and stir.

You can also blend cottage cheese separately with a small amount of milk and add the mixture directly to your soup pot, or spoon a small amount over individual servings. Whichever way you decide to incorporate cottage cheese, keep in mind that this ingredient contains a decent amount of sodium, and therefore, has a mildly salty flavor. You may need to make some minor adjustments to your recipe to balance out the overall flavor of the soup.