It's About Time You Started Grilling Your Soup This Winter

Conventional home cookery has it that grilling is for the summer and soup is for the winter. Sensible? Sure. A hard and fast rule you should follow at home? Certainly not. Grilling is great in the colder months, to say nothing of the revelation that is cold summer soup. 

While certain parts of the country are less hospitable than others when it comes to standing outside in the winter with a pair of tongs in hand, braving the cold is worth it for that first bite of grilled soup. No, that doesn't necessarily mean treating your grill like a stove by placing a pot over the hot coals, nor are you being asked to set down the treacherous path of trying to wrap liquid in tin foil. 

Grilled soup simply calls for cooking one or more components of a soup on the grill. Those components are then transferred back into the pot in your warm, indoor kitchen. It's one of the easiest and most fun ways to spike your soup with smoky flavor.

When it comes to making grilled soup, the only rule you need to follow is your appetite; the time you spend at the grill is entirely up to you. To get a sense of how the smokiness and depth of flavor imparted by the flames will play off the other ingredients in your soup, it helps to start simple. Try choosing a single ingredient to toss on the grates.

Using your favorite recipe for roasted tomato soup, you might try swapping the oven for the grill. For an easy transfer, toss the tomatoes with salt, pepper, and olive oil and fold them into foil packets. After 18 minutes or so, they'll be full of flavor and lightly caramelized. The smoky soup will beg for a grilled cheese on the side, which will be even more delicious if you cook it on an actual grill. 

Over on Reddit, one home cook implores others to toss an eggplant on the grill and add it to a hearty soup of kale, beans, and farro. Meanwhile, you might find Food Network star Valerie Bertinelli charring poultry on a grill pan to liven up her chicken vegetable soup. 

When you consider the fact that people have been making soup for more than 25,000 years, the idea of setting up a pot over an open fire (in this case, a grill) doesn't seem so strange. Indeed, with a heavy-bottom pan like a Dutch oven, you can take your entire soup operation outdoors if you wish.

If you're concerned about staining the exterior of your enamel Dutch oven, you can always play it safe by wrapping the outside of the pot in foil. Scorching the pot shouldn't be too much of an issue when making soup, but it bears noting: Keep an eye on your grill temperature to make sure things aren't getting too toasty. According to Le Creuset, Dutch ovens should only be set over medium-high heat when boiling water or reducing stocks or sauces. Once your soup comes to a boil over the grill, turn down the heat and cook it low and slow.