# 1 Most Nutritious & Delicious Soup, Solyanka

Meet what I consider the # 1 Most Nutritious & Delicious Soup, Solyanka. It’s got it all, meat, veggies, healthy fats, probiotics, everything but the kitchen sink!

This soup is the absolute perfect soup to cozy up with on a cold winter’s day. The nutrition packed aspect will assure you have fuel and energy for hours! I like to call this soup, Christmas soup, because the colors remind me of Christmas!

How We Discovered # 1 Most Nutritious & Delicious Soup, Solyanka

A few years ago I was homeschooling 5 kids and a toddler, plus working part time. Although not a lot has changed (I’m still homeschooling 5, but the toddler is older and my oldest has graduated), I think that season is the most slammed I’ve ever been! There’s just something about those toddlers, lol!

During that time I told my husband I needed his help on weekends helping the kids with some math, Bible, and history. Having his help with those subjects helped so much. On Saturday’s I’d work my job while he worked with the kids, and on Sunday’s he would read history books to the kids. I still remember what a beautiful winter that was! Simply needing to get my hands off and out of books and reading I would use the time to work with my hands in the kitchen, making delicious dishes from the countries far away that my husband was reading about to the kids. I’ve always noticed that when you can creatively add food to any lesson it helps drive that lesson home!

Solyanka was one of the dishes I made when we were all learning northern Asia, western European and Russian history. It is a soup that is popular in Russia, the Ukraine, and Baltic regions. Every time I make it, I wonder if some of my ancestors used to have this soup because I had a great grandfather from Croatia and great grandmother from Serbia.

One of the neat things about Solyanka soup is that it has fermented vegetables, like pickles, capers, and sauerkraut. I don’t know how true it is, but I did read somewhere years ago that this is a soup made with what the Russian peasants could find and had on hand. Being so far north, kind of like our family, the peasants would preserve vegetables for the winter by pickling/fermenting them, and since this and some cabbage is what they generally always had, that’s what went in the soup along with a variety of meats.

Other resources say that Solyanka started sometime around the 1830s and was a “wedding soup”.

Tips for Making Solyanka

Don’t put the meat in until the last 5 to 10 minutes. You want the meat heated through, and some of the flavor of the ham and kielbasa to disperse into the soup. If you let it go too long though all the flavor will be cooked out of the meat and the meat will be absolutely flavorless.

You can use broth to deglaze the pan instead of the white wine if you don’t have wine.

Chicken broth can be used in place of the beef broth.

Sour cream is one of the garnishes for this soup. I don’t recommend leaving it out. In the last batch of solyanka that I made I kept forgetting this as a garnish. On the third day I remembered it and was blown away by the taste jump! Something about the tangy creaminess of the sour cream just balances out this dish beautifully. Just add it after you dish it into the bowl. If you add it while cooking the acids from the soup could cause the sour cream to curdle if you accidentally get the soup too hot for too long.

I love a little heat in this dish, cayenne, red pepper flakes, serrano, and even sriracha are all wonderful! These have a way of helping warm you up on those super cold days too.

While I have you here, I did want to mention that if you visit my shop you might be delighted to see I’ve started making menu plans to help you with your busy weeks! I’ve got a Holiday inspired menu plan with 4 weeks of meals all planned out for you, and I’ve even created a special Holiday menu packed with choices for the cold weather holidays, from Thanksgiving to Christmas, and New Years to Easter!

Shayla’s Solyanka

Shayla

This is a wonderful soup around Christmas time! Serve it with fresh baked artisan sourdough rolls.

Print Recipe

Ingredients

  

• 5 bay leaves
• 2 tsp allspice powder
• 2 tsp ground pepper
• 10 cups beef broth
• 1 head of cabbage, chopped
• 4 tbsp capers (we just use the whole jar)
• 2 onions chopped
• 2 cups carrots chopped
• 3 cups celery, chopped
• 1 cans tomato paste
• 4 14.5 oz cans of stewed tomatoes
• 1 can olives green are best
• 6 or 7 dill pickles, chopped
• olive oil
• 3 Kielbasa packages the 12 oz packages
• 2 cooked chicken breasts you can add more
• 4 cups diced ham
• 2 cups sauerkraut
• 1 tbsp Red Pepper Flakes (this is not traditional and is optional)
• 2 tbsp white wine or broth for deglazing

Garnish

• Sour Cream or greek yogurt
• dill, salt & pepper

Instructions

 

• Start with searing the chicken breast until done or almost done. Cool, debone and chop. You can use the soup stockpot for this.
• Deglaze the pan with white wine or broth.
• Saute onions, garlic, carrots and celery in olive oil until soft in the wine and a little olive oil.
• Combine all ingredients in the pot EXCEPT the meats.
• Bring soup to simmer for 1 hour.
• Add the meats during the last 5 minutes.

Notes

If you add the meat to soon all the flavors cook out of the meat, and then the meat doesn’t have any taste left. Don’t overheat this soup when you go to reheat it.