Anti-Inflammatory Soup: 6 Easy Recipes I Actually Make

Soup is one of the easiest anti-inflammatory meals (like a warm smoothie)! One pot, whatever vegetables are in the fridge, and enough leftovers to feed you again on a night when you’ve got nothing planned, or to freeze a few servings for later.

These six are what I actually cook at home. Below, I’ll show you the one I make most, five more that I rotate through, what I add to almost every pot, and how I freeze servings to help future me out.

You might already have some of these ingredients in your pantry or fridge!

Chicken Tortilla Soup

This is the one I make most. I use my Instant Pot, but a slow cooker or stovetop works too; it’s on the table in about an hour, and my boys usually eat it, which isn’t true of every soup in this article.

If you’ve got a kid who says they don’t like soup, put tortilla chips or bread on the table and let them use it as a dip. Mine do. Same bowl, same beans and vegetables, just less arguing. My husband is our food marketing expert and can sell a food in a way I can’t. This was his idea!

Tortilla chips aren’t a health food; they’re a tool to get them to try it. Once a kid decides soup is something they will eat, you have a whole range of nourishing, simple meals to experiment with. You can read more about this in my post on introducing a picky eater to the anti-inflammatory diet.

This recipe is adapted from Kitschen Cat’s pressure cooker chicken tortilla soup, which is where I started years ago. I’ve changed it enough that it’s become mine.

Don’t skip the lime (or bottled lime juice). Two tablespoons (or more) stirred in at the end adds so much flavor, and it’s the step people leave out. If the soup has been in the refrigerator or frozen, add a little more lime juice after warming it up.

One thing I do differently from the original recipe is add all the ingredients at the start rather than waiting to add corn and beans after shredding the chicken. One less step, one less pot to watch, and the beans come out the right texture. 

It takes about an hour, although the pressure-cooking time is only 12 minutes. The rest is chopping the onion and waiting for the pot to come up to pressure, which takes a while when it’s full and cold. Worth knowing before you start it at 5 p.m. I make this soup often on Sundays, and it works well for hosting because it’s customizable and allergy-friendly.

The whole pot costs about $28, which is $3.50 a bowl. Half of that is the chicken and the toppings. The beans, corn, salsa, and tomato paste that hold it all together are the cheap and shelf-stable part.

Notes About the Sodium

Each 2-cup serving has 614 mg of sodium. Three small choices helped keep that number down: I didn’t add salt to the recipe, used no-salt-added corn, and drained and rinsed the beans.

You don’t have to eliminate salt to eat soup. It helps to know where sodium is already hiding so you can decide where it matters most. A can of soup usually runs somewhere between 600 and 1,200 mg per serving, depending on whether you bought a low-sodium one and the serving size. This soup sits at the bottom of that range and doesn’t taste like it.

I used store-bought bone broth, which contributed only 48 mg of sodium per serving. Sometimes I make my own, but if that isn’t happening, buy the carton and don’t worry. Homemade bone broth is still worth making for the flavor and cost savings.

Keep in mind that sodium varies considerably among brands and between regular and low-sodium broths. Turn the carton around and do a quick label check before choosing one.

Make It Yours

I change this up constantly based on what’s in the fridge. For example, the pot I cooked and photographed for this post had three substitutions. No red pepper, because I forgot. Garlic out of a jar instead of fresh, because I was out. And cilantro from a squeeze tube, because my store had no fresh cilantro.

It was still good. That’s the point of a soup.

• No salsa? Two cans (14.5 oz each) of diced tomatoes with their juice, plus extra cumin and chili powder to taste.
• No fresh peppers? Leave them out, the way I did with this batch, or use frozen.
• No fresh cilantro? The squeeze tubes work, stirred in at the end. So does cilantro you chopped and froze from a previous recipe.
• Want it thicker? More tomato paste, less broth.
• Want more heat? A pinch of cayenne, or put hot sauce on the table so everyone decides for themselves.
• Feeding a kid who says they don’t like soup? Thicker, with chips for dipping. Less broth, more beans and corn.
• No chicken breasts? Thighs, tenderloins, whatever cut you like or whatever was on sale. It all shreds.

The amounts above are where I start, not a rule. Soup is very forgiving!

Five More Anti-Inflammatory Soups

1. White Chicken Chili

Another Mexican-inspired soup, but this one is thick and creamy where the tortilla soup is brothy, so the two don’t feel like the same soup on repeat.

Adapted from The Real Food Dietitians’ slow cooker white chicken chili, and I follow this recipe pretty closely. I trust this site for high-quality, balanced, and filling recipes.

The ingredients include chicken breasts or thighs, onion, bell pepper, a jalapeño with the seeds removed (or jarred jalapeños), garlic, cumin, oregano, chili powder, and chicken broth.

I make it in the Instant Pot, not the slow cooker, because I forget to plan for all-day cooking. I usually remember dinner right before school pick-up, which is too late for a five-hour recipe and exactly right for ten minutes at high pressure.

The creaminess comes from coconut milk: add a can of full-fat coconut milk at the end, then shred the chicken back in, then add lime juice and fresh cilantro. That keeps it dairy-free without a thickener, and it’s why this one tastes different from every other chicken soup in the rotation.

The white beans are optional in the original, and I always add them. They add more fiber and protein and make the meal stretch further without adding more chicken.

What should you do with the rest of the cilantro? A recipe like this uses half a bunch, and the other half turns to slime in the fridge. I chop what’s left and freeze it for the next recipe. It stores well and adds good flavor to soups. Save it for cooked dishes, though. Frozen cilantro doesn’t hold up for fresh uses like tacos.

2. Beef and Vegetable Soup

I make this with homemade beef bone broth, which is the reason I keep some in my freezer. Bone broth provides amino acids like glycine and proline that have been studied for their anti-inflammatory properties.

This recipe is adapted from A Pinch of Healthy’s Instant Pot vegetable beef soup. Brown a pound of diced beef with garlic powder, then add onion, celery, and carrots, followed by broth, oregano, diced tomatoes, potatoes, green beans, and corn. Cook it for eight minutes at high pressure with a natural release.

I load it with vegetables. I use three cups of potatoes instead of two, three cups of corn instead of two, two cups of green beans instead of one, and two cups of carrots instead of one. I skip the bay leaf.

That’s four extra cups of vegetables alongside one pound of beef, and the broth stays exactly as the recipe writes it. Bone broth also increases the protein. 

Serve it with fresh-milled, whole-grain bread. I make mine, but any whole-grain loaf works well!

3. Beef and Vegetable Stew

This is one of my favorite cozy meals for the cooler months. I sauté about a pound of diced beef chuck roast in olive oil in the Instant Pot, then add garlic and onions. I stir in bone broth, carrots, potatoes, celery, and seasonings like thyme or oregano, salt, and pepper, and pressure cook for 30 to 40 minutes.

Sometimes I add tomato paste or mushrooms, and I stir in frozen peas right before serving. I tend to load it with extra vegetables and serve it with whole-grain bread, again.

The full version is in my 12 easy anti-inflammatory dinners.

4. Chicken and Rice Soup

We reach for chicken soup when we’re not feeling well for a reason. A 2008 study found that a hot drink improved people’s perception of nasal airflow and relieved several cold symptoms, although it did not change objectively measured nasal airflow. The benefit came from the hot liquid rather than the chicken itself.

This recipe is adapted from Iowa Girl Eats’ easy chicken and rice soup. Soften the onion, carrot, and garlic in olive oil, then simmer with chicken stock, rice, and bite-sized pieces of chicken breast until the rice is tender. It takes about 50 minutes, and it doesn’t need the Instant Pot.

I make this one with leftover rice, usually from stir-fry night. We have chicken or egg vegetable stir-fry with brown rice often enough that I regularly have cooked rice in the fridge. 

You can cook the rice from raw in the pot instead. It takes longer, and it works fine.

When the rice is already cooked, I cut the broth in half. The original calls for eight cups, and I use four. Raw rice simmering absorbs a lot of that liquid, so when you use leftover rice, the broth has nowhere to go, and you end up with a thin soup. Four cups is one carton, which is what I use for most soups. It also cuts the cook time down to about 25–30 minutes.

I don’t freeze this one. Rice turns mushy once it’s frozen and thawed, no matter how good the rice is. And typically, this uses leftover rice already, so there isn’t much to save for another meal.

5. Zuppa Toscana

This recipe is adapted from Beauty and the Bench Press’s Instant Pot version.

It includes sausage, potatoes, onions, chicken broth, and a lot of kale. I often serve this on Sundays with guests for lunch, and it’s always a winner!

I use more potatoes than the recipe calls for. They stretch the pot, they fill people up, and they’re one of the cheapest things in the cart. You can swap out the type of sausage for a leaner option (turkey works well).

My husband hates kale and gobbles this soup up. The sausage, potatoes, and broth are so tasty that the kale flavor doesn’t overpower the soup. Add the kale near the end and let it wilt into the broth. I buy baby kale so I don’t have to remove the ribs. 

It does take cream, and I use whatever I have. Dairy-free cream, regular milk or cream, or coconut milk all work. If I’m feeding dairy-free guests, I reach for coconut milk.

Why These Soups Help

Beans

Four of these six soups contain beans, and that’s not an accident. Beans provide fiber, plant protein, folate, potassium, and slowly digested carbohydrates in one inexpensive ingredient. They’re number eight on my list of the top 10 anti-inflammatory foods to eat every week.

Direct research on beans (pulses) and inflammation is promising, though still limited. In a small randomized crossover trial, 26 adults with a family history of diabetes followed a legume-rich diet for six weeks. Their hs-CRP, a blood marker of inflammation, decreased compared with their usual diet, although the other inflammatory markers measured did not change. A larger analysis of eight randomized trials also found a trend towards a small reduction in CRP, but the overall result did not quite reach statistical significance.

The evidence is stronger for cholesterol. A 2026 analysis of 38 randomized trials involving 2,095 adults found that eating about ½ to ⅔ cup of beans, lentils, chickpeas, or peas daily lowered LDL cholesterol by approximately 5 mg/dL. Similar results were seen across the different types of pulses.

That amount is realistic. Depending on the recipe, one bowl of these soups can put you close to a daily serving.

Two cans of black beans also supply most of the folate in a pot of tortilla soup, providing about 17% of the daily value in each bowl.

Garlic

With garlic, the timing matters. Allicin is the compound most of the garlic research is about, and heat inactivates the enzyme that makes it. A study measuring how much allicin people actually absorb found boiled garlic at about 16% of the level from raw garlic. Roasted garlic was 30%. A supermarket jar of minced garlic came in at 66%.

That’s why the garlic goes into the tortilla soup twice. Some goes in at the start, for the flavor that cooks into the broth. I crush the rest, let it sit for ten minutes, and add it at the end, when the soup is not boiling. Garlic powder needs to be rehydrated first, because allicin only forms once dried garlic gets wet.

The late garlic doesn’t change the taste much. I do it because it costs me nothing. Same soup, same minute of work, and more of the beneficial compound. And I always add more garlic than a recipe calls for.

What I Put in Almost Every Pot

These aren’t specific rules to follow. They’re just the things that end up in most of my soups and boost anti-inflammatory ingredients. 

1. Bone broth instead of water or bouillon. More flavor, more protein, and I already have it in the freezer or pantry.
2. More vegetables than the recipe calls for, and no more liquid. This is the one thing I do to almost every soup recipe I cook, and it’s the easiest change to make. Whatever needs using up goes in: carrots, celery, peppers, frozen corn, and greens.
3. When I add another cup of potatoes or another can of beans, I leave the broth exactly as written. The soup comes out heartier, which is how we like it, and you get more food out of the same pot without buying anything else. If a soup does come out thicker than you wanted, thin it in the bowl rather than the pot.
4. I know a lot of people add greens to soup to sneak them in. Vegetables taste great in soup, greens included, and they add to the savory flavor. I don’t put greens in a smoothie, because I’d rather cook them and actually taste them. 
5. Beans or lentils to help you stay full longer and get more anti-inflammatory foods in. They add fiber and protein for very little money.
6. Olive oil to start, for sautéing the onions and garlic.
7. Herbs and spices, added late: thyme, oregano, cumin, chili powder.

If you want the full four-part approach I use for building any meal, it’s in my anti-inflammatory recipes guide.

Make a Pot, Eat It Several Times

Soup is supposed to have leftovers, and soups often taste better the second time as the flavors mingle.

I freeze leftover soup in lunch-sized portions using Souper Cubes, which are food-grade silicone trays. Once the soup is frozen, I pop the portions into a freezer bag so they’re ready to reheat on the stove or in the microwave. In a pinch, disposable plastic cups work too.

I have the one-cup and two-cup trays, and for soup I almost always use the two-cup. That’s a real serving, and it makes the math easy: one two-cup block is one bowl. This pot of tortilla soup filled about eight of them. Thaw one, add whole-grain bread, crackers, or a piece of fruit, and lunch is done without thinking. Frozen soup is one of my favorite quick anti-inflammatory lunches for exactly that reason.

Sides help build out a full meal. The soup brings the protein, the vegetables, and usually the beans, and the bread or fruit fills in the fiber-rich carbohydrate, which is how I build any meal.

Soup usually keeps for three to four days in the fridge, and up to three months in the freezer.

For our family, we usually have only two or three servings of leftovers for lunch. If there’s more than expected, it goes into Souper Cube trays the same day. I use a Sharpie to date the freezer bag and plan to use the soup within three months. Freeze and label it while you still remember.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can canned or store-bought soup be anti-inflammatory?

Yes, and some weeks you need store-bought (think three sick kids and parents). Look for one with real vegetables or beans in the ingredient list, at least 10 grams of protein, at least 3 g of fiber, and less than 700mg of sodium. While the protein is a little lower than the 25–30 grams I recommend per meal, canned soup can still provide convenient nutrition and hydration when you’re sick

Do I have to use homemade bone broth?

No. Store-bought broth works in every soup here. Homemade costs less and tastes better, which is why I make it, but a carton from the store is really helpful when you don’t have any on hand. 

Takeaways

• Soup is one of the cheapest and simplest ways I know to get beans, vegetables, and protein into one bowl.
• Add your garlic near the end, whichever kind you use.
• Make a full pot and freeze it in lunch portions. Your future self will thank you.
• Change the amounts to fit what’s in your fridge and bump up those vegetable portions to make it more anti-inflammatory.

Let’s get UNstuck and stay UNstuck!