Sometimes I feel more like a mad scientist than a cook. That’s what soup making and a pantry full of ingredients can do to you. Here I’ve created a hybrid of chicken and miso soups. The miso matches well with the garlic, ginger, and shitake mushrooms, and it goes in at the end, when the soup is already hot, so it’s probiotics are preserved—great news for your digestion!

Those of you into cool or room-temperature soups will embrace the clean, fresh feel of this blend.  The great shades of green from the avocado and cucumber are like a beautiful, edible watercolor.

If this immediately brings to mind Greek tzatziki sauce, well, that’s what it was designed to do. I love tzatziki—it’s so cool and refreshing—and I figured if it was good enough for a sauce, it would work great as a chilled soup. And so it goes. Normally with tzatziki you have to grate those hydrating cucumbers. With this recipe, everything goes in the blender—and boom!—you have soup. The only thing you have to do is put it in the fridge to cool. It’s absolutely luscious on a hot day. 

Working with the youth of America in the kitchen keeps me both in stitches and on my toes. A sassy Jersey girl named Katie Bealer is one of my trusted assistants. Hanging around Katie is like learning a new language, one I think of as Text-o-Talk. She took one taste of this soup and exclaimed,“OMG!” I LOL’d in response. (See, I’m learning.) I was actually thinking of calling this recipe RGSPS in her honor; anyone who comes up with descriptor “ridiculously good” deserves to be honored. In any case, her unbridled enthusiasm for this soup made it a keeper for the book. If you enjoy traditional split pea soup with ham and want that smoky flavor here, just add smoked paprika or ground chipotle chiles. However, it’s the blending of the split peas that drives the taste in this recipe, creating a velvety mouth feel that’s perfect for transporting the flavors of the garlic, carrot, onions, and thyme that round out the soup. As a bonus, especially for those concerned about diabetes, split peas are great for you, being rich in fiber, which fights cholesterol and helps regulate blood sugar levels. As for Katie and me, all I can say is we’re BFFs.

Congee is an ancient Chinese porridge, dating back more than two thousand years. When Americans think about porridge, oatmeal comes to mind. This broth-based congee is thinner, but it’s stimulating and satisfying. It’s whole grain brown rice base is perfect for jump-starting digestion (some people even eat it for breakfast), and it’s a nice canvas for adding taste-enhancers ranging from scallions to cinnamon.

Talk about counterbalancing tastes: Here the überhealthy kale and coconut milk are a magical pairing, with the sweetness of the coconut neutralizing the natural bitterness of the kale. The ginger and lime are like Fourth of July sparklers on top of the flavor profile. The soup is purposely a bit thin, and many people enjoy it as a broth in a cup or take it to go in a thermos. If you want to give it a little heft, try adding glass noodles or shredded sweet potato.

Am I allowed to say I love this broth? This is like taking your taste buds on a trip to Thailand—infusing Magic Mineral Broth or, if you prefer, chicken broth with lemongrass, ginger, shallots, kaffir lime leaves, and coconut milk.

The last thing you want to do on a steamy day is turn on the burners in the kitchen. That’s where this chilled soup comes in. Watermelon is so refreshing and hydrating (not to mention it’s full of the outstanding antioxidant lycopene) that it’s the perfect summertime soup.

I’m not sure what I should call this dish. It’s more than a soup, but not quite a stew. Maybe it’s a stoup (you’re laughing now, but just wait till “stoup” makes its way into the Oxford English Dictionary—take that, mochaccino). Well, no matter what you call it, I think you’ll find yourself singing its praises often, as this is really a hearty, yummy recipe. This is an instance where putting everything into a simmering broth rather than onto a plate lets some culinary alchemy take place. The result is a feast for the mouth and a source of soothing warmth for the body. This is one of my favorite soups to make when I have leftover chicken in the fridge.

Garlic has a long list of health benefits: antibacterial, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, antivampiric (okay, I admit it’s been hard to find research studies on that last one), and much, much more. Garlic lovers will gravitate toward this soup, but I want to convince those of you who say, “Garlic? Eww!’ to try it. Those overwhelmed by garlic’s natural pungency will delight in how roasting transforms the garlic into a caramelized, sweet-smelling delight. In this recipe, roasted garlic is simmered in the broth, adding to the gentle mellowing. Further fortified with Yukon gold potatoes, thyme, pepper, onion, and a spritz of lemon, this nutritious soup will arm you to the teeth . . . so to speak.

My first internship when I got out of culinary school was in the kitchen at the Chopra Center for Wellbeing, where they had an entire wall filled with dozens and dozens of spices. I swear that wall looked like a piece of art—in the form of a jigsaw puzzle that I had to figure out. The way you knew you had earned your stripes in the kitchen was when the executive chef finally let you make their famous dahl. Wouldn’t you know, the very first time I made it, an honest-to-goodness Indian saint had come to visit. There are rules regarding saints, and at mealtime, the first and foremost is that no one can try the dahl before she does. I must have done something right, because she tasted, smiled, and kissed me gently on the forehead. I treasure that memory, and also appreciate the experience of making that dahl because it taught me that spices—which have phenomenal healing properties—can be the heart of a dish, rather than an add-on to enhance flavor. Here, the blending of spices is what really gives this dish its power, both nutritionally and on the palate. 

Butternut squash is the utility infielder of vegetables; wherever you place it on the culinary diamond, it does a great job. Stuffed in ravioli, as part of a risotto, roasted with herbs--it’s far more versatile than its tubby exterior suggests. In this soup, it’s blended with coconut milk to create a sensual, buttery texture that carries a phenomenal spice blend that delights the tastes and delivers superior nutrition. The cinnamon and turmeric help regulate blood sugar, have anti-inflammatory properties, and help fight cancer, while cumin boosts immunity and energy.

Here’s a recipe where, if it’s leafy and green, it’ll work. I use chard and collards, but kale or spinach would be brilliant too—in fact, put it this way: if you think Popeye would eat it, it’s in. The flavor enhancers are onion, garlic, red pepper flakes, and lemon zest, with a yellow potato thrown in for creaminess. The whole pot gets blended, and you’ll swear you’re eating emeralds (albeit luscious ones): that’s how shimmering green this soup looks. It’s a smart, calming soup, with whichever cruciferous greens you use (kale, bok choy, watercress, collards) providing a ton of folate, which may help ward off depression.

Maybe it’s because, at heart, I’m a soup maker, but I take making stock very seriously. I think most cooks feel that way. There’s a confidence one gets in making one’s own stock rather than buying the boxed version. (Organic chicken stock will do in a pinch, but give me my own heady concoction any day.) I get to control the ingredients and, as with this chicken stock, get the taste exactly the way I want. A big plus is that it freezes well for storage. This stock, along with Classic Magic Mineral Broth, is the base for nearly every soup in this book, so it has to be spot on, and it is. Bone broths are some of the world’s oldest healing foods, and with good reason; the calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus in chicken bones are great for brain health, while the amino acid glycine has calming and other mental health benefits.

Gone are the days when asparagus was boiled until it resembled a gray Seattle drizzle. Here we roast asparagus until it becomes sweet and caramelized in a way that’s hard to believe until it’s tried. Asparagus is full of antioxidants that help in DNA synthesis and repair. In this soup, it’s paired with the nerve-protective benefits of pistachio as part of the minty, creamy topping. This is some serious yum in a bowl.

Silicon Valley has promised us that, someday, little nanobots will act like tiny microprocessors in our brains, helping to make us smarter. I say, Why wait? We already have a teensy food that does that. It’s the lentil, the vegetable kingdom’s version of a Lilliputian flying saucer. Lentils, ounce for ounce, pack an amazing amount of brain boosters, such as iron (essential to the function of myelin, which is involved in quick information gathering). From a culinary viewpoint, it’s a myth that you have to soak lentils overnight; just a quick rinse will do. With a host of spices, cubed delicata squash, and thinly sliced kale, this is my go-to soup when I’m working hard and need to process a lot of information.

I knew I was on the right track with this soup when Catherine, my scrupulous recipe tester for the past seven years, wrote the following reaction to trying it: “Nothing to say but ‘swoooooooon.'’’ Now that’s what I call positive feedback! The trick with this soup is that after I cook it, I take half of it out of the pot and blend it, and back into the pot it goes. It’s an act of culinary prestidigitation: the blending will make you think there are three cartons of cream added to the soup, but ‘tis not the case. There are plenty of brain boosters in this soup, notably the spices; curcumin has been shown to fight depression, and may play a role in the production of brain-derived neurotrophic factors, genes that help with memory and learning and help brain neurons function and survive.

I’ll admit it took a couple of takes to get this recipe to Yum! Let’s just say I was little cavalier with the ancho chiles and chipotle the first time out: one taste, and I looked like a cartoon character with steam blowing out of my ears while a train whistle screams. I mean, even a dragon wouldn’t have gone there, it was that hot. But a little experimentation—and pulling back on the chiles a tad—turned this former five-alarmer into an amazingly heady, slightly smoky soup. This is brain-friendly all the way; the capsaicin in chile is renowned for stimulating blood flow and releasing stress-reducing hormones, with the sweet potatoes providing a kick of beta-carotene, perhaps the most potent antioxidant.

At restaurants, my dad didn’t see a set line where the salad bar ended and the soup bar began. He’d stride up, bowl in hand, and ladle away to his heart’s content. Other folks may have looked on aghast, but my dad was a real culinary alchemist; he knew which ingredients played well together. This soup pays homage to his wizardry.

A staple of Latin cuisine, this black bean soup rocks because it’s a nutritional powerhouse. Black beans are rich in protein and dietary fiber, and recent studies link black bean consumption to reduced rates of pancreatic, breast, and prostate cancers.