Creative Ways to Make Soup the Star of a Dinner Party

Co-authored by Christopher M. Osborne, PhD

Last Updated: January 12, 2022 References Tested

Soup is a great meal option when you’re home alone or with your family, but you can also build an entire dinner party around it. Whether you want to highlight a single soup, set up a soup buffet, or serve “soup shooters” as appetizers, fill out your menu with breads, toppings, drinks, and dessert, and serve your soup in a practical but eye-catching manner. Now go grab your ladle and get to work on a “soup-er” dinner party!

Method 1

Method 1 of 3:

Soup as the Main Course

1
Choose a hearty, filling soup that can be the star of the meal. Thin soups that are mostly liquid usually lack the heft needed to serve as a main course. Instead, opt for thicker cream soups, stews, or chili. Soups that offer a variety of textures and flavors are typically better than a one-note soup—unless that one note is really fantastic!^{[1]
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- A broth-heavy chicken soup may be great when you have a cold, but a chicken soup with hearty pieces of meat, large noodles, and lots of vegetables is better as a main course.
- If meat-based soups are off the menu, opt for something like a hearty vegetable stew or a pureed soup thickened by cream or veggies like potatoes.
- Hot soups are usually considered more hearty and main course-worthy than chilled soups, but who says you can’t serve a great gazpacho or another tasty chilled soup for an outdoor dinner on a warm summer’s evening?^{[2]
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2
Make enough soup for 2 servings per person. Most soup recipes assume that the soup isn’t the main course, so a recipe that “serves 4” may not be enough for 4 diners. In this case, play it safe and double the recipe—that is, make 8 servings of soup for 4 guests. After all, you can always send home some delicious leftovers with your guests.^{[3]
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- Making a big batch of soup doesn’t take much more time and effort than making a small one, and many types of soup freeze well if you end up with ample leftovers.
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3
Serve appetizers and leave them on the table when it’s time for soup. A great dinner party always starts out with great appetizers, right? But, instead of stashing them away when it’s time to serve the main course, leave the appetizers out on the table so your guests can continue to nosh on them as they please. This relieves some of the pressure on the soup as the standalone main course.^{[4]
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- You can pair up specific appetizers with your soup, or just aim to offer a range of appetizers to be sure that everyone has options they like.
4
Pair your soup with fantastic bread and beverage selections. A hot pot of soup practically begs to be paired with a crusty loaf of bread! Buy or bake one standout bread to complement the soup—like a French baguette with potato soup or cornbread with chili—or offer several bread options to suit every taste. Do the same with beverages—pick a great pairing with your soup or offer multiple appealing options.^{[5]
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- Try pairing acidic wines with saltier soups, sweeter wines with spicy soups, and beer with chili or tortilla soup.^{[6]
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  Research source} Alternatively, this may be a good time to dig out your punch bowl and try your hand at a homemade punch.
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Set out bowls placed on plates if you’ll be serving the soup at the table. At each place setting, put a normal-sized soup bowl (or nice-looking cereal bowl) on top of a plate covered with a folded napkin. You may be tempted to use really big bowls since the soup is the main dish, but the soup servings will look measly unless you fill every bowl with way too much soup. Putting a plate and napkin under each average-sized bowl helps keep everything in proportion.^{[7]
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- If you prefer to dish out the soup individually before bringing it to the table, you can still use the same setup. Make sure to ladle out the soup at the last minute so it stays hot (or cold, if it’s a chilled soup) for your guests.
- Don’t forget to put out soup spoons!
6
Serve your main dish from a soup tureen to add a touch of class. If you have a nice soup tureen languishing on a shelf or in a cupboard, now’s the time to use it! Bring out the filled tureen and give it a prominent place at the table. Ladle out soup for each of your guests, or pass around the tureen and allow them to serve themselves.^{[8]
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- If you don’t have a soup tureen, bring the soup to the table in your best-looking pot, casserole, or bowl.
7
Serve the soup in individual, lidded jars or pots for a more casual vibe. To be both practical and casual, serve your soup in wide-mouth 8 or 16 fl oz (240 or 470 ml) mason jars with the lids lightly screwed on to keep the soup at the right temperature. Or, if you have an assortment of things like lidded sugar bowls and gravy boats stashed away, dust them off and use them for your soup service.^{[9]
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- For another casual—but very tasty—option, serve your soup in bread bowls.
8
Finish the meal off with a delicious dessert. No matter how great the soup is, your dinner may feel like it’s missing something without a traditional main course. But that feeling will be forgotten when you bring out a show-stopping dessert! The choices are endless: whip up a delicious chocolate cake, a tart lemon pie, a classic English trifle, or whatever else you prefer.^{[10]
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- Of course, since you already worked hard making a delicious soup for dinner, it’s okay to buy a great dessert from your local bakery instead.

Method 2

Method 2 of 3:

Multi-Soup Buffet

1
Make 3-4 soups ahead of time and reheat them for the party. Most soups aren’t too difficult to make, but they often take time. Instead of trying to manage all the chopping, simmering, blending, and so on right before the party, make your soups earlier in the day or the day before. Refrigerate the finished soups until about 1-2 hours before the party, then bring them back up to serving temperature.^{[11]
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- Aim to make 3 soups for a typical soup dinner buffet, and definitely not more than 4. Otherwise, you’ll end up doing far more prep work than is necessary.
- If you’re making chilled soups, put them in the refrigerator for at least 2-4 hours and pull them out right before serving them.
2
Use your stovetop and a slow cooker to serve hot soup. Even if you have a smaller kitchen, you can probably keep 2 pots of soup hot on the stovetop. Turn the heat to medium or medium-high to bring the soup to temperature, then turn the heat to its lowest setting to maintain serving temperature.^{[12]
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- For the third soup, use a slow cooker set to its high setting for 1-2 hours to heat up the soup, then set it to its low or warming setting.^{[13]
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- Make sure a hot soup is at least 165 °F (74 °C) before serving it to your guests. Keep it at or above this temperature, and most especially above 140 °F (60 °C), throughout the meal.^{[14]
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3
Put your serving bowls of chilled soup on ice to keep them cool. Grab a bowl that’s larger than the bowl your soup is in and fill the bottom with a layer of ice cubes. Pull the soup bowl from the refrigerator and nestle it into the ice bowl. Add a lid, if desired, to help keep the soup properly chilled.^{[15]
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- Don’t leave chilled soups out of the refrigerator for more than 2 hours, unless you maintain them at a temperature below 40 °F (4 °C).^{[16]
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4
Stock your soup buffet line with ample bowls, spoons, and ladles. Treat your home buffet like a restaurant buffet, with lots of supplies that don’t need to be reused during the meal. Set out a separate ladle for each soup and enough bowls and spoons so that your guests don’t have to reuse them when they try a different soup.^{[17]
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- Resort to using disposable bowls and spoons if you don’t have enough for everyone, or ask your guests to bring along a few of their own favorite soup bowls and spoons.
5
Use teacups or mugs instead of bowls if your guests will be standing. Eating soup while standing up is much easier when you can grab onto a handle instead of the bottom of a hot bowl. Oversized, wide-mouth coffee mugs are great choices for larger servings, while teacups work well for smaller servings. Put out an assortment of both to give your guests options.^{[18]
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- If you have to use bowls for guests who will be standing, put out small plates that they can use to rest the bowl on while holding the plate.
6
Set up a toppings bar, bread bar, and appetizer options near the end of the line. When soup is the main course, it makes sense to round the meal out with lots of options. Let your guests personalize their soup with a range of toppings like shredded cheese, oyster crackers, tortilla strips, hot sauce, and so on. Likewise, put out at least one type of bread—or 2-3 to give your guests options—and leave out the appetizers from the start of the dinner party.^{[19]
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- An organized soup buffet setup might flow in the following order: bowls; soups; soup toppings; spoons; napkins; small plates; breads and remaining appetizers; drinks.
- As an alternative to (or alongside) sliced breads, put out cubes of cornbread or big homemade croutons.
7
Send your guests home with soup in handy to-go containers. Soup is a great take-home option, so long as you have takeout containers that are suited to the task. Mason jars are a great choice, since they can handle the heat and have tight-fitting lids. If you opt for plastic, make sure the containers have secure lids that won’t leak.^{[20]
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- If you want to be extra creative, create tags with your soup recipes on them and tie them around the necks of the glass takeout jars. Put them in small paper bags with handles for the finishing touch!

Method 3

Method 3 of 3:

Soup Appetizers

1
Make 1-3 cream-based or blended soups that are full of flavor. When you’re serving “soup shooters” as an appetizer, the goal is to pack a lot of flavor into a single slurp. Soups that are thickened with cream and/or blended vegetables tend to be both flavorful and easier to handle (that is, less spillable) in a small serving container.^{[21]
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- Make 1 soup to serve along with other appetizers, or make multiple soups as the primary appetizer options.
- You might connect the flavors to the season, for example, by making carrot, squash, or pumpkin-flavored soups in fall, or chilled and blended soups that emphasize fresh veggie flavors in the summer.
2
Get creative when choosing the small containers to serve your “soup shooters” in. You can certainly use shot glasses, but you may instead want to opt for something slightly larger. Espresso cups, for instance, hold about 2.5 fl oz (74 ml), and the glass cups show off the soup while the ceramic ones offer a convenient handle. Alternatively, buy a set of empty votive candle holders at a craft store.^{[22]
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- Aim for a serving size of around 2 fl oz (59 ml) per shooter.
- If your kids have a tea set, the little mugs may be the right size and add a cute touch!
3
Fill and garnish your shooters right before serving them. Dish out a hot soup straight from the stove or slow cooker, or a chilled soup straight from the fridge. Use a small ladle with a spout or a spoon to fill your chosen appetizer containers, but have some paper towels ready to clean up spills—making soup shooters can be a little messy! Add a fresh garnish to the top that offers both visual appeal and flavor.^{[23]
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- Depending on the soup, you might add a single crouton, roasted pumpkin seeds, a watermelon cube, etc., as the garnish.
4
Serve shooters to guests as they enter, or carry them around on a tray to serve. Not every guest may want a shot of alcohol as they arrive at your dinner party, but they won’t say no to a shot of delicious soup! Alternatively, mingle through your party with a tray loaded with soup shots before everyone sits down for the meal.^{[24]
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- If you want to take your soup dinner party to the max, make 3 soups to serve as shooters. Let your guests try each and decide which one (or 2, or 3) they’d like to have as their main course.

Expert Q&A

Question

How long does it take vegetables to soften in soup?

Sasha Reyes
Executive Chef
Chef Sasha Reyes is the Executive Chef and Owner of Artisan Personal Chefs. With over 20 years of food industry experience, she specializes in private dinner parties, custom sports nutrition plans for professional athletes, and cooking lessons. Chef Reyes graduated from Arizona Culinary Institute in 2011 with a degree in Culinary Arts, Baking, and Restaurant Management.

Sasha Reyes

Executive Chef

Expert Answer

This would definitely depend on the vegetables themselves. A soft vegetable such as asparagus or peas would have a lower cooking time than a hard vegetable like root vegetables such as carrots, for example. The general rule of thumb is this: if you're preparing them for a soup, it should be long enough that they are completely tender.

Warnings

Make sure hot soup remains at or above 165 °F (74 °C) during service. The risk of foodborne illness increases greatly if the soup falls below 140 °F (60 °C). Don’t allow chilled soups to remain above 40 °F (4 °C) for more than 2 hours.

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