Always start a soup with fresh, cold water.
You can adjust many of these recipes to work in a pressure cooker or instant pot to get a Eastern Europe delicious soup recipe on the table more quickly.
Russian soups are a good way to kick off any foray into Russian cooking.
They are forgiving, authentic tasting, and any version of borscht will be a good starter to many other Eastern European recipes.
A Polish version with chopped onion and bone stock is featured below, but any of these national dishes of Russian, while perhaps an acquired taste, can be tweaked to suit your palate.
This traditional Russian soup recipe is a cabbage soup that is made using beef broth.
It is made with onion, potatoes, cabbage and tomatoes or tomato paste. It is seasoned with bay leaves.
The tomato sauce and saute onion add richness in flavor, then and it is recommended to top it with fresh dill and sour cream.
If you used a vegetable stock instead of beef broth you could actually make a vegetarian version of this soup.
I suggest serving this sour shchi soup with a little bit of toasted rye bread.
This is an acidic soup with a meat broth as the base. It is made from beef kidneys, potatoes and pickled cucumbers.
It is seasoned with pear barley, onion carrots and cucumber brine. It has bay leaf and salt and pepper as well.
A cold soup can be quite refreshing, especially in the summer. This soup has some of my favorite veggies in it.
It is a crunchy soup made with radishes and potatoes and fresh herbs.
It is a pretty soup that is filled with fresh dill, chives and chopped green onion.
You can add some sausage to it if you want to make it extra hearty.
4. Sorrel Soup
This is a classic Ukrainian / Russian soup. This is a sour soup that is loaded with potatoes, sorrel greens, hard boiled eggs, carrots and onions.
This is a seriously hearty soup. It is recommended that you keep it on low heat and serve it with a big ol’ dollop of sour cream.
Sorrel is a tangy and acidic green leafy vegetable. This is a famous Russian soup that is made in quite a few variations.
Give this one a try and let us know what you think.
We love handmade and homemade meatballs. Normally, we make this for our family Italian dishes.
But here you can make it for this Russian soup dish. The meatballs are made with ground beef and pork.
They are seasoned with onion, garlic, parsley and salt and pepper. These seasons complement the meat really well.
This soup base is a chicken broth and of course true to Russian tastes, it is seasoned with bay leaf and other spices.
Top with a squeeze of lemon juice for each bowl at serving.
You may not initially think that mushroom soup could be hearty but in the case of this Russian soup, you would be wrong.
This soup is made with dried mushrooms, barley and veggies. It turns out that Russians knew how full of flavor dried mushrooms could be.
They would hunt for mushrooms in the summer months and dry them out in the sun. Then in the winter they would use them to make this hearty soup.
If you want to experiment with a soup, this is a perfect one to use as your foundation.
You can add wild rice, grains such as farro or even consider adding sausage to the recipe.
This is a delicious soup recipe that I could envision serving at a winter dinner party.
Beets are the star and main ingredient of this soup and the moment that you see it in your bowl you will know why.
It is bright red. It is actually quite a beautiful soup.
This soup is hearty, like many other Russian recipes. This is made with beef stock, beets, fresh cabbage and potatoes.
For this recipe you will start off making your own stock from scratch. Then you will make the Borscht.
Set aside about 30 minutes to put this all together and then it can cook on the stovetop in a large pot for a few hours from there.
Give this Russian borscht soup a real go. This is some seriously real Russian cuisine that is worth trying.
The star of this soup is the pelmeni. Pelmeni are Russian dumplings. The dumplings in this soup are stuffed with beef, chicken and spices.
It is recommended that you use whatever veggies you have on hand to make this soup.
If you have Bok Choy, use it. If you have spinach use it.
I love recipes like this because they serve as a foundation and allow you to use what you have and get a bit creative at the same time.
Plus dumpling soup is just such a comforting soup. So pull out a large pot and get to making some Russian soup.
This is a truly ancient Russian version of soup recipe. It is called Ukha and is believed to have been around since the 12th century.
So clearly if it has been around for that long it must be worth trying out.
The soup is spiced up using onion, carrots, veggies such as potatoes and black peppercorns.
Be careful because peppercorns can sneak up on you provide what can feel like a medium heat in the spice levels.
I think that the use of black peppercorns makes this a bit of a uniquely flavored soup. I love black pepper and I don’t use fresh peppercorns enough.
I see leeks at the grocery store and for years and years I always passed them.
Honestly, I just didn’t know what to do with them.
I knew that they were root vegetables but that was all that I knew.
Well, it turns out that Russian cooks knew what to do with them the entire time.
They use them in soups. So combining them with potatoes and mushrooms makes them a star in this hearty winter soup.
This is a rich and creamy soup. You will not walk away hungry from this one. This soup is your meal.
The bottom line
Most if not all of these traditional Russian cabbage soup goes great with cabbage rolls and other Russian cuisine.
Here in the United States, a sour soup with rye bread may not be the first things that come to mind as a hearty meal, but the best way to discover new recipes is to experiment in the kitchen.
If you are familiar with Russian and Ukrainian cooking, though, this list will give you a little bit of a reminder that vegetable stock, chicken broth, beef bones, stew meat or whole fish and a large stock pot can come together with just a few ingredients and make a hot soup you will come to enjoy.
These soups are also really good the next day. There are infinite varieties of thick soup, traditional soup with a clear broth, and more.
We hope this list helps you pick a Russian soup to try.
Russian Soups
Are you curious about Russian soups? What are the best Russian soups? We’ve got you covered here.
Ingredients
- Shchi (Russian Cabbage Soup)
- Russian Rassolnik Soup
- Okroshka (Russian Cold Soup)
- Sorrel Soup
- Russian Meatball Soup
- Russian Mushroom Soup
- Borscht Soup
- Dumpling Soup
- Russian Fish Soup
- Russian Potato And Mushroom Leek Soup
Instructions
- Pick a soup from the recipe list
- Follow the directions and make it
- Enjoy every bite