Fix Runny Soup With One Simple Ingredient

With so many soup recipes worldwide, there are many different ways to whip up a hearty bowl of soup, but some are not meant to be watery despite having a liquid base. Take some of those simple three-ingredient fall soups, for example — they usually contain a stock of some kind, which gives a rich texture. A runny soup means something has gone wrong down the line, and how do you fix that? There are, thankfully, lots of ways to thicken soups, stews, and sauces for a better consistency. Stephanie Loaiza from Six Sisters' Stuff exclusively shared a fairly simple suggestion with The Takeout: Add breadcrumbs to the soup. It's a great way to thicken the liquid because breadcrumbs are made of starch, which is a tried-and-true thickening agent.

Many methods for thickening soup involve adding cornstarch, but the breadcrumb method is just as simple. Loaiza said, "Adding the breadcrumbs at the beginning of cooking would give them more time to break down and absorb the liquid so that the texture isn't grainy or too noticeable."

If breadcrumbs work, then can you also use slices of bread? "In a pinch, you could also use pieces of bread," Loaiza shared. However, just like with the breadcrumbs, they would need to go in prior to simmering because the starches will soak up the liquid and swell up when they're added to hot liquids, so adding them early allows them more time to react with the soup. You'll see the bread disintegrate into the soup, but a slice of bread won't dissolve as easily as crumbs will.

There are a couple of big advantages of adding breadcrumbs to soup. First and foremost, bread goes well with nearly any soup, compared to some other commonly used soup thickeners with more specific flavors like beans and chickpeas (which also have to be ground up because the starch is in the center). The other advantage is that you have full control over how many breadcrumbs you add and how rich your soup becomes, though this is also possible with some other thickeners. This gives you lots of freedom to add a little, taste test, and then keep sprinkling breadcrumbs if needed.

If you don't have breadcrumbs on hand and don't want to buy them, there's a trick involving your stale bread, giving you another chance to repurpose it. Grind up the bread with a food processor, and the resulting crumbs will fix up your soup. If your soup is still not at the right consistency after that, a blender is a surprisingly good kitchen appliance for thickening soups, partly because it mixes those starches even more. More mixed-in starch leads to thicker soups.