Traditional Spanish soups and stews

Of course, we had to start our Spanish soups list, with the most famous one, the Gazpacho. This popular tomato soup, typical from Andalusia in the south of Spain, is recognized all over the world.

Gazpacho is mainly made of tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, peppers, croutons, vinegar, and the most important ingredient, which is olive oil. Gazpachos were served at first for lunch time too cool down during the summer days, but now a days they are usually served as an appetizer.

Gazpachos are super easy to make and if you manage to get some olive oil, you won´t have any problem if you want to try to make it at home.

If you are looking for a heavier stew, the Fabada Asturiana is the ideal one. This dish from the northern region of Asturias, is made of some of the most popular Spanish ingredients:  Onions, garlic, chorizo, blood sausage, salt, pepper and of course you will have to add beans and chicken or beef.

Unlike it happens with the Gazpacho, the Fabada is mainly eaten during winter days, to get warmer and comfortable. As we said at the beginning, fabadas are super heavy, so we recommend you two things, first, eat it for lunch, second and most important, don´t eat too much before having i.

If you are looking for easy Spanish soups recips, forget about cocida as it takes a lot of time. That said, if you don´t mind being patient the effort will be worth it.

Instead of cooking it with beans like the fabada, you will just need chickpeas, but other than that, the cocido requires, chorizo, meat, chicken and you can also add the blood sausage if you want as well as a few potatoes and carrots, just like the fabada.

As you may be able to tell by its name, this delicious meal is typical from the capital of Spain, Madrid.

The Spanish Garlic soup, also known as Sopa de Ajo or Sopa Castellana is one of our favorites. This delicious soup is original from Castilla Y León and although it is true that you will be able to eat it all over the country, we promise you won´t find them better than the ones they make over there.

As you can imagine, the key ingredient of this Spanish soup is garlic, but the eggs and the bread also add a special touch to it.

A fun fact about the sopa de ajo, is that it was originally made by the poor. The main reason is because it doesn´t need meat, so it is pretty cheap. It was also eaten during eastern time.

Sopa Castellana |©GM/WikiCommons

Menestra de Verduras is usually forgotten when talking about the Spanish dishes, but the truth is that it is actually very good and super healthy. As its name says, this dish is made with vegetables, so it is perfect for vegetarians or vegans.

The ingredients of this plate are usually fresh, such as peas, artichokes, green beans, olives, potatoes, white beans, turnip, or onions and asparagus. It is super easy to make and doesn´t take too much time.

Some people add slices of ham, but it isn´t really needed.  

Another super famous tomato soup in Spain is the Salmorejo. Many people confuse it with Gazpacho, but in our opinion the taste is totally different, furthermore, there are people who like one but not the other.

The biggest differences are that salmorejo is made with bread while Gazpacho need pepper and cucumbers instead. Other ingredients you need to make salmorejo are, olive oil, garlic and of course tomatoes.

Salmorejo is typical from Cordoba a stunning city in the south of Spain. It can be eaten all year long, but people prefer to have it during summertime.

This soup (actually stew) is many times confused with the popular cocido madrileño, but there are a few differences. It is true that both use chickpeas chorizo and potatoes, but if you are cooking Spanish bean soup you are going to need spices like paprika or saffron, meanwhile, in the cocido madrileño, the spices are´t that important.

This delicious stew is typical from Andalusia in the south of Spain. A fun fact about it, is that it is quite common to see schools serving this dish in their monthly menus.