Soup and sandwiches immediately sound cozy to me. I love soup, but when you’re eating it, you also want something to go with it. They’re a little heartier and a little something to chew on. And sandwiches are one of my favorite foods as well, but sometimes a sandwich just doesn’t round out a meal either.
So the perfect combination is both. You can do a half sandwich and a bowl of soup, a whole sandwich and a cup of soup. Really, it’s hard to beat. The following 23 recipes are meant to come together quick and taste great.
1) Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup
This is buttered bread toasted in a pan with cheese in the middle, typically a mild or medium cheddar or American. Served alongside a tomato soup, sometimes a creamy tomato soup.
When you’re making your grilled cheese, try to avoid a sharper cheddar cheese because it’ll tend not to melt, maybe just kind of break and separate. And what I like to do when I’m putting the butter on the bread, if the butter is too cold to spread on the bread without tearing the bread up, I’ll just throw the butter right in the pan and then set the sandwich on top of it, trying to get it right in the middle. Maybe slide it around a little to get a nice even layer.
I like to cut the grilled cheese into long rectangular strips for my youngest kid because he will dip them into a cup of the soup as opposed to a bowl and then just wind up eating all of it. If you like your tomato soup creamy, at the end just stir in a little bit of heavy cream. And if you want some heat, a little bit of sriracha goes a long way.
2) Tuna Melt
This is an open-faced sandwich with tuna salad and cheese melted on the top.
For this one, you’re gonna want to make sure not to make too wet of a tuna salad. Otherwise it can make your entire sandwich really soggy and it can be hard to get it to be warm in the middle. I like to toast my bread a little bit first in the toaster and then build my tuna melt and then put the cheese on top.
That way that crunchy bread under the tuna stands up a little bit better to the moisture. It does soften a little bit, but it winds up not cutting up your mouth when you’re eating it.
Cut your veggies up really small for your tuna salad for a better overall eating experience. And if you don’t want to cut them up with a knife, you can put them in a food processor and pulse it a few times until they’re nicely minced.
3) Fried Fish Po’Boy
This is a sandwich that is typically a long hoagie roll with fried fish or shrimp, lettuce, tomato, and a remoulade sauce or spicy mustard.
I’ll split my roll long ways when I’m making po’ boys and then toast it so it gets a nice hard crust on the top of the bread. So when you put your remoulade sauce down, or your mayo or whatever you want, and your fried fish, it doesn’t get too soggy. A quick remoulade, if you want to take Thousand Island dressing and mix a little spicy mustard and mayo in it, you’re practically almost all the way there.
When I fry fish for a sandwich like this, I like to do a nice flour and cornmeal breading on the fish, pan frying it hot in a little bit of oil, and then move it to some paper towels to drain before putting it on the sandwich.
4) Ham and Cheese Sliders
These are mini ham and cheese sandwiches made on tiny buns.
When I make ham and cheese, I like to take my thinly sliced deli ham, fry it in a pan chopped up, and then melt the cheese right over top of that before adding it to the sandwich. You could do the same thing here for the sliders. Just take all your slider bun bottoms and arrange them on a sheet pan. Pile all your ham on top and then your cheese and broil the entire thing for a couple minutes, and then put all the tops right on top and pull them apart.
This one would be really good with a little side of cranberry jam or some sort of spicy chutney. When I have a ham and cheese, I also like to take a few plain or salt and vinegar potato chips and pull the sandwich apart once it’s hot and sneak those in there for some extra crunch.
5) Beans on Toast
This is a classic from England of stewed beans that have been cooked down until they’re nice and mushy, spread on top of crispy toast.
I think this one’s begging for some bacon or some sort of ham product in it. I would probably dice up some bacon and cook it till crispy, then add my beans to that, and maybe even a can of diced tomatoes along with it, and cook that down into a nice hearty stew.
Make sure the toast is nice and crispy and well done so it can hold up to the bean mash. A little bit of arugula and goat cheese on top, even though it’s not traditional, is a really nice fresh tanginess to cut through the richness of the beans.
6) Avocado Toast
This is toasted bread with mashed up avocado on top of it, either mixed with or topped with anything that you would like.
I personally like to make something similar to a simple guacamole for avocado toast, and I will take avocado, mash it up with lime juice and salt, garlic and fresh jalapeno, and then spread that on the toast.
You can really add anything you want to this. Another nice option is to toast your bread and then put some slices of crispy bacon on and then put the avocado on top. The crispiness really contrasts the avocado and the saltiness goes really well with the fattiness.
7) Sardine and Tomato Toast
This is toast with whole sardines, tomato and lemon.
I think I would take the sardines and smash them up with a fork a little bit to give more of a salad consistency, like a tuna salad, than just the whole sardines, making it a little bit easier to eat without biting off a whole big piece of fish. I think a little bit of cream cheese or goat cheese down on the bread first too would also give the sardines something to stick to and a little bit more richness to help with the saltiness.
You could also sprinkle some capers on it, reminiscent of lox, or some red onion, or maybe a little bit of arugula. Some fresh dill sprinkled on top too could also help cut through all the intense flavors.
8) Ricotta Toast
This is toasted sourdough bread that has had ricotta spread on top of it that you can top in either a sweet or a savory presentation.
Ricotta naturally lends itself to be sweet, and what I would do instead of putting honey on top of the cheese on the bread, I would mix the honey in with the ricotta first, possibly whipping it in a mixer or food processor before putting it on top of the toast. And then a few fresh berries like blueberries or blackberries would really tie it together.
For a savory version of this I’d probably do something like prosciutto and black pepper and the ricotta and maybe some fresh basil. Ricotta naturally tends to be a little bit grainy too, so if you’re not into that sort of flavor, you could just put it in a food processor and blend it until it’s nice and smooth.
9) Turkey Hummus Wrap
This is a large tortilla spread with hummus and then layered with turkey and rolled up with whatever veggies you have.
I think you could do some cheese on this one too. Put your hummus down first and then a few slices of cheese, maybe a pepper jack, and then your turkey. Rolling it up with either lettuce or cabbage or shredded carrots, something to add a little bit of crunch to go with all the softer textures.
I like to do a spicy hummus. I think that would be really good with this, and you can also do a spicier turkey from your grocery store deli. Cucumber would also be a really good fresh addition.
You could serve this with a leftover hummus as well as some carrot sticks or other veggies to dip it in for a healthy side dish.
10) Chicken Salad on Sourdough
This is a salad of shredded chicken breast stacked high on sourdough toast.
I like to shred up my chicken breast and mix it with mayonnaise, a little bit of dried cranberry and some celery, salt and pepper. This makes a really nice balanced chicken salad.
When you’re putting it on the toast, make sure you don’t do too hard of a toast on the sourdough or it can start to cut up the roof of your mouth. Arugula is a really good base to put on your toast as well underneath the chicken salad, because no matter how much stuff you pile on it, it still maintains its crunch.
However you decide to cook your chicken breast, the easiest way I’ve ever found to shred them up is to just use the back of two forks and press down on the chicken and pull them back and forth, alternating from right to left, and it just pulls the chicken apart into nice shreds.
11) Broccoli Cheddar Soup
This is a classic cheese soup with broccoli added to it. This one goes excellent with crackers or some crusty bread as well.
When you’re picking your cheese for this, or any cheese soup or cheese sauce, stick with things in the milder range as far as age goes on the cheddar, because sharper cheddars have a harder time melting whereas mild and medium melt really well. You can also use a few slices of American cheese. The emulsifying salts in the American cheese will help your liquid stay nice and creamy and not separate and break at all.
I like to cut my broccoli up really small and then just add it in at the last few minutes when the soup is just about done.
I’ll take shredded carrot and shredded onion, saute them in butter and garlic, and then build my cheese sauce around that with a flour-based roux with butter and then milk. In this case, you want to turn your heat down and bring it back up nice and slow. Lots of milk and shredded cheese. Stirring that together, then you add your broccoli and cook it until it’s just thick and ready to go.
12) French Onion Soup
This is as classic as it gets. A soup, a rich brown broth with sauteed caramelized onions that take all day to cook.
The trick with this is doing more onions than you would think. You don’t have to cut them perfectly. Do your best to julienne them, but they’re going to cook down to almost nothing so it doesn’t have to be perfect. Cook your onions in butter and oil with a little bit of salt on medium low, and you’re going to want to try to put as much time into it as you can until you get a really nice jammy consistency out of your onions, and then you build your soup around that.
A flavor trick for French onion soup that people often miss is white wine or dry sherry. Once you’re cooking your onions and you want to pull a little bit of the fond, which is the burned crispy bits off of the bottom, splash a little bit of dry sherry in there and then build your soup and it’ll give you fantastic authentic flavor.
I like to do dried thyme and bay leaves in this one too while I’m cooking it down. And instead of the whole mess with melting the cheese on top of the soup, I just put a little cheese in the bottom of the bowl, ladle the soup over, and then sprinkle a little more on top and serve it with toasted bread.
13) Lentil Soup
This is a brothy soup with tomatoes, lentils, vegetables, and greens.
When I make lentil soup, I tend to make more of a Lebanese version of it, which is carrots and onions and celery in green or red lentils cooked in stock until it becomes almost like a split pea soup consistency.
Always give your lentils a good rinse in the sink before you add them to your soup, because sometimes small rocks can make it through the screening process and you do not want to try to eat one of those. I’ve found that this soup takes on lots of lemon and still tastes really great, and also more often than not the flavor is a little bit better the next day than the night you make it.
14) Butternut Squash Soup
This is a creamy silky butternut squash soup that always makes me think of fall.
For this you want to cube up your squash and season it however you’d like. I prefer a little salt and pepper and chili powder on there to balance out the sweetness, and then roast it in the oven until it gets a nice golden brown color on the outside.
The sugars in the squash will caramelize and help you with that, and then you’re going to build your soup around that knowing that at the end you’re going to puree it, so it doesn’t necessarily matter how big the pieces are or how evenly they’re cut.
This one’s really good finished with some fresh herbs like oregano or thyme that have been chopped up, a little drizzle of olive oil on the top of the soup, and a little scoop of either sour cream or Greek yogurt.
15) Chicken Noodle Soup
This is a soup usually with onion, carrot, celery and either shredded or cubed up chicken in a chicken broth, finished or accompanied by egg noodles or a similar type of pasta.
Cook your noodles on the side. That’s kind of a rule I do for any soup that has noodles in it. Just cook them separately, store them separately and add them to each bowl as you heat it up, otherwise they’ll take up too much liquid and kind of turn to mush on you.
I’ve found I have the best luck making chicken noodle soup with a rotisserie chicken straight from the grocery store, but a little trick I like to do is I’ll peel as much of the skin off of the breast as I can, cut it up really really small, and then fry it in the soup pot on high heat to get a lot of that roasted chicken fat flavor.
16) Chicken Tortilla Soup
This is a chicken and spicy tomato broth based soup typically served with tortilla strips and shredded cheese.
I like to roast my peppers and onions and tomatoes in the oven for this one along with my chicken, because I find that roasting it gets you a much better depth of flavor for something leaning towards southwestern and Mexican cuisine. I’ll put lots of smoked paprika and chili powder, either more of the paprika or more of the chili powder depending on the heat level people can tolerate who are coming to eat.
I also like to do lots of dried cilantro on this one too. I find that it’s just easier to have dried on hand because sometimes fresh doesn’t keep that well, and with this you’re not missing the difference.
Usually this is served with tortilla strips, but really I don’t think anyone’s going to know the difference if you crush up some tortilla chips and sprinkle those on top. I also like sour cream and shredded cheese and hot sauce.
17) Tuscan Sausage and Kale Soup
This is a tomatoey and brothy soup made with browned sausage and kale and beans.
I would put a parmesan rind in this soup if I had it and let it cook away in there and then take it out at the end to add extra flavor. Stick with something like a cannellini bean or other white bean for this because they tend to be really soft, and add them sort of towards the end so they don’t completely fall apart.
You can just rinse your kale and tear it up by hand into smallish sort of pieces, throw it in towards the end of the cooking process, and it’ll break down or wilt just enough to be perfect for eating. I like to finish this one with a drizzle of olive oil and tons of parmesan cheese.
18) Vegetable Soup
This is a stock-based soup using whatever vegetables you’ve got in the fridge that you need to get through.
I like to do stock, like chicken stock and veggie stock, in the paste form as opposed to the pre-made cartons, because then I can really amp up or down the amount of flavor that I add to the water. And this is a perfect example of that for veggie soup. You want a really strong vegetable broth because the veggies aren’t going to carry that much flavor. Even if you do roast them or saute them, it’s hard to get a ton of flavor into this one.
Beans would be a great addition to this veggie soup too, like a red bean or a cannellini bean or even a great northern bean. In addition to the stock, I would probably do a fire roasted diced tomato to kind of lean more towards a minestrone style broth.
19) Tomato Sausage Cream Soup
This is a tomato soup with the addition of roasted or pan-fried sausage as well as cream to make it creamy.
I think this one’s begging for crushed red pepper and basil. Brown your sausage in the pan, crumble it but not too much, and then save all that extra fat before you roast tomatoes and onions in it. Set your sausage aside and then build your soup around that, puree it, then add the chunks of sausage back in.
I think you could get away with a gourmet grilled cheese on the side with this one too because you’re amping up the soup with the sausage. You could do a grilled cheese that has muenster and gruyere and provolone or anything like that. A little bit bolder flavors that aren’t going to necessarily be for the kids, but the soup isn’t either, so that’s perfect.
20) Bean Soup with Toast
This is a bean soup with stock and sweet potato added for more flavor, served with toast on the side.
If you’ve got a ham hock laying around, this is a great use for it. I tend to keep some in the freezer if I do wind up getting bone-in ham, but this you can throw in the bottom of your bean pot and saute it around a little bit and build your stock around it before you pull it out and then cook your beans.
You could also do aromatics like onions, carrots, and celery or leeks and cook those before you add your beans, and then cook them all day long to get a nice hearty bean stew. Smoked sausage that you slice up thin and pan fry just for a few minutes is a great addition to add on the top of this too for some extra low budget protein.
Make sure your toast is structurally sturdy and toasted well so it holds up to the beans.
21) Green Pea Soup
This is pea soup that’s intentionally cooked in a way to maintain its vibrant bright green color. This one uses stock and frozen peas, and as soon as the frozen peas are hot the cooking process is stopped and the soup is blended to keep it from turning too dark green of a color.
I feel like if you fry up some bacon bits to nice crispy pieces and sprinkle them on top at the end with a little drizzle of sour cream, it’d be perfect.
Fresh greens like parsley or even mint mixed in at the end in a small amount can really help to amplify the fresh green pea flavor.
22) Tuscan Vegetable Bean Soup
This is a hearty stew made with beans and vegetables cooked in broth with parmesan cheese, served with toast rubbed with garlic.
Cook all your vegetables first and then add your beans in, and then your liquid, parmesan rind if you have it, and then your kale at the end, to reduce down the liquid until your soup is nice and thick.
If you find that it’s not quite thick enough, take a couple cups out and set them in a small sauce pot and then blend it with an immersion blender and pour it back in and mix it into the entire batch. This can also help to amplify the flavor of your soup if it’s not quite as punchy as you’d like.
I would probably just make straight up garlic bread from the grocery store to serve on the side with this. If you don’t have that, just split a loaf of bread long ways. Some salted butter and a little bit of garlic powder and cheese goes a long way.
23) Chicken Soup with Crusty Bread
This is a slow cooked chicken and broth soup served with bread.
This one you can keep nice and simple and cook the chicken in the chicken broth at a nice low simmer with some aromatics, maybe some leeks or green onion, until the chicken is starting to fall apart, and then shred it up. Mix it back into the liquid and maybe add a few veggies, but not much. You want to keep this one light. Celery and carrot would be great in this as well.
This would also be a really good use for wild rice in a soup. Just add a cup of wild rice to your soup in the last half an hour of the cooking process, and once the rice is done, it’s time to take it off.
Finish this with some fresh herbs and also a nice light salad on the side. It would go great with your crispy crusty bread heel.
