Chicken and leek barley soup
A warm chicken soup with soft leeks, carrots and pearl barley.
About 55 min · 405 kcal · 36 g protein per serving
Pea, mint and cottage cheese soup
A smooth pea soup with mint and blended cottage cheese.
By The foodose editorial team. Nutrition calculated from USDA FoodData Central. Checked on paper on 12 September 2026; not yet cooked in a test kitchen or photographed, so the times and yield are estimates. How we develop our recipes
What still needs a real kitchen
- Confirm the soup blends smooth
- Photograph the finished bowls
- Time
- About 30 min
- estimated
- Serves
- 2
- see below
- Energy
- 320 kcal
- per serving
- Protein
- 22 g
- per serving
Ingredients for 2 servings
Check off ingredients as you go.
Contains milk. Check the labels on packaged ingredients:
- vegetable stock. Vegetable stock often contains celery, and some contain milk or gluten; check the label, especially if you need it vegan.
Cooking steps
Warm the oil in a large pan and cook the onion for 5 minutes.
Add the potato and stock and simmer for 12 minutes, until tender.
Add the peas and cook for 3 minutes, no longer, so they keep their colour.
Take the pan off the heat, add the cottage cheese and mint and blend until smooth, filling the blender no more than half full.
Warm it through gently without boiling and serve.
The useful detail
Add mint at the end rather than simmering it for the full cooking time. Cooked long, mint tastes stewed and loses the sharpness that makes this soup work.
Make it work for you
One serving is A large bowl, half the pan. You can switch to a smaller portion in the ingredients above; it is three quarters of this, and it contains correspondingly less energy and protein. It is an option, not a goal.
Ricotta instead of cottage cheese
Smoother and richer, and it blends more easily.
Per serving: about 50 kcal more, about 4 g less protein, about 6 g more fat.
Silken tofu for a vegan soup
Milder, and it keeps the soup smooth.
Per serving: about 35 kcal less, about 4 g less protein, about 1 g less fat.
Allergens: Removes milk; adds soya.
Basil instead of mint
Rounder and less sharp against the peas.
Per serving: about the same energy, about the same protein, about the same fat.
Estimated nutrition
Per standard serving, calculated from the ingredients above. Nutrition changes with substitutions, brands and how much oil stays in the pan.
A green soup with a high protein figure for something so light, because 200 g of cottage cheese is blended into it.
| Energy | 320 kcal |
|---|---|
| Protein | 22 g |
| Fat | 8 g |
| of which saturates | 2 g |
| Carbohydrate | 41 g |
| of which sugars | 15 g |
| Fibre | 9 g |
| Sodium | 1,380 mg |
Show calculation notes
Each ingredient’s weight is multiplied by its USDA FoodData Central values per 100 g. The whole recipe is added up and divided by 2. Raw weights are used for meat, fish and vegetables; beans and lentils are drained weights. All of the oil is counted as eaten. Added salt is not included; sodium from stock, bread, cheese and tinned food is.
| Ingredient | Weight used | Source | Energy | Protein |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| olive oil | 4.5 g | FDC 171413Oil, olive, salad or cooking | 40 kcal | 0.0 g |
| onion | 60 g | FDC 170000Onions, raw | 24 kcal | 0.7 g |
| potatoes | 100 g | FDC 170026Potatoes, flesh and skin, raw | 77 kcal | 2.0 g |
| vegetable stock | 590 g | FDC 171583Soup, vegetable broth, ready to serve | 29 kcal | 1.4 g |
| frozen peas | 350 g | FDC 170016Peas, green, frozen, unprepared (Includes foods for USDA's Food Distribution Program) | 270 kcal | 18.3 g |
| cottage cheese | 200 g | FDC 172179Cheese, cottage, creamed, large or small curd | 196 kcal | 22.2 g |
| fresh mint | 5 g | FDC 173475Spearmint, freshFresh mint is 44 kcal per 100 g on FoodData Central 173475, so the few grams a recipe uses add 2 kcal at most. That record has no sugars value, so the mint is listed here rather than counted, which keeps the recipe's sugars calculable. | · | · |
| Whole recipe | Divided by 2 | 636 kcal | 44.6 g |
Per serving the energy is rounded to the nearest 5 kcal, grams to the nearest whole gram and sodium to the nearest 10 mg. Ingredients marked “Not calculated” are excluded and could add at most 3 kcal to the whole recipe. Calculation method 1.0, September 2026. How the calculation works.
Storage and reheating
- In the fridge
- Cool it quickly, cover and refrigerate within 2 hours. The FDA chart gives soups and stews 3 to 4 days. Reheat it gently; boiling makes the cottage cheese grainy.
- In the freezer
- The same chart gives soups and stews 2 to 3 months in the freezer for best quality.
- Reheating
- Reheat until it reaches 74°C / 165°F, steaming hot throughout, stirring so it heats evenly.
Checked against US Food and Drug Administration, Refrigerator and Freezer Storage Chart, USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, Leftovers and Food Safety, FoodSafety.gov, Safe Minimum Internal Temperatures and FoodSafety.gov, Cold Food Storage Chart. UK guidance from the Food Standards Agency is shorter, at two days for most leftovers.
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