Weight Loss Vegetable Soup — Trying to shed some pounds or get healthier? Try this easy, flavorful soup that’s ready in 30 minutes and loaded with veggies!! Very filling and hearty! Zero WW Smart Points!!
Healthy Vegetable Soup Recipe
How are those New Year’s resolutions going? This low-calorie soup will help anyone who’s fallen off the wagon, or who never got on the wagon, get back on.
It may not be a magic bullet for weight loss, but it’s a good start. I’m not trying to lose weight but I use this vegetable soup as a way to incorporate many of the ingredients I’d put on a salad into soup form.
I appreciate warm soups much more than cold salads during the winter. The soup was so hot it kept steaming up my camera lens.
I love how healthy I feel with this filling, satisfying veggie soup that’s easy and ready in about 30 minutes. It’s naturally vegan and gluten-free. There’s texture and flavor galore. My daughter and I could eat it every day and not tire of it.
It’s loaded with healthy, hearty vegetables and is naturally low in calories and sodium while being high in fiber and nutrients. If you follow Weight Watchers (which I have never done and don’t know much about) it’s a Zero Smart Points soup. A total freebie. I don’t know the exact nutritional breakdown, but there are online calculators you can use to plug in the recipe data if you’re interested.
What’s in Vegetable Soup?
To make this weight loss soup recipe, you’ll need:
- Olive oil
- Vidalia onion
- Celery
- Garlic
- Green cabbage
- Bell peppers
- Green beans
- Carrots
- Mushrooms
- Vegetable broth
- Diced tomatoes
- Herbs and spices
- Broccoli
- Zucchini
- Salt and pepper
- Lemon juice
How to Make Vegetable Soup
Sauté the celery and onion in an oiled stockpot until softened. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant.
Add in the cabbage, peppers, carrots, green beans, and mushrooms, and sauté until the vegetables begin to soften. Next, add in the vegetable broth, diced tomatoes, herbs, and spices.
Add in the broccoli, zucchini, and lemon juice last and cook just until they’re crisp-tender. Then, dish up the veggie soup and enjoy.
Here’s a video showing how to make vegetable soup:
Can I Freeze Vegetable Soup?
Yes, this low-calorie vegetable soup can be frozen for up to 6 months.
Can I Make This in a CrockPot?
If you made this healthy vegetable soup recipe in the CrockPot, I fear that everything would turn into a mushy mess. If timing is an issue for you, I would wait to make this on the stove when you have time and then reheat for dinner or lunch by the bowlful throughout the week.
Tips for Making the Best Vegetable Soup
If you want to bump up the protein, adding edamame or a can of beans such as garbanzo, cannellini, or kidney is great, noting it won’t be zero points at that point, but still extremely healthy, low-cal, and low-fat.
This vegetable soup recipe is a great soup to clean out your produce drawer with. Mix and match with the veggies and herbs you have on hand and enjoy.
The ingredient list is on the longer side, but if you don’t have something, don’t like something, or want to use something else instead, go for it.
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Weight Loss Vegetable Soup
Trying to shed some pounds or get healthier? Try this easy, flavorful soup that's ready in 30 minutes and loaded with veggies!! Very filling and hearty! Zero WW Smart Points!!
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 cups sweet Vidalia or yellow onion, peeled and diced small (about 1 large onion)
- 1 cup celery, diced small (about 2 stalks)
- 4 garlic cloves, peeled and finely minced
- 4 cups green cabbage, sliced into thin ribbons (about 1/4 to 1/2 head depending on size)
- 1 medium/large red bell pepper, seeded, trimmed, and diced small
- 1 medium/large yellow or orange bell pepper, seeded, trimmed, and diced small
- 1 cup carrots, peeled, trimmed, and sliced thin (about 1 1/2 large carrots)
- 1 cup green beans, trimmed into 1-inch pieces (I prefer fresh but frozen may be substituted)
- 1 cup sliced mushrooms (baby portobello, white, or your favorite)
- 64 ounces (8 cups) low-sodium vegetable broth
- one 15-ounce can petite-diced tomatoes (I use low-sodium)
- 1 1/2 cups edamame or one 15-ounce cans garbanzo, cannellini, or kidney beans, drained and rinsed; optional (I use low-sodium beans)
- 3 bay leaves
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
- pinch cayenne pepper, optional and to taste
- 2 to 3 teaspoons salt, or to taste
- 1 teaspoon black pepper, or to taste
- 3 cups broccoli florets
- 2 cups zucchini, diced small (about 1 1/2 large zucchini)
- 1 to 2 tablespoons lemon juice, optional (brightens up the flavor)
Instructions
- To a large Dutch oven or stockpot, add the oil, onion, celery, and sauté over medium-high heat for about 7 minutes, or until vegetables begin to soften. Stir intermittently.
- Add the garlic and sauté for another 1 to 2 minutes. Stir intermittently.
- Add the cabbage, peppers, carrots, green beans, mushrooms, and sauté for another 5 minutes, or until vegetables begin to soften. Stir intermittently.
- Add the vegetable broth, diced tomatoes, optional beans or edamame, bay leaves, cumin, oregano, thyme, rosemary, optional cayenne, salt, pepper, and bring to a boil. Allow mixture to boil gently for about 5 minutes.
- Add the broccoli, zucchini, optional lemon juice, and boil 3 to 5 minutes, or until broccoli and zucchini are crisp-tender. Remove bay leaves.
- Taste soup and add additional salt, pepper, or herbs, to taste. Amount of salt will vary based on how salty the brand of vegetable broth used is, how salty the canned tomatoes and optional beans are, and personal preference. At any time while making the soup, if the overall liquid level is lower than you like and you prefer more broth, adding a cup or two of water is okay, noting you can always adjust the salt and seasoning levels.
- Serve immediately.
Notes
- Soup will keep airtight in the fridge for 5 to 7 days or in the freezer for up to 6 months.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
10Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 367Total Fat: 9gSaturated Fat: 1gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 6gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 5068mgCarbohydrates: 58gFiber: 14gSugar: 21gProtein: 18g
Nutrition information isn’t always accurate and is computer-generated. In this case, I believe all stats are a bit artificially elevated, especially the sodium. If you want to know more exact values, calculating manually using your exact brand of ingredients and quantities is my suggestion.
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Check out Holly’s Weight Loss Vegetable Soup and Fav Family Recipes Weight Loss Magic Soup
Recipe is not intended as medical advice nor will it guarantee weight loss. I am not a registered dietician and am simply sharing a recipe I enjoy. As always, use common sense.
Recipe originally published January 20, 2016 and republished January 15, 2020 with updated text.
I keep coming back to this recipe when I feel vegetable deprived (often) cuz it’s so delicious — but is there a feasible way to try and halve the recipe without wasting a bunch of veggies or canned tomatoes? It just makes such a huge batch and I cook for one…
Yes I would just halve things down the middle. It’s a very flexible recipe so I wouldn’t worry too much if you use slightly more/less that half the called-for amount.
For those concerned about salt, most soups are loaded with it if you didn’t already know that. Common sense tells me to use low sodium everything in this recipe, especially any canned veggies and broth. Rinse your canned vegetables to remove some of the sodium, although they sell LOW SODIUM canned goods IF you didn’t already know that. There’s a plethora of options at the grocery store. Keep up the great work Averie!
Thanks for the 5 star review and thanks for your advice to others regarding salt! I say this often, in other posts, but not everyone reads every single thing, and sometimes I feel like a broken record, so I don’t repeat it all, and it’s nice to have someone else say it too :)
And yes for anyone who didn’t already know, the reason most (all) commercially prepared, canned, or restaurant soups taste good is because they’re loaded with salt!
Hi Averie,
Love your recipes!Would like to make weight loss vegetable soup.According to nutritional info The sodium content is over 5000 mg.Does it really contain 5000 mg per serving?
I addressed this already right underneath the stats if you want to reread that.
Thank you for your quick response.Thought maybe Sodium content was a typo.I did read your statement below the nutritional info but thought even if printed info was exaggerated sodium content would have been still quite high .
Just wanted to check as ingredients you use don’t seem to justify such a high sodium content.
Hey Avery, this looks good.
How about the Instant Pot? What do you typically do to convert your recipes to be done there?
Thank you!
Yoga with Gail
Since this is a recipe that cooks in 25 mins on the stove, there’s not much more you can do to speed that up haha and I recommend making on the stove.
I am not a big Instant Pot person. I have one but don’t use it too much. I think of IP recipes as meat, beans that need to cook, etc. but for a quick little stovetop soup, just make it stovetop.
I think my son n daughter in law would love this soup but what could she switch out for the cabbage, mushrooms and the zucchini with also neither one of them can have onions as it upsets their stomached way too much. If u could help me out with this I would greatly appreciate it. She is also on the Weight Watchers diet so this could help her out a lot.
Thanks
Merry
Wonderful – hope they enjoy it!
Is the nutrition info correct? 459 calories per SERVING?
I updated the stats and I do think they are a bit artificially high but it’s a computer generated program and I don’t have time to calculate this by hand but feel free and then post with your findings!
Great combination of veggies and herbs! My kids typically hate cabbage in soup, but they loved this soup. Thanks, Averie!
Thanks for the 5 star review and great to hear that even the kids are good with the cabbage in this soup and that they loved it overall!
Wow, this was great! With all those veggies, I was just hoping it would be tolerable so I could get my daily veggies in super easy (I hate vegetables!). But this was delicious. I did half beef broth and half veggie broth, but this was so very yummy. Growing up we used to put ketchup in beef broth soup, so I put a small squirt in my bowl about halfway through eating it and it gave it a new and wonderful flavor as well (but maybe less of the healthiness). Thanks so much for this recipe! Easy to make!
Thanks for the 5 star review and glad this was delicious even though you hate vegetables! And if all it took was a squirt of ketchup to make it even better, no problem is what I say!
I’m going to be adding this to the regular rotation. I had low expectations because of how healthy it looked. But it was delicious, and filling (we had it with crusty bread). It felt nice to fill up on nutritious veggies without anything to feel guilty over.
Thanks for the five star review and I’m glad that it definitely exceeded your expectations and that it will be going into your regular rotation!
Absolutely delicious, healthy & filling. I added a can of garbanzo beans and a cup of edamame for protein. I also subbed asparagus for green beans. Will make this again and again!
Thanks for the five star review and I’m glad you will make it again and again! The garbanzos and edamame as well as the asparagus sound great!
DELICIOUS
Thanks for the 5 star review and I’m glad it was delish!
Can you make this in a crockpot? And if so how long?
I have only made it as written and am not sure about what to do or how to alter it to suit a Crock Pot. It’s such a fast and easy soup that I wouldn’t bother with a slow cooker personally.
How many calories in a1 cup serving??
Nutrition info is listed underneath the directions.
I have not made this yet. But I did just make my shopping list. I am wondering if rutabaga could be used in the soup?
Probably – it’s a very versatile soup.
Easy and tasty recipe. I added chicken breasts for protein.
Glad it was tasty and easy for you.
Yum! Totally trying this next week! It looks delicious!
Paige
http://thehappyflammily.com
This soup looks amazing! If I wanted to make the broth a bit more ‘tomatoey’ could I swap out some of the broth and add V8 or Garden Cocktail juice to it?
Yes you probably could do that if you want it more tomatoey.
This sounds wonderful. I am getting ready to print this. I got an insta pot for Christmas and was wondering if it could be made in this pot? Thank you
I have never made it in an Instant Pot and this soup is already really fast and easy and I would just make it as written.
I made this recipe today. the taste was awesome and perfect for this winter.
I’m glad it turned out great for you!
I made this today (Sun) and it was awesome! Very filling and really tasty, made enough for at least 4more meals!
I’m glad that you enjoyed it and have leftovers for future meals to enjoy.
I love this recipe! I change it up a little based on my pickiness, though, so I take out the green beans and broccoli, add an extra can of beans, and I also add ground turkey!
Glad you love it and it’s a very flexible recipe and glad you have adapted it to your liking!
I loved this soup. I used 1/2 bag of coleslaw mix instead of buying a whole head of cabbage.
Sounds like a great shortcut and glad you loved the soup!
I was looking for some new soup recipes for the Winter months and stumbled across your site. So glad I did too! These recipes look so good and are different from the usual recipes online. Thank you so much for your efforts and sharing.
Also, I used to get a little overwhelmed when recipes had a long list of herbs and spices, many of which I didn’t keep on hand. Then I realized that pretty much any store bought version of Italian Seasoning incorporated most of those herbs and spices in one blend. Now, I buy it in the large containers and use it for most of my recipes. Try it and see what you think.
Glad you loved the soup and thanks for the Italian seasoning tip. I knew that (but forgot) and I’m sure others reading this will enjoy the info.
Do you think this will turn out ok if I put everything in the crockpot? It would be in there about 12 hours (I work 2 jobs) I don’t cook much so I apologize if this is a dumb question.
I fear that everything would turn into a mushy mess. I would honestly just make it on the stove when you have time, or even make a double batch of it if you want, and then reheat for dinner/lunches/meals by the bowlful otherwise you will have a sloppy mess.
I just made this soup and it’s amazing!! I promised myself I would make this and I love keeping promises. I need to feed my body better & loose some weight and I think this will help me tremendously!! Thanks so much for sharing….I’m a huge fan of this soup & can’t wait to make more of your delicious looking dishes! Happy New Year!! Cheers!!
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you! Good job getting 2017 off to a great start! LMK what else you make!
Making this now. Smells wonderful. Starting the new year off right. Food prep
Good for you! Happy New Year!
Really excellent! I took a chance on it and I’m glad I did! Made it exactly as directed except I used fresh herbs, increasing the amounts to compensate for fresh vs. dried. Also increased the amount of rosemary. My husband had two bowls and will be happy for me to make it again. I put the leftovers into small freezer containers so that we can have a cup of soup with any meal that doesn’t seem to have enough veggies on its own. I may use a little dried porcini mushrooms next time.
Thanks for trying the recipe and glad it came out great for you! And it’s one of those soups that yes, feel free to mix and match with other veggies and herbs you have on hand. Porcini mushrooms would be great I think!
Made this today. It was great! Love that there is some spiciness to the soup. Very tasty. I also made your pumpkin oatmeal chocolate chip muffins. Amazing! Definitely a new favorite breakfast food.
Thanks for trying the recipe and glad it came out great for you! And yes there’s a subtle spiciness to the soup from the seasonings used which I like too because bland soup is just…not good!
Glad you love the pumpkin oatmeal chocolate chip muffins, too!
Yummy!
Another great soup Averie!! I love everything in it as is and it makes a lot for leftovers. I think I’ll have to try this soon–I love a good vegetable soup!
Paula you’re going to love this soup I think! And it’s great with really any veggies you have on hand as a mix-and-match special :)
I’m always looking for new soups for winter and this looks perfect. It’s full of so much goodness and I can already tell how good it will make me feel. Making on the weekend for sure! Thank you!
Since I just ate a cupcake…I need this!
This looks delicious! One of my all time favorites and the perfect lunch to keep me on track! I love your addition of the garbanzo beans or kidney beans for that extra kick of fiber and to help keep me full!
Thanks, Holly! I love beans…garbanzo, black, kidney, cannellini, any bean at all, love them!
Dang girl I didn’t realize how many amazing soups you have made! This one looks great. I actually enjoy these types of soups, something about eating a ton of veggies in soups is easy and doesn’t feel so “healthy”.
I love tons of veggies in my soups and in the winter especially, it sure beats veggies in a cold salad!
I like that the tomatoes are not an integral part of the broth, like in so many vegetable soups. Your herbs sound great and I am hungry just thinking about this (on yet another snowy day).
That’s right, I forgot that tomatoes and you aren’t the best of friends. And you’re right this broth isn’t tomato heavy.
I love your soup recipes and this one is so versatile…I’d have to add some pasta to it because thats just how I do soup…and maybe a sprinkle of Parm…thanks for another great recipe.
It would be great with pasta and of course parm makes everything better :)
I am SO making this today. It’s supposed to get cold and snowy here for the next several days. I’m gonna need A LOT of soup!
You will love it! It’s a total Katie soup! We loved it!
Oh I’m trying this weight loss soup for sure! Every time I make soup I always end up adding creamy or other fatty ingredients but this is a keeper.
You won’t miss the cream in this one! So good as-is!
Oh my gosh this looks so good! Girl, I am over here drooling over this dish right now. I am all over this! :) I can’t even stop starring.
Dreamy soup for the win! No better feeling than being nice and full and satisfied by eating foods you know are good for you! There is almost another “added” satisfaction that comes with it :) This soup is so u pay ally of goodness!