Add Farro To Your Soups For Elevated Flavor And Texture

It's difficult to imagine your favorite soup being more delicious than it already is. Yet, when chicken soup benefits from noodles, and minestrone is only complete with pasta, you may start to wonder what other grains you can use to improve even the best soups. To elevate your favorites, add farro.

An ancient grain that has deep roots in the Fertile Crescent, farro remains a staple for people across the Mediterranean. While there are three different strands of wheat that make up farro (spelt, emmer, and ein-korn), they all maintain a similar nutty taste. Mild and chewy, farro is the ultimate grain for bulking up soup while bringing an interesting textural difference to your bowl.

Cooking farro is pretty straightforward — you can do so in boiling water and drain it, or steam the grain to let the moisture soften it. You can cook it separately and add it to pre-cooked soup, but to get the most flavor, we recommend letting it simmer in the pot as the soup itself cooks. In the last half hour of your soup cooking, add in the farro so it has time to get tender as it absorbs the savory broth.

Despite being an ancient grain, farro is used in many modern kitchens, especially in Italy. Add it to a pot of zuppa Toscana, inspired by the foods of Tuscany. Farro is the perfect final touch for this soup filled with starchy potatoes, crumbles of bacon, and salty sausage. Submerged in a luscious broth of chicken stock and heavy cream, this soup is truly transportive.

Spare yourself the drab cans of chicken noodle soup and elevate a basic chicken carcass soup with farro. Made with chicken carcass, leftover meat, tomatoes, celery, potatoes, and spinach, this soup is as easy as it gets, yet the grain will make it something special. Since farro makes such a filling addition, this improvement on the standard is sure to warm your soul (and stomach).

Elevate warming Hungarian mushroom soup with chewy pieces of farro. This hearty, creamy vegetarian soup is the perfect thing to sip on a cold winter's day. With the umami-rich pieces of mushroom complementing farro's own nutty flavor, this simple soup can easily become more than meets the eye.