Skip to main content
Main

Spinach Soup

A creamy soup made from spinach, onion, milk, butter, flour, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Spinach Soup

Why it works: Spinach and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,400 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Spinach Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place 1 quart of spinach in a hot kettle and toss to prevent burning until soft.

  2. Add 2 tablespoons of chopped onion and 1 quart of milk.

  3. Cook slowly for 15 minutes.

  4. Add 2 tablespoons of butter and thicken with 2 tablespoons of flour.

  5. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Spinach + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,336 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Spinach + flourtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Spinach
Provides the main vegetable body and flavor of the soup.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and adds creaminess as it cooks.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, body-rich soup.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor through the soup.
Onion
Adds a savory aromatic base to the soup.

The step that matters

Thickening with flour. Flour must be cooked into the butter and milk for long enough, and stirred well, so it swells evenly and the soup thickens smoothly without lumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (spinach, milk, butter, flour, pepper):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against spinach, milk, butter, flour, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Cream of SpinachCream of Spinach29 recipesSpinach and EggsSpinach and Eggs8 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes