Find homestyle comfort in a bowl
When the temperature outside drops and the nights are long, there’s nothing cozier than a warm bowl of soup. And though across the nation we share a love for common soups like chicken noodle and beef stew, it’s the local specialties that bring us close to home.
Soups and stews are comfort foods, and when they’re blends of local ingredients and recognizable flavors, those dishes are all the more special. Here are ten unique styles of soups and stews that beautifully express the regions from which they come.
Pozole – New Mexico
Borders are just lines we draw, and nothing proves that more than how the lines between regional cuisines tend to blur. New Mexico was once part of Mexico, and that fact shines through in so many aspects of the state’s culture, especially in its cuisine.
Though pozole is a pre-Hispanic Mexican dish made with culinary techniques developed by Native Americans, it is also prevalent in New Mexico. Pozole is a hominy stew with pork or chicken and spiced with local red chiles.
Brunswick stew – Southeast U.S.
It’s unclear whether Brunswick stew comes from Brunswick County, Virginia or Brunswick, Georgia, but regardless of its origins, this tomato-based stew is a favorite throughout the American South. The soup varies from state to state, but it usually involves lima beans, corn, okra, potatoes and other vegetables.
Traditionally, game meats are stewed along with the vegetables, but nowadays, Brunswick stew uses chicken, pork, or brisket instead.
Cincinnati chili – Cincinnati, Ohio
The best local dishes are oftentimes the ones that are misunderstood by outsiders. The Cincinnati chili is one of those dishes. Perhaps it’s not entirely a soup, but it is a Cincinnati comfort food that does involve a chili sauce/stew poured over spaghetti and topped with shredded cheddar cheese.
It’s highly revered by locals and detested by everyone else, but regardless of its controversy, it’s a dish that people have loved since the early 1920s.
Wild rice soup – Minnesota
According to Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources, the state has more acres of natural wild rice than any other state in the country. Wild rice has been important to Native American tribes throughout the West and continues to be a staple in Minnesota pantries.
As such, a wide variety wild rice soups make those frigid Minnesota winters a bit warmer. Wild rice soups are often made with a creamy base and cooked with root vegetables, another popular winter ingredient. Some also include chicken or mushrooms.
Clam chowder – New England
It’s natural that the northern coastal states of New England would have a soup that features one of their most prominent seafood catches: the clam. But clam chowder in New England is as nuanced as the states themselves. The most familiar two are the New England and Manhattan clam chowders.
The New England variation is a thick, creamy broth while the Manhattan take on clam chowder has a thinner tomato-based broth. However, there is a third clam chowder variation and it happens to be the first: the Rhode Island clam chowder.
Rhode Island clam chowder has a clear broth that draws most of its clam flavor from the hearty quahog found just off of Rhode Island’s shores.
Gumbo – Louisiana
Louisiana’s cuisine is a mix of French, Spanish, West African, Caribbean and Native American influences expressed as either Cajun or Creole (yes, there’s a difference between the two). Though Cajun and Creole cultures are distinct and nuanced, gumbo is a signature dish shared by both cuisines.
Louisiana gumbo is a rich stew of meat and shellfish, but the notable difference between the two is that Creole gumbo is tomato-based, while Cajun gumbo is made with a roux and is a thicker stew.
Crab soup – Maryland
Maryland is almost synonymous with the crab, so a crab soup flavored with Old Bay seasoning is one of the state’s most popular winter dishes. Tomatoes, beans, corn and carrots are stewed together with big hunks of crab meat and seasoned with Old Bay.
It is mildly reminiscent of Brunswick stew, which is popular only a few miles away in Virginia, but instead of game meats commonly hunted through Appalachia, it spotlights Maryland’s famous crab.
Potato soup – Idaho
Idaho is famous for its potatoes – both the quantity (the state harvests about 13 billion pounds of potatoes annually) and the quality of their spuds. So it goes without question that potato soup made from scratch in Idaho will likely be the best potato soup you’ve ever tried.
And Idaho isn’t messing around because their take on potato soup is creamy and hearty with big hunks of potato and carrots. The toppings, like scallions, cheddar cheese and bacon add more flavor and texture to the soup.
Corn chowder – Iowa
Corn is grown all over the country and is one of America’s most important crops, but in Iowa, it’s part of the state’s heritage and has been for over 150 years. In fact, Iowa now produces more corn than the entire country of Mexico. Corn finds its way into a variety of Iowan dishes, but come winter time, it’s all about corn chowder.
This creamy soup is made with corn and seasoned with onions, garlic, herbs and spices, and is sometimes made heartier with diced potatoes.
Lobster bisque – Maine
You can’t go to Maine without trying lobster, so if you happen to be enjoy a winter getaway to this coastal and mountainous state, be sure to try lobster bisque. Bisque is a French-style soup that’s smooth and creamy, and it’s often seasoned to make the flavors of seafood pop. So it’s the perfect style of broth for fresh Maine lobster.