Meat Soups

Meat soup recipes form the heart of a hearty lunch: rich broths from beef, pork, lamb and chicken with vegetables, grains and pasta. The section gathers classic first courses from Russian, Ukrainian, Caucasian and Central Asian traditions with step-by-step photography.

Soup quality starts with the broth. Three core types cover most recipes. Rich brown broth comes from roasted bones and meat with vegetables – the base for borscht, solyanka and kharcho. Clear broth simmers gently without boiling, with a single onion and carrot – the base for consommé, chicken noodle and rassolnik. A hearty zapravochny broth builds directly on the base with sautéed onion and carrot, tomato paste, potato and grain. Meat choices follow a simple logic: beef gives deep flavour, pork adds fat, lamb brings a characteristic aroma, chicken delivers a universal base.

Regional cuisine provides a wide catalogue. Russian – red borscht with beetroot and cabbage, shchi from fresh or sour cabbage, rassolnik with kidneys and pickled cucumber. Ukrainian – borscht with pampushki, kapustnyak, yushka. Caucasian – kharcho with walnut and tkemali, lamb shurpa with dried apricot, khash. Central Asian – lagman with hand-pulled noodles, shurpo. Legumes – pea with smoked pork, bean, lentil with lamb.

Types of meat soups featured

• Borscht – classic Ukrainian, Moscow-style, lenten, with beetroot and beans;
• Shchi – from fresh cabbage, from sauerkraut, green shchi with sorrel, fish shchi;
• Caucasian – kharcho, lamb shurpa, chikhirtma, khash;
• Asian – lagman, shurpo with meatballs, plov-soup;
• Hearty zapravochny – rassolnik with kidneys, mixed meat solyanka, pea with smoked meat;
• Clear broths – chicken noodle, broth with meatballs, consommé with croutons;
• With grains and legumes – with pearl barley, rice, lentil, bean.

Cooking time depends on the meat: beef and lamb 1.5–2 hours, pork 1–1.5 hours, chicken 40 minutes. For clear broth, meat goes into cold water; foam is skimmed at the boil. Every recipe on recepty.mobi includes exact proportions and step-by-step photography.