Four autumn soups and stews with pulses and grains to batch cook

Once the clocks go back, the evening class finishes in the dark and salad stops making sense. What you want afterwards is something hot, filling and already made, ideally sitting in the freezer, with enough protein in it that you are not raiding the biscuit tin an hour later.

Soups and stews built on pulses and grains do that cheaply and without much skill. The four below are the ones I come back to between October and March. Each makes four to six portions, freezes well (with a couple of small caveats), and works with tins or home-cooked pulses. If you cook from dry, the guide to cooking pulses from dry has the soaking and timings. The swap is simple: one 400 g tin, drained, is about 240 g of cooked beans.

Habits that make every pot better

• Soften the base properly. Onion, carrot and celery cooked gently in oil for 10 minutes taste far sweeter than ones given three.
• Season at the end as well as the start. Pulses and grains soak up salt, and a pot that tasted right early on often tastes flat by the time it is done.
• Finish with something sharp. A squeeze of lemon or a spoon of vinegar just before serving wakes up anything built on lentils or beans.
• Add greens late. Spinach and kale keep their colour if they go in during the last few minutes, or when you reheat a frozen portion.

1. Red lentil and squash soup with ginger

Serves 4 to 5. About 40 minutes.

• 1 tbsp olive or rapeseed oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• a thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, grated
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• half a teaspoon of ground turmeric
• 1 small butternut squash (about 800 g whole), peeled, deseeded and cut into 2 cm cubes
• 200 g red split lentils, rinsed
• 1.2 litres vegetable stock
• 1 x 400 ml tin coconut milk (light is fine)
• juice of half a lemon, salt and pepper

Warm the oil in a large pan over a medium heat and cook the onion for 8 to 10 minutes until soft. Add the garlic, ginger and spices and stir for a minute. Tip in the squash, lentils and stock, bring to the boil, then simmer, partly covered, for 20 to 25 minutes, stirring now and then, until the lentils have collapsed and the squash is tender. Stir in the coconut milk and warm through. Blend half the soup and stir it back for texture, or blend the lot if you prefer it smooth. Season and add the lemon juice.

Red lentils keep thickening as they sit, so loosen leftovers with a splash of water. Each portion has roughly 12 to 14 g of protein, mostly from the lentils, and a handful of toasted pumpkin seeds on top adds a few grams more.

2. Mushroom, barley and white bean stew

Serves 4 to 6. About 1 hour.

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 2 carrots, diced
• 2 celery sticks, diced
• 250 g chestnut mushrooms, sliced
• 3 garlic cloves, sliced
• 1 tsp dried thyme, or a few sprigs of fresh
• 1 tbsp tomato purée
• 150 g pearl barley, rinsed
• 1.3 litres vegetable stock
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 x 400 g tins cannellini or butter beans, drained (or about 480 g cooked from dry)
• 150 g kale or cavolo nero, tough stalks removed, shredded
• 1 tsp cider vinegar or lemon juice, salt and pepper

Heat the oil in a large, heavy pan and cook the onion, carrot and celery gently for 10 minutes. Turn the heat up, add the mushrooms and cook for 6 to 8 minutes, until the liquid they release has evaporated and they have taken a little colour. Stir in the garlic, thyme and tomato purée for a minute. Add the barley, stock and soy sauce, bring to the boil, then simmer, partly covered, for 35 to 40 minutes until the barley is tender but still slightly chewy. Add the beans and kale and simmer for another 5 to 10 minutes. Finish with the vinegar and season.

Barley keeps drinking liquid after cooking, so this sets thick in the fridge; add 100 to 200 ml of water when you reheat. Barley contains gluten. For a gluten-free pot, use brown rice for the same cooking time, or leave out the grain and add a third tin of beans. Protein is around 15 g a portion if you serve four, nearer 10 g if you stretch it to six.

3. Chickpea and sweet potato stew with bulgur

Serves 4. About 45 minutes.

For the stew:

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 1 red pepper, sliced
• 3 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon
• 1 tbsp tomato purée, or 1 tbsp harissa if you like heat
• 2 medium sweet potatoes (about 600 g), peeled and cut into 2 cm chunks
• 1 x 400 g tin chopped tomatoes
• 2 x 400 g tins chickpeas, drained (or about 480 g cooked)
• 400 ml vegetable stock
• 100 g baby spinach
• juice of half a lemon, salt, and a handful of chopped parsley or coriander

For the bulgur:

• 200 g bulgur wheat
• 400 ml boiling water or stock and a pinch of salt

Cook the onion and pepper in the oil over a medium heat for 8 to 10 minutes. Add the garlic, spices and tomato purée or harissa and stir for a minute. Add the sweet potato, tomatoes, chickpeas and stock, then simmer, partly covered, for 20 to 25 minutes until the sweet potato is tender and the sauce has thickened. Meanwhile, put the bulgur in a bowl, pour over the boiling water with the salt, cover with a plate and leave for 15 minutes, then fork it through. Coarse bulgur sometimes needs simmering instead, so check the packet. Stir the spinach into the stew until it wilts, add the lemon juice, season and scatter over the herbs.

With the bulgur, each portion has about 16 to 18 g of protein. Bulgur is wheat, so serve the stew with rice or quinoa for anyone avoiding gluten.

4. Green split pea and leek soup

Serves 5 to 6. About 1 hour 15 minutes, most of it unattended.

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 leeks, trimmed, halved lengthways, washed and sliced
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 carrots, diced
• 2 celery sticks, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 300 g green split peas, rinsed
• 1.75 litres vegetable stock, low salt if you can find it
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tbsp lemon juice or cider vinegar, salt and pepper

Cook the leeks, onion, carrots and celery gently in the oil for 10 to 12 minutes, until soft but not browned. Add the garlic and paprika for a minute. Add the split peas, stock and bay leaves, bring to the boil and skim off any foam. Simmer, partly covered, for 50 to 60 minutes, stirring now and then and more often towards the end, when the peas like to catch on the bottom. An older bag can take longer. When the peas have broken down, take out the bay leaves, blend partly or leave it rough, then season and add the lemon juice or vinegar.

This is the old pea-and-ham soup without the ham, with smoked paprika doing the smoky part. It has roughly 12 to 15 g of protein a portion depending on how many you serve, and a thick slice of rye or wholemeal bread on the side adds a few more.

Batch cooking and freezing

All four double well if your pan is big enough; for a double batch you want one of 6 litres or more. A few rules keep them safe and tasting fresh:

1. Cool quickly. Divide the pot into shallow containers so everything reaches room temperature and goes into the fridge or freezer within a couple of hours.
2. Eat fridge portions within two days.
3. Freeze in portion-sized tubs or flat bags, leaving a couple of centimetres of space for expansion, and label each with the name and date.
4. Use within about three months for the best flavour and texture.
5. Defrost overnight in the fridge, or reheat gently from frozen in a pan with a splash of water. Reheat until steaming hot all the way through, and reheat only once.

Bulgur freezes perfectly well, but it takes 15 minutes to make fresh, so I rarely bother.

Making a bowl count after training

These soups and stews land somewhere between 10 and 18 g of protein a portion. That is a fair share of a meal, though not all of it if you have just come in from a strength session. The piece on plant protein for people who train covers daily ranges and why spreading protein across the day matters. Easy ways to top up a bowl:

• a thick slice of wholemeal or rye bread with hummus
• a spoonful of unsweetened soy yoghurt on the lentil soup
• toasted pumpkin, sunflower or hemp seeds scattered over any of them
• cubes of firm tofu, fried until golden, stirred into the chickpea stew
• an extra drained tin of beans in the barley stew

Freeze some portions flat in labelled bags. Stacked upright like files in the freezer drawer they take up little room, and a flat block goes from frozen to steaming in a pan with a splash of water in about the time it takes to change out of your class clothes.