21 Low Sodium Soup Ideas

A great starting point when making low-sodium soup is to make your broth. The store-bought broth can have large amounts of unnecessary salt added. Adding a little bit of salt gives flavor, but a lot of it isn’t needed. 

You have complete control of the salt levels by making your broth. It can be as simple as having a roast chicken and throwing the carcass in the crockpot overnight with hot water.

If you want to make it a bit fancier, add seasoning such as mixed herbs, salt, and pepper. Vegetables like chopped onions, carrots, etc… can also be tossed in; if you want to add more flavor. A squeeze of lemon or a dash of spice also works very well.

Ideally, you should be looking for less than 400mg of sodium per serving size. Here are 21 low-sodium soup ideas to get you started.

1. Garbanzo Bean Soup

Garbanzo Bean Soup is a very satisfying low-sodium soup idea because the garbanzo beans (also known as chickpeas) are very filling as well as nutritious. They have lots of fiber and are also a great source of plant-based protein. There are lots of vegetables in this soup, making it incredibly healthy as well as delicious!

2. Tomato Soup

Tomato soup is the ultimate comfort soup for a wintery day or any day when you need a pick-me-up. Tasty Healthy Heart Recipes encourages readers to track down no-salt canned tomatoes and low-sodium chicken broth to use in the recipe and links to a low-sodium artisan bread too!

3. Lentil and Tomato Soup

All ingredients added to this warming soup contain no salt, except the vegetable broth. So be careful to ensure it’s a low-sodium option. The Vegan Larder uses green or puy lentils but notes other varieties work as well especially black lentils. Red lentils won’t need as long to cook. Red wine can also be subbed for apple cider vinegar if you want to boost your gut health.

4. Hearty Potato Soup

Taste of Home has created the creamy classic in low-sodium form. It makes 10 servings and only takes 20 minutes to prep! Make space in the freezer because this is a great batch cooked for the meal preppers. To reduce the sodium content further, look for unsalted butter, and you can add less than the teaspoon of salt listed in the recipe.

5. LoSo Vegetable Soup

Low Sodium Recipes for Crockpot suggests using as many fresh ingredients as possible to keep the salt content minimal. Sometimes canned or frozen ingredients will add in sodium as a preservative. This recipe is full of goodness – many, many vegetables and lots of high-fiber beans!

6. Minestrone Soup

Despite the name, Salt and Lavender have managed to write a recipe for ‘minestrone soup’ that keeps the salt content low. It’s a pretty simple soup to keep the salt out because it mainly calls for fresh vegetables and some mini pasta. The tomato and broth base is the only place you could go wrong, so look out for low-sodium broth.

7. Salt-free Chicken Tortilla Soup

So much flavor comes from the spices in this recipe that it makes added salt unnecessary. Mexican flavors of cumin and paprika spice up the vegetable and chicken soup, and the toppings add even more excitement. Think avocado, sour cream, tortilla strips, and cheese. Who needs salt?!

8. Taco Soup

Paula Deen has a fabulous recipe for taco soup, but it’s jam-packed and full of salt. Spark Recipes has taken the bare bones of the recipe and transformed it into a tasty but low-sodium version. It calls for plenty of canned beans but specifies looking for the no-salt-added options. Another alternative is to make the beans yourself if you have the time (overnight in a crockpot works well!).

9. Weight Watchers Chicken Enchilada Soup

Again, as long as you get your hands on low sodium, you’re good to go! Look out for no added salt beans if you’re using from a can. Aside from that, using fresh vegetables and shredded chicken will make it healthy, wholesome, and low-sodium. Not forgetting extremely tasty as well!

10. French Onion Soup

Moving on from Mexico and back to Europe, this French onion soup is delicious. French onion soup is usually overly salty. Salt is part of the characteristic flavor, but Tasty Healthy Heart Recipes has come up with another great variation. It does taste a little different, but this is more noticeable if you’ve been eating a lot of salt in your diet. If you’ve been eating low-sodium for a while, you might not even notice.

11. Chicken Noodle Soup

Another classic and comforting soup. Associated with recovering from sicknesses like the flu, the last thing you need is a bunch of extra salt in your meals. To hydrate yourself you need a straight liquid or something nourishing like bone broth. This recipe from Renal Diet HQ drums home the importance of checking the salt content in your chicken stock/broth before buying it, as that’s where a lot of the salt can come from in soups. Aside from unsalted butter, the rest of the ingredients are whole foods with no added salt.

12. Smoked Tomato Bisque

Differing from a regular tomato soup recipe it shies away from adding basil or oregano to complement the tomato flavor but focuses on the smokiness. This comes mainly from smoked paprika, so no need to worry about unnecessary salt from smoky BBQ sauce or anything like that. Keep the ingredients whole and you’ll be good! Another bonus is this recipe from Smarty Pants Kitchen only uses one pan.

13. Vegan Pho

While Asia is not famed for its soup, Vietnam has made quite the name for itself from its ‘pho’ dish. A clear broth with lots of vegetables and thinly sliced meat is added and cooked right on top. Kidney Healthy Recipes turns this salty broth-based soup into a low-sodium vegan version. Garlic, ginger, rice vinegar, and brown sugar are added to low-sodium vegetable broth. Add tofu to give a boost of protein instead of meat.

14. Carrot and Coriander Soup

Hungry, Healthy, Happy has designed a delicious carrot and coriander soup. The ingredients are so simple it’s very easy to keep the salt content low. With just carrots, coriander (cilantro), potato, onions, and broth, as long as the broth is low-salt, you’re good to go!

15. Carrot Ginger Soup

Mayuris Jikoni combines these two flavors for a delicious result. The ginger is perfect for those winter months when you’re all trying to fight off sick bugs because it is known to give a good immunity boost. They suggest adding a dash of turmeric for more of an immunity hit. Using water as the base cuts the salt content to nothing, but a low-sodium broth gives more flavor.

16. 10-Hour Curried Lentil Soup

The Gracious Pantry shares this fantastic soup recipe for the crockpot. No, you’re not standing over a stove for 10 hours! Packed with the goodness from the lentils – iron, protein, fiber, folate, potassium – the curry flavor gives it a nice kick. Watch for the salt content if you’re using canned lentils and broth.

17. Tuscan White Bean and Kale Soup

Organically GVD offers up a crockpot recipe, where you only need to tend to it when adding the kale in 15-20 minutes before serving. It calls for low-sodium chicken broth and also adds shredded chicken for an extra dose of protein. Usually, this is a vegetarian soup, just leave out the chicken and use vegetable broth if you don’t eat meat.

18. Black Bean Soup

Black Bean Soup is a must-try recipe packed with fiber with a wonderful lime and cilantro flavor. Low Sodium Recipes for Crockpot add in lots of vegetables and black beans and keep the salt content to a bare minimum.

19. One Pot Vegetable, Bean and Barley Soup

Your Home Made Healthy offers this nutrient-dense soup brimming with goodness from vegetables, beans, and barley. It will fill you up and fuel you for the rest of the day. It tastes nice and thick from all the ingredients but doesn’t add any cream or other unhealthy thickeners. Most of the labor required is chopping and prepping, after that, it’s all thrown in one pot!

20. Potato, Leek, and White Bean Soup

Simple Veganista adds white beans to the classic potato and leek soup to give it more of a health punch. Creamy to taste because of the potatoes, no milk or cream is added here and all ingredients are whole foods. The only thing to watch for is the low-sodium broth.

21. Green Pea and Basil Soup

We’ve all heard of split pea soup or pea and mint soup, but pea and basil? This unique flavor combination is surprisingly delicious and won’t remain a secret for long! The peas offer up a pack of protein, and the basil complements the flavor nicely. Tarla Dalal shares this incredibly simple soup where the ingredients are purely peas, basil, green onions, water, oil, salt, and pepper.