3-day soup cleanse (2024)

What easier way to help undo the excesses of the past few weeks than a few days of hot, nourishing soup? Packed full of vegetables, and therefore stuffed with fibre and nutrients, hydrating, filling and warming, soup is the answer. The original comfort food, a few days of soup will see your digestion restored, your nutritional input back up to scratch and your belly flatter. You’ll be doing what Stephen Argent, creator of Soupologie, who devised our plan calls ‘souping’, “a warming and highly replenishing way to give your digestive system a rest”.

How to do the plan

It’s just three days, enough time to feel a difference. Each day, you’ll have a healthy breakfast, then soup for lunch, and a different one for dinner. If you’re hungry between meals, choose one of the snacks. To add even more nutrition and interest, add a Souper Topper. Each recipe makes three to five portions; you can have one or two per meal. We've suggested how to combine the days, but you can mix and match as you like. Try to have at least one soup containing pulses or nuts every day, and top with seeds and/or nuts (see below). Soup is brilliant as it’s so adaptable: cook it up when you have time, freeze in portions, take into work in a flask or heat up in a few minutes, and have a bowlful ready to eat whenever you’re hungry. Drink up!

Breakfast

Berries with unsweetened Greek yoghurt and a small handful of mixed nuts or seeds.

Oat porridge with almond milk and grated apple.

Two boiled eggs on gluten-free bread or oatcakes.

Snacks

Rice cakes or oatcakes with cashew or almond nut butter, eaten with half a banana.

Half an avocado spread on a slice of rye bread.

An apple and a handful of unsalted seeds or nuts.

Raw carrots, celery, cucumber, peppers, cherry tomatoes, cauliflower florets.

A small bowl of natural bio/live yoghurt.

Plain popcorn (no added sugar or salt).

Drinks

Drink a glass of warm water with lemon first thing. Keep your body hydrated with around two litres of water a day, or herbal teas. If you can, cut down on caffeine gradually, by half a cup a day.

Suggested souper toppers

Toasted coconut flakes, sesame seeds, toasted pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, sunflower seeds, flaxseeds, cashew cream (soak cashews overnight, drain then blend with water, a little garlic and a squeeze of lemon), sprouted seeds, crumbled rice crackers, crushed nuts

Day 1 soups

Three Lentil - try the recipe

Carrot, orange and ginger - try the recipe

Day 2 soups

Butterbean and carrot - try the recipe

Parsnip and apple- try the recipe

Day 3 soups

Broccoli soup with almond pesto - try the recipe

Purple soup - try the recipe

(Photography: Stephen Argent)

Recipes from Soupologie: Plant-based, Gluten-free Soups to Heal, Cleanse & Energise by Stephen Argent (Vermilion, £12.99; out 5th January)