If you’re looking for an easy hostess gift or want to share just a little something this holiday season, you can hardly go wrong with this friendship soup mix in a jar. It’s a perfect way to give a chef the night off after a busy time of year.
Be sure to try our favorite sausage lentil soup recipe, too!
Homemade soup mix in a jar
When it comes to making homemade gifts, sometimes simpler is better. I mean, if it’s easy to do, you’ll get it done, right?? This layered soup in a jar is as easy as that. In fact, this is one of those gifts that kids can make, since it’s basically just a matter of pouring ingredients into a jar in the proper order. A canning funnel makes this even easier, my friends.
Purchase dried split peas, lentils, barley, and rice in bulk and make up several of these jars. Give them as teacher gifts or hostess gifts or leave a jar in the mailbox for the mail carrier. They’ll appreciate the gesture.
Filling the jar
There’s really not a lot to making this soup mix in a jar, but do note that it’s best to layer the ingredients in the proper order. This prevents the seasonings from getting all jumbled up with the other dry ingredients, making the jar look messy. The pasta should go on top of everything, as it’s added to the soup at a different time. If you’d like, you could cut a piece of paperboard to fit in the jar and set it on top of the ingredients before measuring in the pasta. This will make it easier for your gift recipient to separate it when cooking.
Related: White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies in a Jar
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Friendship Soup Mix in a Jar
This layered dry mix is perfect for gift giving. Just print out and tie on instructions for using it!
Ingredients
To make the gift jar
- 1 cup dried split peas
- 1 cup dried lentils
- ½ cup pearl barley
- ⅓ cup beef granules
- ¼ cup dried minced onion
- 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
- ¼ cup uncooked white rice
- 2 bay leaves
- ½ cup uncooked small pasta, like Ditalini
Instructions
- Layer the dry friendship soup ingredients in the jar in this order to prevent the seasonings from sifting through the beans: onion, ½ cup split peas, rice, ½ cup lentils, beef granules, ½ cup split peas, barley, ½ cup lentils, Italian seasoning, and pasta. Optional: Cut a piece of card stock to fit inside the jar and set it in place before adding the pasta. This will make it easy to set the pasta aside as required when cooking the soup.
- Seal and attach gift tag with instructions for making soup.
Nutrition Information:
Serving Size: 1 gramsAmount Per Serving: Unsaturated Fat: 0g
Download this printable label to tie onto the jar by going here. (You’ll get four labels on one sheet of paper.) These labels will make your soup mix in a jar look festive without any extra wrapping.
Please for all us Celiac out here that we all can’t have Gluten!! Don’t put Barley in our soup mix!!! It will make us deathly ill!!! We can have all different types of beans though!!!
Thank you for the heads up about barley, noted!
Does this make 2 jars? Recipe calls for 1 cup peas, lentils etc but only mentions layering “1/2 cup”? Are the layers repeated?
The 1/2 cup peas and lentils are both layered in the jar twice, as it says in the instructions. Happy making! 🙂
Sorry are beef granules beef bouillon?
Yes, in dry powdered form.
Where does the bay leaf go in the order of layering the ingredients? Before or after the past?
They could either go at the bottom or right below the pasta. As long as it makes it into the soup pot you are good to go!
Can you substitute beans? We cannot do lentils and peas.
Any suggestions?
The main issue with substituting beans is that dried beans need to be soaked, and would have different cooking times/instructions than the rest of the ingredients.
As to that, just how DO you soak these before cooking? No instructions to separate and soak first, just cook without soaking.
Lentils and peas don’t require the soaking time that dried beans do.
How many servings for this soup recipe?
What size jar do you use?
Quart – sorry! It shows up in the backend but for some reason isn’t showing in the actual recipe. I’ll see if I can figure out why!
Can you substitute barley for something gluten free?
If it were me, I’d try brown rice. Similar cooking times and textures.