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.
Give them as teacher gifts or hostess gifts or leave a jar in the mailbox for the mail carrier. They’ll appreciate the gesture.
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Ingredients
Dried Legumes — Split peas and lentils add protein to the mix. You can use green split peas and brown lentils, as shown here, or opt for yellow split peas and pink lentils.
Dried Grains — Barley and rice add heartiness and more fiber to the recipe.
Pasta — Choose a small pasta like Ditalini or elbow macaroni.
Beef Granules — Many commercial bouillon options include MSG in the ingredient list. Be sure to check the ingredient list if you’d like to avoid this. Simple Girl brand dry bouillon is both sodium and gluten free.
Seasonings — Italian seasoning, dried minced onions, and bay leaves round out the flavors of this ready-to-use soup mix.
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. I suggest cutting a piece of paperboard to fit in the jar and setting 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.
Download this free printable label for gift giving.
Need more easy gift ideas?
★ Did you make this soup mix in a jar? Don’t forget to give it a star rating below! ★
Friendship Soup Mix in a Jar
Ingredients
To make the gift jar
- ¼ cup dried minced onion
- 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
- ⅓ cup beef granules
- 1 cup dried split peas
- 1 cup dried lentils
- ½ cup pearl barley
- ¼ cup uncooked white rice
- 2 bay leaves
- ½ cup uncooked small pasta like Ditalini
For Making the soup
- 1 pound ground beef browned
- 14.5 ounce can of diced tomatoes
- 2 cloves garlic
- 15 ounces tomato sauce
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Layer the dry friendship soup ingredients in the jar in this order to prevent the seasonings from sifting through the dried legumes and grains: onion, Italian seasoning, beef granules, ½ cup split peas, rice, ½ cup lentils, ½ cup split peas, barley, and ½ cup lentils.¼ cup dried minced onion, 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning, ⅓ cup beef granules, 1 cup dried split peas, 1 cup dried lentils, ¼ cup uncooked white rice, ½ cup pearl barley
- Cut a piece of card stock to fit inside the jar and set it on top of the ingredients 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.2 bay leaves, ½ cup uncooked small pasta, 1 pound ground beef, 14.5 ounce can of diced tomatoes, 2 cloves garlic, 15 ounces tomato sauce, salt and pepper to taste
Notes
- Once you have the ingredients out, assembling a number of these soup in a jar gifts at once won’t take much longer than doing a single one! Might as well do several. Line up jars and measure ingredients in assembly-line style.
- Nutrition information is based on soup as served.
How much water?
3 quarts???
Yep, 3 quarts of water to make the soup!
Hello,
What size of Mason jar, 32 oz?
yield: 1 QUART JAR
Do you think this would work and still look nice in a cone bag or would the spices have to much wiggle room? Has anyone tried?
I haven’t tried that, sorry!
Where did you get the beautiful label?
I made it!
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.