9 Easy Whole Food Soups, Stews and Slow Cooker Recipes - with 7 Ingredients or Less!

Nine whole food, easy family favorite soups, stews and slow cooker recipes that use seven ingredients or less with minimal hands-on time. Plug these into your menu and dinners done for a week!

Simple, comforting soups, stews, and slow cooker recipes that use pantry and refrigerator staples are so welcome when meal-planning for my family. And by welcome I mean life-saving. Quick to put together and easy to make ahead (or automate with a slow cooker), they also usually make large quantities which are perfect for leftovers. And in our house leftovers = lunch which means one less meal to think about!

I’m pretty sure easy soups and stews are go-to meals for you, too, (hey, you’re reading this, right?) which is why I’ve collected nine of our family’s tried-and-true recipes that you’d find regularly on our menus if you were to come to our house. They are all healthy and use real, whole food ingredients – though only seven or less – but their true staying power on our menus comes from the fact that they are all SO good!

For the purposes of this article, the definition of ingredients for these recipes includes only real foods (no mixes, boxes, etc.) but doesn’t include spices, salt and pepper, or water, which tend to be standard in most recipes. Okay – ready to add some tasty recipes to your repertoire?

9 Easy, Real Soups, Stews and Slow Cooker Recipes

30-Minute Amazing Cauliflower Cheese Soup – the soup that our whole family loves, even those who (say) they don’t like cauliflower! No one will ever know they are eating mostly vegetables.

Rotisserie-Style Slow Cooker Spiced Whole Chicken – the easiest chicken you will ever make. The spices make it flavorful and the slow cooker keeps it moist.

The BEST Sausage and Lentil Stew – if you think lentil soup is boring, this recipe will prove you wrong! The bonus is that it makes a lot and is better the next day (hooray for leftovers!)

Real Food Slow Cooker Cheesy-Garlic Scalloped Potatoes – making scalloped potatoes in a slow cooker frees up oven space for the rest of the meal and helps them turn out perfect every time.

You’ll Never Go Back to Canned Homemade Tomato Soup – this was the first ‘real food’ soup recipe I ever made and it spoiled me for canned soup forever after. Who knew making it from scratch was so darn easy?

Slow Cooker Italian Style Pot Roast – this pot roast with an Italian twist is always perfectly tender thanks to the slow cooker. Served with garlic mashed potatoes, it’s a fabulous company meal.

Fast and Easy Curried Red Lentil Soup – healthy, tasty, ready in 30 minutes or less – and so filling you’ll never miss the meat.

Easy Slow Cooker Curried Barley – making side dishes like this flavorful barley in your slow cooker is a great option both in summer to go with grilled foods and in winter to accompany baked dishes.

Quick Bone Broth Chicken Vegetable Soup – by keeping nourishing chicken bone broth in the freezer, you can have a quick, comforting vegetable soup anytime.