We may earn a commission from links on this page.There are days when cooking up three individual meals and finding snacks in between feels like too much work. When I need to lighten my cooking workload, my go-to move is to reduce the amount of new meals I make in a day. For my household, that would be this slow cooker grazing soup. Crock-Pot SCCPVL610-S-A 6-Quart Cook & Carry Programmable Slow Cooker $69.99 at Amazon Shop Now Shop Now $69.99 at Amazon What to expect from a grazing soupThe point of a grazing soup (or stew) is that its filling, simple, and something that you can make as a great big batch for snacking on throughout the day. You could do this in a large pot or Dutch oven on the stove, but I prefer using my slow cooker because its more hands-off, and once its finished, the cooker automatically clicks over to keep warm for as many hours as I want. Its certainly safer than keeping my stove flame on for six hours. Grazing soup ingredients stand up to long durations of low heat. Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann The key to a grazing soup is choosing ingredients that dont deteriorate over the course of the day. You can use my recipe below, but if youre creating your own version of a grazing soup, consider the types of ingredients youre using. Carrots, celery, many cruciferous vegetables (like cauliflower and kale), beans, and bitter greens are good candidates that hold up in liquid. Potatoes can work too, but some potatoes stay together better than others. Opt for waxy potatoes (red potatoes are a good choice) because they have a lower starch content and hold their shape in liquid.How to keep it interestingIf eating the same soup all day sounds like a bore, you can still reap the benefits of not cooking multiple times while adding a bit of variety. You can do this with pre-made accoutrements or with (what Ive decided to call) soup evolution. Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann Adding pre-made accoutrements might be a scoop of leftover pasta or rice you didnt finish from earlier in the week. If you keep hard boiled eggs in the fridge, slice one of those into your bowl. I often keep Trader Joes frozen turkey meatballs in my freezer. Theyre fully cooked so maybe a half hour before my next graze, Ill drop a few of those into the soup to heat up.Soup evolution is adding a new bulk ingredient to your grazing soup as it begins to run out. Halfway through the day, after the soup has decreased in volume, I might dump in a can of chickpeasaquafaba and all. Maybe before dinner, you add a bag of frozen pelmeni, or a half-cup of raw pastina to the stew and it absorbs the rest of the broth to become a thicker dish. The soup essentially changes over from one major component to another, while still keeping a percentage of its former self.Lately, Ive enjoyed this red lentil soup with a chickpea evolution in the evening. Enjoy your grazing soup early and often throughout the day.Red Lentil Slow Cooker Grazing Soup RecipeIngredients: onion, minced2 waxy, medium-sized potatoes, cubed cup chopped carrots cup dry red lentils2 cups lacinato kale, de-stemmed and roughly chopped4 cups chicken broth teaspoon salt teaspoon MSG teaspoon garlic powder teaspoon cayenne pepper powder2 teaspoons lemon juice1 can organic chickpeas (optional), not drained1. In true lazy slow cooker soup fashion, dump all of the ingredients, except the lemon juice and the can of chickpeas, into the cooker.2. Cook the soup for 2 hours on high heat, stirring occasionally. Click the cooker over to the warm setting for the rest of the day. Just before eating your first bowl, stir in the lemon juice.3. If you notice your soup is running low and you dont want the party to end, stir in the can of chickpeas with its liquid.