Chef Joost
Aspergesoep (Dutch White Asparagus Soup)
White asparagus is Limburg's spring clock, and this soup uses every pale stem and peeling to make wit goud, white gold, taste like the season it refuses to outlive.
Culinary Explorer
A cooking platform built around craft, culture, and the stories behind what we eat.
Groninger Mosterdsoep
Created by
Groninger mosterdsoep is the northern answer to a cold evening: pale roomsoep, coarse mustard from the clay country, salty spekjes, and rye bread waiting at the edge of the bowl.
Soups & Stews
Dutch
Weeknight
Dinner Party
Comfort Food
15 min
Active Time
30 min cook•45 min total
Yield4 servings
The north teaches restraint better than any cookbook. The first bowl of Groninger mosterdsoep I trusted came after a wet walk across the Hoge Land, the old clay country above Groningen, where the wind has the bad manners to arrive before it has been invited. At the table there was rye bread, a small jar of coarse mustard, and a soup so pale it looked harmless. It was not harmless.
But let me tell you a secret: this is not cream soup with a spoonful of supermarket yellow stirred in at the end. The name already tells you the allegiance. Groninger, from the northern province; mosterd, mustard, is our Dutch form of an older European word that reaches back to mustum, fresh grape must, once mixed with crushed seed before vinegar took the northern job. In Groningen the mustard stays coarse, sour, and stubbornly alive, with little seeds that pop under your teeth and wake up the dairy.
The cooking is pure Dutch pragmatism. A pale roux, butter and flour cooked just long enough to lose the raw taste, gives the soup its body; stock keeps it from becoming a sauce; cream rounds the edges; mustard goes in near the end because a hard boil bullies the fragrance out of it. The spekjes, little bacon cubes, are not decoration. They are salt, smoke, and crunch, the northern argument on top.
Hou het altijd simpel, always keep it simple. Do not brown the roux, do not drown the mustard, and serve roggebrood, dark rye bread, alongside so every spoonful has something earthbound to lean on. This is a weeknight soup that behaves well at a dinner party, for obvious reasons: mustard has always known how to make modest things sound more certain of themselves.
Groninger mosterdsoep is not a medieval farm relic but a regional expression of the northern mustard trade, especially the coarse De Marne style associated with the Marne district of Groningen, where commercial mustard production began in Kloosterburen in 1895. The soup follows the Dutch roomsoep, cream soup, pattern: a light roux, stock and dairy, then the local sharpener added late so the grainy mustard keeps its bite. Spekjes, leek, and roggebrood, dark rye bread, place it on a Groningen table, not a generic Dutch one, and that provincial precision is the point.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
spekjes (smoked bacon lardons)
Quantity
150g
unsalted butter
Quantity
40g
onion
Quantity
1 small
finely chopped
leek
Quantity
1 medium
white and pale green parts thinly sliced, a small handful reserved for serving
plain flour
Quantity
35g
chicken or vegetable stock
Quantity
1 liter
warm
cream
Quantity
150ml
Groninger mustard or another coarse sharp mustard
Quantity
4 tablespoons
plus more to taste
freshly ground white pepper
Quantity
to taste
salt
Quantity
only if needed
roggebrood (dark rye bread)
Quantity
4 to 6 slices
to serve
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| spekjes (smoked bacon lardons) | 150g |
| unsalted butter | 40g |
| onionfinely chopped | 1 small |
| leekwhite and pale green parts thinly sliced, a small handful reserved for serving | 1 medium |
| plain flour | 35g |
| chicken or vegetable stockwarm | 1 liter |
| cream | 150ml |
| Groninger mustard or another coarse sharp mustardplus more to taste | 4 tablespoons |
| freshly ground white pepper | to taste |
| salt | only if needed |
| roggebrood (dark rye bread)to serve | 4 to 6 slices |
Equipment Needed
- •Heavy 3-liter soup pot
- •Whisk
- •Slotted spoon
Instructions
- 1
Render the spekjes
Put the spekjes in a cold heavy soup pot and set it over medium-low heat. Cook for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring now and then, until the fat has rendered and the edges are crisp and mahogany. Lift them out with a slotted spoon and leave about 2 tablespoons of fat in the pot; if there is more, pour off the excess. The bacon has already started seasoning the soup, which is why we do this first.
Start the spekjes in a cold pot. If you drop them into hot fat, they seize and brown before they give up their own fat, and then you have crunch without depth. - 2
Soften the leek
Add the butter to the bacon fat, then stir in the onion and most of the leek, keeping a small handful of fine green rings aside for serving. Cook gently for 6 to 8 minutes, until the onion is translucent and the leek has softened. Do not brown them. Groninger mosterdsoep should stay pale; the mustard is the drama, not the onion.
- 3
Build the roux
Sprinkle the flour over the softened vegetables and stir for 2 minutes, until it forms a pale, sandy paste and no raw flour smell remains. Add the warm stock little by little at first, whisking after each addition so the roux loosens smoothly. Once half the stock is in, add the rest more freely. Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring along the bottom, until the soup lightly coats the back of a spoon.
- 4
Add mustard and cream
Lower the heat. Stir the mustard with a ladleful of hot soup in a small bowl until smooth, then whisk it back into the pot with the cream. Keep the soup below a hard boil from this point onward. Taste for white pepper and salt only now, after the bacon and mustard have had their say. If the soup tastes flat, add another small spoon of mustard rather than more salt.
Mustards vary wildly. Four tablespoons is the sensible beginning; Groningen mustard should announce itself, not punish the room. - 5
Serve with rye
Ladle the soup into warm bowls and scatter the crisp spekjes and reserved leek rings over the top. Put roggebrood, dark rye bread, on the table with butter and a little extra mustard for those who know what they are doing. Serve at once, before the bacon softens and the mustard loses its clean edge.
Chef Tips
- •Use true Groninger mustard if you can find it: coarse, sour, and grainy. If you must substitute, choose a sharp wholegrain mustard with vinegar bite, not honey mustard and not smooth yellow mustard.
- •Add the mustard near the end and keep the soup below a hard boil. Boiling roughs up the dairy and flattens the mustard's nose, which is the whole reason the soup exists.
- •For a meatless version, omit the spekjes and use vegetable stock. Cook the leek a little longer in butter until its edges turn golden, then finish with a few extra mustard seeds or a sharper spoonful of mustard to replace the lost salt and smoke.
- •Roggebrood belongs beside the bowl. Its dark, close crumb and faint sweetness make sense of the sharp mustard in a way white bread never quite manages.
Advance Preparation
- •The roux-thickened soup base can be made one day ahead without the mustard and cream. Reheat gently, then finish with mustard and cream just before serving.
- •If the finished soup is refrigerated, reheat it slowly over low heat and do not let it boil. Crisp fresh spekjes for the top if the earlier batch has softened.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 420g)
Calories
525 calories
Total Fat
38 g
Saturated Fat
19 g
Trans Fat
1 g
Unsaturated Fat
18 g
Cholesterol
90 mg
Sodium
1750 mg
Total Carbohydrates
33 g
Dietary Fiber
5 g
Sugars
4 g
Protein
12 g
Where cooking meets culture.
Culinary guides, cultural storytelling, and the editorial depth that makes cooking meaningful.
Discover Culinary ExplorerMore from Dutch Soups
Browse the full collection
Chef Joost
Bruine Bonensoep (Dutch Brown Bean Soup)
Bruine bonensoep is the quieter winter cousin of snert: brown beans, rookworst, bacon and roots in a broth that stays spoonable, frugal, and deeply Dutch.
Chef Joost
Carnavalssoep (Limburg Carnival Soup)
A filled tomato soup from the Catholic south, built with white beans, minced beef, and rookworst for the long, loud days of Vastelaovend.
Chef Joost
Erwtensoep (Snert)
Snert is Dutch winter made edible: split peas, pork, leek, celeriac, and rookworst simmered until the spoon stands upright, because thickness is not folklore here, it is the test.