Looking for some quick and easy soup recipes for dinner? You can find some great ideas right in your refrigerator.

Cutting down the food bill has become an important task for many families today. With the economic downturn, many families are dealing with lower incomes and higher bills. Finding ways you can save some money, especially on the grocery bill, can really help during tough times. More than likely, you throw out leftovers from your refrigerator on a regular basis. What you may not realize is that all those bits and pieces you are throwing away can really add up. Instead of dumping food into the trash can, it's a good idea to learn how you can use all those leftovers. In fact, you'll find that leftovers can be used in many ways to create an easy dinner for the family. This means you'll be wasting less and making the most of your grocery budget.

One of the easiest meals that you can make using leftovers is a nice soup or stew. By saving up leftovers through the week or even for a couple weeks, you can save up enough to make a tasty soup that everyone will enjoy. To get started, you need to start saving those leftovers. When you have leftover vegetables, add them to a container or freezer bag that you keep in the freezer, it's a good idea to keep leftover meat as well.

When you're ready to start creating the soup for a nice leftover inspired dinner, you'll want to start by looking for some meat. While vegetarian soups are wonderful too, it's often nice to have some meat in a stew. Leftover chicken, pork, or beef can all be used to start your soup. If you had any gravy or meat juice left with the leftover meat, make sure you use that in the soup as well. It will help to add some flavor to the recipe.

Now you're ready to start adding some vegetables to your leftover soup. If you've been saving vegetables in the freezer, it's time to get those out. Maybe you have some other vegetables in the refrigerator that need used up. Bring out those veggies as well. If you have fresh vegetables that are close to going bad, cut them up and add to your soup too.

Once you have everything out that is available to use in the soup, it's time to start putting together your soup. Go ahead and cut up or shred the meat that you have. It's nice to have 1-2 cups of meat to add to the soup. You'll need 1-2 cups of sautéed veggies like celery, garlic, and veggies as well. Just make sure that they are cut small. Going with a couple cups of other vegetables like carrots, potatoes, beans, and corn is a great idea as well.

To get started making the soup, you'll want to add about a tablespoon of olive oil to a large soup pot. Allow the oil to heat up and then sauté the vegetables like onions, garlic, and celery if you have those vegetables.

Next, you'll want to add in some water or some stock to the pot. You'll need about two cups of the liquid. Now it's time to add the meat to the pot and start increasing the heat until you have the liquid boiling in the pot. Once you have the liquid at a nice boil, you can add some tomatoes and other vegetables. Now you can allow the pot to simmer for awhile. If you want, add in some basic seasonings to the soup, such as oregano, basil, bay leaf, white pepper, black pepper, salt, or parsley. A little chili powder can add a bit of kick to the soup if you like it spicy.