PARIS, Jan 18 — While certain cold soups like gazpacho and vichyssoise are famous worldwide, soup is most often associated with winter, as liquid meals that will help us warm up.

And since soup is a universal culinary preparation that each country has adapted to its own style, you should definitely be looking beyond your culture’s staples.

Raise the temperature with a variety of gastronomic delights such as a Vietnamese pho or a Japanese ramen.

CNN’s travel site has put together a ranking of soups that is sure to inspire gastronomes and armchair travellers to look beyond their regular go-to dishes and sample the best recipes of the genre. 

Are you familiar with soto ayam? Originally from Indonesia, this chicken and vermicelli-based dish is a nice change from Asian noodle-based soups like Vietnamese pho or Japanese ramen, more famous in the West.

CNN’s ranking also features Lanzhou Noodle Soup, named after the noodle capital of China. It is a preparation that revolves around a spicy beef broth in which hand-stretched wheat noodles are immersed.

For a change from Tom Yum goong (the Thai soup made with lemongrass and shrimp), we can also take inspiration from the national soup of Myanmar called mohinga. It’s a soup made of rice noodles and a broth prepared with catfish. The flavours of the recipe are enhanced with chili paste. 

If you’ve already tasted all these Asian dishes, how about a taste of the soups of South America? Plump shrimp, potatoes and corn.

These are the basic ingredients of chupe de camarones, a typical Peruvian recipe from the Arequipa region.

The concocton, which is served hot, can be spiced with aji amarillo pepper.

It is said that the recipe even has aphrodisiacal properties! Also on the list is Brazilian moqueca de camarao, which warms up eaters with its coconut milk-based broth.

Those who like it spicy will enjoy the Mexican menudo, which is closer to a stew with its texture made of tripe and pig’s feet. 

Here are the world’s 20 best soups according to CNN: 

1. Banga (Nigeria)

2. Pho (Vietnam)

3. Bortsch (Ukraine)

4. Bouillabaisse (France)

5. Caldo Verde (Portugal)

6. Chorba frik (Algeria, Libya, Tunisia)

7. Chupe de camarones (Peru)

8. Gazpacho (Spain)

9. Groundnut soup (West Africa)

10. Gumbo (United States)

11. Harira (Morocco)

12. Kharcho (Georgia)

13. Lanzhou noodle soup (China)

14. Mohinga (Myanmar)

15. Menudo (Mexico)

16. Moqueca de camarao (Brazil)

17. Soto ayam (Indonesia)

18. Tom Yum goong (Thailand)

19. Tonkotsu ramen (Japan)

20. Yayla çorbasi (Turkey) — ETX Studio