Caribbean soup mixes are a kitchen shortcut and a meal in their own right. Made up with water they give you a quick, peppery bowl in five minutes. Used as a base — with pumpkin, yam, dumplings and whatever else is in the kitchen — they turn into a proper Saturday soup.

Cock soup is the best known. Grace and Home Choice both make it: a rich, peppery noodle soup mix with a savoury depth that also works stirred into steamed fish, rice or a pot of chicken soup. Grace comes in 50g, Home Choice in 45g.

Pumpkin soup is the Jamaican Saturday staple, and the mix gives you the seasoning base — add fresh pumpkin, yam and spinners and you have the real thing.

Fish tea is lighter and peppery, traditionally drunk as much as eaten. Ram goat soup is the stronger, more warming end of the range, and Home Choice's ram goat booster adds that flavour to any pot.

Also stocked: chicken soup mix from Grace and Home Choice, Tropical Sun vegetable soup, Portland Mills all purpose soup mix in a larger 250g pack, and the familiar Knorr range for everyday cooking.

Building a soup from scratch? See fresh vegetables and yams for pumpkin, yam and cho cho.