Winter is here, and what’s better than a big bowl of homemade soup to warm you up? For the last 20 years, Jan Olpin, owner of Dairy Keen, in Heber City, has been making homemade soups during the winter season. Now, Dairy Keen serves 43 varieties of soups, which rotate daily, October through April.
I hope and feel that the soups are bringing comfort to people. A bowl of chicken noodle soup can make me feel safe, home, and normal.
Jan Olpin, owner of Dairy Keen
A staple in Heber, Dairy Keen’s rotating soups are not your average flavors. Always on the lookout for something new, Olpin conducts trial run, after trial run, until there is something for everyone on the menu. Guests can find classics like minestrone, white chicken chili, clam chowder, split pea and ham, and chicken noodle, to more modern and creative flavors like chicken enchilada, Shepard’s pie, Swedish meatball, and chicken broccoli Alfredo.
Photo: Dirks Media Management.
I’m still creating new ideas. I just did a trial run with gazpacho and it will be on the menu this week. I’m always looking for things to turn into soups. To take a bunch of ingredients from something, play with the ingredients, and try it as a soup. My son loved chicken broccoli Alfredo. I thought, that could be a soup. So I made it.
Jan Olpin
It takes Olpin about five to six hours to create a new soup. With an idea in mind, she references several recipes, gathers the ingredients needed, and begins her trial run. She uses fresh cut vegetables for the minestrone, 25 pounds of chopped potatoes, and six pounds of bacon for the corn and bacon chowder, and on most days she can go through 10 pounds of onions, only allowing others to taste the final product once she is satisfied.
I make it. I taste it. I try it. Then I become obsessed trying to figure it out. Next, is to figure out a way to mass produce the soup without it losing its flavor. I’m constantly looking at, how can I make this soup better?
Jan Olpin
A Best of State winner in the soup category, the last four years, Olpin’s strategy is to layer ingredients, once the soup is ordered, opposed to cooking all the ingredients together over long periods of time, which could lead to soggy noodles, and undercooked or overcooked vegetables. For instance, the Shepard’s pie, Olpin’s personal favorite, is a ham, pea, carrot and gravy broth, topped with a scoop of homemade mashed potatoes. The chicken broccoli Alfredo is layered with noodles, then broccoli, and topped with a cream sauce soup, and the Swedish meatball is layered with noodles, then pieces of homemade meatballs, and topped with a Swedish gravy soup. Along with the gazpacho, there is another new menu item this week, the funeral potato soup, which comes with a side of homemade toasted cornflakes to sprinkle on top for an added crunch.
Every bite of soup should have every variable fitting on the spoon.
Jan Olpin
Photo: Dirks Media Managment.
And for the holidays, there is corn beef and cabbage soup for St. Patrick’s Day, lobster bisque for Mardi Gras, and for the Chinese New Year, Chinese chicken noodle soup, her most labor intensive, with 18 different ingredients, and homemade fried wontons on the side. This holiday season, Dairy Keen will offer customers turkey and wild rice and turkey pot pie soups, after Thanksgiving.
Dairy Keen has been a part of Olpin’s family since 1946. Currently, sharing ownership with her two siblings, the family looks forward to celebrating its 75th anniversary next October, with the guests that have supported them all along.
I have never known anything, but this business, my whole life. We are home for many, and I hope the safety, tradition and continuity can continue. Honestly, I’m just crazy. I’m obsessed. I just want to make it the best.
Jan Olpin
All 43 Dairy Keen soups can be made gluten free and are available for dine-in, and take out, in quart and gallon sizes. Follow @dairykeen on Instagram for new monthly, and weekly soup flavors.
Dairy Keen’s soup of the day schedule:
Monday: chicken enchilada
Tuesday: cream of broccoli
Wednesday: varies
Thursday: tomato beef macaroni
Friday: clam chowder
