I’ve wanted to try make butternut squash soup only for, let’s see, 3 years now? I finally did it, YAY! And even better, it turned out awesome. Even my mom, who is the hyper-critic, loved it. You know that when Pearlie loves something, it’s gotta be good.
This vegan soup is so easy and it’s really gorgeous garnished with pops of green from chives and jewel-like pomegranate arils.
The squash is full of vitamin A and fiber, as well as antioxidants like carotenoids that help prevent disease and, get this: aging! So eat lots of my soup, and maybe you’ll stay young forever. Well, it’s worth a try, right?
Alternately to the chives and pomegranate, I also made this soup with toasted hazelnut oil and garnished it with chopped, toasted hazelnuts. Hello, it was amazeballs. Vegan soup that proves, yet again, that vegan food can taste incredible.
Serves 6
1 large butternut squash, peeled and cubed
2 large or 3 smaller sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
½ large yellow onion or 1 whole small one, peeled and cut into 8ths
2 large or 3 smaller garlic cloves, peeled
1.5L vegetable broth
1t coriander seed
1.5 inches of fresh turmeric rhizome, peeled and microplaned
Olive oil for roasting
Chives and pomegranate for garnish
Optional: Toasted hazelnut oil and chopped, toasted hazelnuts
First, roast the squash and potatoes.
Preheat the oven to 350F.
On a parchment-lined baking sheet (or 2, because it’s a lot of vegetables), arrange the squash, sweet potato, onion, and garlic in a single layer. Drizzle generously with olive oil.
Roast at 350F for around an hour until the pieces of vegetable are browned. Watch them carefully, because one burned piece of potato will ruin your soup.
Remove from the oven.
While the vegetables are roasting, toast the coriander seed in a dry frying pan.
Heat a small frying pan on the stove and add the coriander seed. Toast on medium-high heat, shaking the pan frequently, until the seeds become fragrant and look a bit browned. Remove from the pan and grind in a spice grinder (or as I did, place between sheets of folded paper towel and whale on them with a hammer until they’re ‘ground’).
In a high-speed blender, puree the roasted vegetables, ground coriander, and turmeric together with the vegetable broth. You’ll probably need to do this in at least 2 batches.
If you’re using the toasted hazelnut oil, you can add 1-2 tablespoons to the finished soup, or carefully add 1teaspoon as a garnish to each bowl before serving, and sprinkle with toasted hazelnuts.
If you’re not doing the hazelnut thing, garnish the finished soup with chives and pomegranate arils, and serve.
** hint ** as with most soups, a squeeze of lime into the big batch of soup will brighten it up. I pretty much always do this.
