When it comes to soups, I am not Mafalda but I am not her brother either. That’s to say, I like them but I don’t crave them. With one notable exemption: pumpkin soup! I love that stuff! My recipe for a slow cooked pumpkin soup is my favorite and it’s delicious! This time, I found a Hokkaido pumpkin in the organic farmer’s market and I just couldn’t resist! Read below for my vegan Hokkaido pumpkin soup recipe!
These are called red kuri squash or Hokkaido pumpkins and they have a richer taste that the usual squash does. I followed the steps I’ve written here to bake the squash but I only used half of the puree for the soup this time. The rest went into the freezer for future use.
I wanted to make this Hokkaido pumpkin into a vegan soup so I didn’t use any crème or yogurt. The rest of the ingredients can be totally tailored to your preference and what’s in your fridge! I used carrots, sweet potatoes, potatoes, onions and garlic. The resulting taste is quite spicy especially if you add a healthy amount of pepper. If garlic is not your taste though, you can easily omit it! You will then have a smoother, sweeter tasting vegan Hokkaido pumpkin soup.
Vegan Hokkaido pumpkin soup
Ingredients (serves 5-6)
1/2 a Hokkaido pumpkin
2 large carrots
1 potato
1 small sweet potato
1 onion
1 sweet red pepper
1 garlic clove
1 cup of Brussels sprouts (optional)
2 tbsps extra virgin olive oil
Salt, oregano and pepper to taste
Vegan Hokkaido pumpkin soup
Procedure
1. Wash the pumpkin and cut it in half. Put it on a paper lined baking sheet and bake along the rest of the vegetables. Then follow the instructions here to turn it into a puree. For this recipe you will need half the puree.
2. Wash, peel and cut the rest of the vegetables.
3. Put them in a bowl and add the olive oil and seasonings. Use your hands to get the oil and seasonings everywhere.
4. Place them in a paper lined baking sheet and out them in the oven with the pumpkin for 45 minutes at 160οC or until soft (the pumpkin needs less than an hour for sure).
5. Once the vegetables are soft and the pumpkin is ready, place them all in a pot with water (see notes) and using a hand held rod mixer turn them into soup.
6. Let it simmer for 15 minutes and serve hot!
Vegan Hokkaido pumpkin soup
Recipe notes:
- You can use any kind of vegetable you have/want along with the pumpkin. Some veggies may cover its taste tough. If you add too much onion, garlic or leek your soup will be spicier and the pumpkin maybe not that noticeable. That’s a good thing if you want to serve it to kids who don’t like pumpkin that much.
- I used the Brussels sprouts because they were going bad and I needed to use them before long. They didn’t really change the soup’s taste, but they are totally optional.
- Instead of water in the last step you can use homemade vegetable broth. I am not using commercial broth in any of my recipes but feel free to use them if you prefer.
There is still soup on my fridge since my daughter didn’t love it as much as she loves the ones with rice in them. Oh well, more for me for dinner then!
