This delicious hearty soup makes a perfect light lunch or dinner. Flavoured with mild Indian spices and cooked with coconut milk, this curried butternut pumpkin soup has everything to make it into your 'quick meals recipe collection'.
Summer is well and truly over here in Australia! As the days get shorter and the evenings get a bit chilly, I feel like cosying up with a bowl of warm food that is simple to prepare. I have always enjoyed eating hearty soups as they are filling enough to replace a whole meal.
This Curried butternut pumpkin soup is definitely one such soup. On the contrary, my wife Shilpi can have this soup any time of the year! It is light, healthy and an easy to prepare meal which makes it ideal for her work-from-home-lunch.
Ingredients for Butternut Pumpkin Soup
To make this soup you need only a few ingredients which you may possibly already have on hand.
Butternut pumpkin has a sweet, nutty taste and has less wastage than a regular pumpkin. Be mindful while shopping that 1 butternut pumpkin can yield up to 5 litre of soup. Hence depending on the quantity you want to make, pick the squash accordingly. I prefer to shop for a small one or one already cut in half.
Onion, celery and carrot I use these additional vegetables to give the soup more flavour and body. You can use vegetable or chicken stock too but I prefer to blend these vegetables directly
Ginger and garlic give a lovely kick to the sweet base of coconut and pumpkin. Perfectly paired with curry powder, the ginger and garlic will elevate the flavour of this soup.
Curry powder is a spice mix invented by the British to mimic the Indian cuisine flavours. While curry powder per se isn't used in India, it is pretty popular in many other parts of the world. Did you know a curry powder blend can be a mix of up to 20 different spices?? Fascinating isn't it? I am using a mild curry powder from Clive of India brand, I quite like the flavour as it is not overpowering. For a Thai version of this soup, try using red curry paste instead of curry powder.
Coconut milk makes this soup not only dairy free but it also adds the perfect amount of creaminess and richness one will want in a soup.
To finish it off, I garnished the soup with fresh coriander and toasted pepitas for some crunch.
How to make curried butternut pumpkin soup
The steps involved in making this butternut pumpkin soup are straight forward. Peel and chop all the vegetables before they go into a large stew pot. If you bought a whole butternut pumpkin and are not sure how to cut it read through a step by step guide here. Once you are done preparing the ingredients, start with the cooking. First sear the carrots, onions and celery in vegetable oil and then add the butternut pumpkin.
When the butternut pumpkin has a slight rusty colour, add the garlic, ginger and curry powder. Keep cooking for a few more minutes before pouring the coconut milk and about 2 litres of water. Cook everything in the stew pot for about 20 minutes and then transfer to your blender to turn it into a smooth soup.
Just before serving, squeeze lemon juice and season with salt and pepper. If you want to make this soup a bit fancy, then like us, garnish the soup with toasted pumpkin seeds, coriander and a swirl of coconut milk.
Is butternut pumpkin soup healthy?
This recipe for butternut pumpkin soup is rich in vitamins and fibre hence makes it a perfect complete meal. Made with fresh and simple ingredients, it is a hearty vegetarian and vegan friendly soup that is also dairy free.
The addition of aromatics like ginger, garlic and curry powder definitely takes the soup from being ordinary to extraordinary. But hey, if you feel like a slice of toasted sourdough or a seeded cracker along with your soup, then by all means go for it!
For how long can I keep the soup?
The soup is dairy free and it has no other ingredients that might prevent it from keeping long in the fridge. It can be stored for upto 5 days or it can also be frozen upto 3 months. Butternut pumpkin soup is great for meal preps but if you plan to freeze the soup, then I would recommend not to add coconut milk.
From my experience, the soup can become a bit grainy and mushy when defrosted. You can always add the coconut milk to the defrosted soup while warming it up.
The soup maybe thicker than usual when you take it out from the fridge so while heating up just add a bit of water or coconut milk to thin it a bit.
What else can you make with leftover pumpkin soup?
There are many ways to use leftover butternut pumpkin soup. The puree like consistency, is perfect to act like a sauce. A way we have eaten leftover soup many times, is with poached salmon and steamed pak choy! This combination turned out to be a great match. Some other ideas are:
- In a butternut pumpkin risetti, follow our recipe to make it
- As a creamy butternut pumpkin pasta sauce recipe
- As an Indian curry base for a yellow curry
- In a roasted pumpkin hummus
- As a pumpkin risotto
Grab your spoons and get ready to dig into this delicious soup!
vegan curried butternut pumpkin soup
Ingredients
- 1 kg butternut pumpkin peeled and cut in cubes
- ½ brown onion peeled and roughly chopped
- ½ celery stick roughly chopped
- 1 medium carrot peeled and roughly chopped
- 1 thumb ginger peeled and finely chopped
- 1 clove garlic peeled and finely chopped
- ½ lemon juiced
- 150 ml coconut milk
- 1 tablespoon mild curry powder
- 2 tablespoon vegetable oil
- to taste salt, pepper
- 2 tablespoon sunflower seeds lightly toasted
- ¼ bunch coriander picked
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a large stew pot over medium heat. Add the chopped brown onion, carrot and celery and cook for 4-5 minutes.
- Increase to high heat and add the butternut pumpkin. Continue cooking until the pumpkin is lightly roasted from the outside.
- Add the ginger, garlic and curry powder. Cook for another 2 minutes and stir occasionally.
- Add the coconut milk and about 2 litres of water. Season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil and reduce the heat. Simmer covered until the vegetables are cooked and start to fall apart. This should take no longer than 15-20 minutes.
- With a stick blender or food processor mix the soup until silky smooth. add the lemon juice and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper if needed.
- Garnish the soup with toasted pumpkin seeds, coriander and a swirl of coconut milk before serving.
Renu
Love this. Simple hearty and flavourful.
Claude VAUTE
Thank you !
Lucette
Nice. I'll try it next Autumn.