There is one dish everyone should cook at least twice during pumpkin season: Pumpkin soup. I can only recommend trying as many variations as possible.
The most well-known pumpkin is the Hokkaido pumpkin. It does not only look really pretty on the outside. Also, the color of the inside is a super nice orange. Another positive aspect is, that you don’t have to peel the Hokkaido.
So for my soup recipe, I used a (small 🙂 ) Hokkaido pumpkin. But of course, you can use any kind of pumping you like. Though there are innumerable pumpkin soup recipes, even vegan ones, on the internet – I’d love to throw mine, which of course is the best one 😉 , also into the worldwide pot.
To start off the soup with a really tasty base, onions and garlic are important. So you don’t need any additional broth/powder. For the creaminess and to round off the slightly sweet pumpkin taste I use some coconut milk, full fat. And for all the protein junkies out there, there are also some red lentils that go into the soup. For a healthy, filling, and most important delicious dish. And you don’t have to worry about their alleged cooking time because dry lentils only need about 15 minutes to be cooked. Then the soup only needs some spices and you can blend it till the soup is silken smooth.
To speed up the cooking time, even more, you can use canned precooked lentils :-).
Enjoy!
Recipe for 4 servings (ca. 2 liters of soup):
3 tbsp olive oil
380g pumpkin
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
230g red lentils (dry)
1 liter of water
400ml coconut milk
2 ¼ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
½ tsp curry powder
4 tbsp store-bought pumpkin seeds
4 tbsp plant-based yogurt
some pumpkin seed oil
Peel the onions and cut them into pieces.
Heat the olive oil in a pot and put in the onion pieces. Cut the pumpkin into two halves. Remove the seeds inside and cut them into small pieces. Then you can add them to the onions. Stir everything together and let it roast for a few minutes.
Peel the garlic cloves and roughly cut them and put them into the pot.
Now you have to put the lentils into a colander and rinse them under cold water. Then put them into the pot.
Add the water into the pot, bring everything to a boil. Then reduce to medium heat and put a lid on the pot. Now let it cook for about 15 minutes so that the pumpkin and the lentils do get soft.
In the meantime you can gently roast the pumpkin seeds, you have to keep an eye on them so that they do not burn. Put them aside when they are ready.
Now you can put the salt, pepper, and curry powder into the soup. Also, add the coconut milk.
Blend the soup till it is smooth. Now you can taste it, and add some salt and pepper if needed. Also, you could add some more curry powder to your own taste.
To serve the soup garnish it with plant-based yogurt and the roasted pumpkin seed. If you have some pumpkin seed oil drizzle a little bit of it onto the soup.
Done!
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