Blog

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup: Vegan, Ridiculously Easy

• September 2011
• Recipes

I love this soup, because I kind of feel like it’s cheating. It requires almost no actual cooking, uses 5 ingredients, and tastes like it’s from a gourmet restaurant!

1 medium butternut squash
1 yam/sweet potato
1 onion
4 cloves garlic
2-3 carrots
salt and fresh ground pepper
2 liters water (negotiable, depending on how thick you like it–you can always add more, or reduce it down, so you can’t really mess it up)

Step 1
Cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds. Poke holes in the yam with a fork. Put them both on a pan and roast them in the oven at 400 for about an hour, until they are soft when you stick a fork in them. (You may wish to take advantage of this hot oven to make some biscuits or cornbread.)
Cut them in slabs and pull the skins off.

Step 2
While you are roasting, coarsely chop the onion and garlic and carrot. Saute them in some grapeseed oil in your large stockpot. Then add about 2 liters of water, and wait until the squash and yam are ready.

Step 3
Bring the water to a boil, and add the squash and yam. Simmer it all for about 30-40 minutes. Then take a stick blender (this is much easier than a normal blender), and blend well. Simmer again for a while–this depends on how much you want to reduce it and thicken it.

Step 4
The secret to this soup is salt. Start by adding a tablespoon of salt. This brings out the flavor, rather than letting it be overwhelmed by the sweetness of the squash, yam and carrot. Add more as you taste, as necessary. Add a generous amount of fresh ground pepper.

Step 5
Eat and graciously accept the compliments!