Autumnal Vegan Spiced Pumpkin Soup

I know, I know, I eat a lot of soup! But it’s quick, easy, super healthy and it’s pretty much all I want for dinner when it’s cold outside and I’m hungry.

This is my new favourite soup, inspired by my boyfriend’s dad who made a delicious version and gave me the basic recipe. I’ve tweaked it here and there but so can you! Add in more chilli if you like it hot and some extra root vegetables if you happen to have them available.

Ingredients (makes 6 portions)

1 tbsp organic coconut oil

1 red onion

2 stalks celery

3 cloves of garlic

Thumb-sized piece of ginger

750g pumpkin

1 medium sweet potato

1 tbsp organic vegetable bouillon

½ litre water

1 can low-fat coconut milk

1 tsp turmeric

1 tbsp cumin

1 tbsp garam masala

2 tbsp curry powder

Method

Chop the pumpkin and sweet potato into chunks (peel the sweet potato but you can leave the skin on the pumpkin, it’s easier to peel once it’s cooked). Place on trays and put in the oven at around 180 degrees for 30-40 minutes until soft (I know my sweet potato is white but it was very sweet).

While the pumpkin and sweet potato are cooking, finely chop the onion, garlic, celery and ginger and fry gently in the coconut oil for 15-20 minutes until soft

Remove the skin from the pumpkin and add it to the pan with the sweet potato. Add the spices in and cook gently for another 10 minutes to let the spices cook out, you don’t want the bitter taste of raw spices in the finished soup.

At this point add in the vegetable stock and coconut milk and let the soup come to the boil. Turn it down and simmer for 15-20 minutes to let all of the flavours combine. Blend the soup using a hand blender or a jug blender, whatever you have to hand.

It’s ready to serve so portion up into bowls and you can add a garnish of a swirl of coconut cream and a few toasted pumpkin seeds if you want to be fancy. I tend to just serve and shovel it in because it’s so tasty!

I keep a couple of portions in the fridge and freeze the rest so that there’s always a warming and delicious dinner for cold nights. Enjoy fitties!