It’s October, which means it’s the best season: soup season.
I love soup. It makes it easy to come up with a variety of fulfilling, warm meals. Despite this love of soup, I’ve never made pumpkin soup. Pumpkin and October are basically synonymous, so while the weather might not be cold yet, it’s definitely soup time.
I followed Cookie and Kate’s Creamy Roasted Pumpkin Soup recipe.
Ingredients:
4 lb. of sugar pie pumpkins
Onion
Garlic
Various seasonings
Vegetable broth
Coconut milk
Honey
I found 2lb sugar pie pumpkins at Sprouts for $0.99 a pumpkin. When choosing pumpkins, make sure you select a firm pumpkin with no wrinkles or bruises.
Directions:
Just like a Jack-o-Lantern pumpkin, sugar pie pumpkins are pretty difficult to cut. I cut off the top to scoop out the guts and seeds before quartering the pumpkins. Make sure you have a good, safe grip while quartering. Don’t worry if your pieces aren’t all the same size. One of my pumpkins was bruised, which I cut out and discarded, so it looked a little wonky.
After roasting the lightly olive-oiled pumpkin quarters at 425 degrees for 35 minutes, the pumpkins smelled great. Not exactly “pumpkin-ey,” but just like roast vegetables. I ate a charred piece of the pumpkin, and it was amazing.
The recipe says to line the roasting pan with parchment paper, when I removed the roasted pumpkin the parchment paper was significantly browned from its original color. I recommend instead lining the pan with lightly greased tin foil.
When the pumpkin roasted, it was time to begin the soup in earnest. I chopped up a large yellow onion with my handy vegetable chopper and crushed the garlic cloves with a garlic press before adding them to a Dutch oven with olive oil.
After the onions sautéed for about 10 minutes, I added the remaining ingredients, except the coconut milk and honey, and let that simmer for 15 minutes on the recipe’s instruction. Once it was done simmering, I added the coconut milk and honey and let it cool slightly before blending it and serving.
I am not a pumpkin person. I don’t like pumpkin pie or pumpkin spiced flavored things, so going into this recipe I wasn’t sure if it was going to be worth it. Especially after the challenge of preparing the pumpkins, I decided I wasn’t going to make this ever again.
The soup was spiced very well and definitely felt appropriate for fall, but it wasn’t jaw dropping for me.
It felt like it was missing elements, probably since it lacked protein. I dipped bread in my soup which was nice, but still didn’t blow my mind. It was enjoyable to cook with a fresh pumpkin for the first time.
If you are a pumpkin-lover in want of a seasonal snack rather than a meal, this is the recipe for you!