Recipe: Fall Vegetable Soup
Who doesn’t love a delicious fall soup? Slow cookers are wonderful, but this recipe offers an alternative if you need a quick option. You can make it even faster by purchasing pre-cut butternut squash in some stores!
Butternut squash lends both its beautiful orange, fall color, and flavorful, starchy texture to make this soup stand out from other veggie soups. As its bright orange color suggests, butternut squash is bursting with vitamin A. Just 1/2 cup of cooked butternut squash provides over 200% of your daily intake of this fat-soluble vitamin! This starchy veggie is also a good source of fiber and vitamin C.
Even though this is a fall soup, we can’t help but point out it’s also a wonderful way to load up on the nutrient powerhouse that is kale. Just 1/2 cup of cooked kale provides large amounts of vitamins A and C, plus manganese. With only 1/2 cup of cooked kale, we get over 600% of our daily recommended amount of vitamin K! These two all-stars together make this soup both a warming and highly nutritious option.
If you want to take this dish a step further, consider adding extra beans or cooked, ground turkey to make this a complete, plate method meal!
Fall Vegetable Soup
Serves 4
Ingredients:
- 1 large yellow onion
- 3 medium carrots
- 1 butternut squash
- 1 Tbsp fresh rosemary leaves
- 2 C kale, rinsed, de-ribbed, and chopped
- 1 tsp minced garlic from jar (or 2-3 garlic cloves, minced)
- 4 C vegetable broth
- 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes with juice
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes plus more, to taste
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- 15.5 oz can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
- Shredded Parmesan cheese (Optional)
Directions:
- Prepare ingredients into spoon-sized pieces. Chop yellow onion and carrots. Peel, deseed, and cube squash into 1/2-inch cubes. Mince rosemary leaves. Rinse, de-rib, and chop kale.
- Heat olive oil in large pot on stovetop over medium-high heat. Add onion and carrots. Cook, stirring often, 5 minutes or until they begin to soften. Add garlic. Stir 1 minute.
- Add butternut squash, vegetable broth, tomatoes, rosemary, red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper. Bring soup to boil, then reduce heat to medium and cover. Simmer 10 minutes.
- Add chickpeas and kale. Cook uncovered, 10 minutes.
- Taste soup. Add more red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper as desired. Serve in bowls, garnished with optional shredded parmesan.
Swaps:
- For the vegetable broth: chicken broth
- For the rosemary: 1 tsp Italian seasoning
- For the squash: 2 large sweet potatoes
- For the chickpeas: cannellini beans or another bean of choice, ground turkey (cooked), or turkey sausage (cooked)
- For the kale: Swiss chard or frozen spinach (thawed, rinsed, and drained)
- For the Parmesan cheese: nutritional yeast
Recipe modified from: Yummly