Diet Soup Recipe – Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato:
It is definitely soup season again. Any regular reader may have noticed that I am not the most patient of cooks. While I prefer to cook from scratch, I am quite prepared to take shortcuts. And, although I would always recommend buying your vegetables ‘whole’, sometimes those little peeled and pre-diced packs look too useful to ignore. On the downside, I know that the minute you peel and dice vegetables they start to age faster and lose vital nutrients. So if you are tempted to cheat occasionally then make sure you use whatever veg you buy very quickly. Especially if you are dieting. Remember that if you are reducing the total quantity of food you eat, then if you continue eating like-for-like you will also be reducing the vitamins and minerals you are eating.
Butternut squash is one of those vegetables that is just hard work to peel and dice so the 350g bag of mixed squash and sweet potato to make this low-calorie diet soup felt like a perfectly valid cheat to me.
Dietary Gluten Free, Vegan, Vegetarian
- 350 g Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato I used a pre-prepared vegetable bag - 50% of each
- 1 tablespoon Coconut Cream
- 20 g Fresh Ginger Peeled
- 1 Small Banana Shallot Peeled
- 750 ml Hot Vegetable Stock
- 1 Handful Fresh Coriander
- Salt and pepper to taste
Roast the butternut squash, sweet potato, ginger and shallot in a low oven at 160C for 30-40 minutes till soft
Put the ginger, butternut squash, sweet potato and shallot into your blender and blend until you have a puree. Or tip them into a saucepan and add half the stock to help blend the mixture with a stick blender
Add the hot stock and coconut milk and continue to blend on full power until the mixture is velvety smooth. If you are using a jug blender, tip everything into a saucepan. Heat through until piping hot. If the mixture is too thick add hot water till you get something the consistency of single cream
Add most of the coriander, reserving a few leaves for garnish. Blend for a further 30 seconds. If you are using a conventional blender you will need to chop the coriander finely to avoid having to return the mixture from a saucepan to the blender. Taste and season with salt and pepper as required.
Serve garnished with fresh coriander and if you like, a drizzle of coconut cream
This time I decided to TIME my soup making. I was a little disappointed with the first soup I made in the froothie because it didn’t heat up as much as I’d hoped. But, as I mentioned, patience is not a strong point of mine…
Putting the timer on for 7 minutes resulted in a piping hot, velvety textured soup. Enough for three greedy dishes or four smaller ones, the calorie count per bowl will depend on your portion size. The only fat comes from the coconut cream so you can indulge in a good bowlful for around 70 calories (the squash and sweet potato mix is just 40cals per 100g making the entire pack 140 calories while a tablespoon of coconut cream is 50 calories. So a large bowl of soup would be around 80 calories and if you manage to stretch the soup to feed four people you can cut that to 60 calories.
Thinking of making this recipe yourself? Why not pin the post for later
Still looking for a soup recipe on your diet – my Low Calorie Celery Soup is really low in calories and high in taste. Or for something different, try this Diet Spinach and Lentil Soup. And, who wouldn’t be happy with a big bowl of Low Calorie Cream of Tomato Soup for a diet Lunch
I never thought of using ginger in butternut squash soup! Genius!
Oh this soup looks and sounds lovely! Will definitely be giving this a go at the weekend!
Thanks for this recipe it looks delicious – I love butternut squash
sounds lovely, especially as it’s so low in fat and calories.
I am intrigued by the idea of putting banana in the soup. I might just have to try this!