Pumpkin Soup Recipes?

Hey everyone,

I was wondering if anyone would like to share any great pumpkin soup recipes. I love pumpkin and was thinking that I'd like to try a pumpkin soup given the season.

Preferably something relatively healthy, possibly with a Southwestern-Mexican spin, as I have a well stocked Mexican pantry (i.e. an abundance of Ancho's, Guajillo's, Pasilla's etc.). I'm open to anything that sounds tasty though.

Thanks

First-Time LTH-er

Rob C

Hi,

My favorite squash soup is Butternut Squash and Roasted Garlic Bisque is a solid base to work from. I use my wand blender to puree the vegetables, which far more convenient than blending in batches.

Substituting pumpkin for butternut squash is no big deal.

Welcome to LTH!

Regards,

I have no specific recipe, but if I were to make a similar soup, I would serve it just as they did at Sweets and Savories last Saturday night.

Roasted butternut squash soup with sweet gorgonzola


The soup itself was almost too pumpkin-pie-ish but when combined with the cold cheese, the combination was heavenly.

-ramon

I'd say get a can of pumpkin and a couple of cups of stock and experiment. I make pumpkin soup throughout the season starting with a puree and stock base, to which I may add sour cream and chilies, or cinnamon and nutmeg, or turmeric and cumin or just a bunch of curry powder, or pretty much any combination that sounds appealing. Buttermilk is a nice addition, too. But it's hard to go wrong with pumpkin soup.

I love pumpkin soup but I find many versions too sweet and pumpkin-pielike, so I came up with this one. Canned pumpkin makes it easy. It's great for Thanksgiving.

You could easily zing it up by adding some chilies.

Savory pumpkin soup

1/2 pound bacon, cut in 1-inch pieces
2 medium yellow onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
1/2 cup dry sherry
1 29-ounce can pumpkin
6 cups chicken broth
2 teaspoons pressed fresh garlic
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice
Creme fraiche (optional)

In a stockpot, over medium-high heat, saute the bacon until crisp. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside to drain on paper towels.

Reduce the heat, add the onions, chopped garlic, salt and pepper and cook until soft. Remove with a slotted spoon to a food-processor bowl or blender. Add some of the chicken broth and puree. Set aside.

Discard the fat from the pan. Deglaze the pan with the sherry over high heat; let reduce by half. Stir in the pumpkin, the remaining broth and the onion puree. Bring to a boil, add the pressed garlic and lime juice. Reduce the heat and let simmer for 20 minutes.

Serve garnished with a dollop of creme fraiche, if desired, and the crumbled cooked bacon. 10 servings.

I ended up taking Cynthia's advice of "get a can of pumpkin and a couple of cups of stock and experiment."

It was nice to have some of the posted recipes as a reference. I was pretty pleased with the results, but here's a rough outline of what I did, if anyone is curious (the measurements are not incredibly precise, as I was indeed "experimenting").

Ingredients:
1 15 oz can of Pumpkin puree
1 large yellow onion
1 large carrot
3 cloves of garlic
1 1/2 Pasilla chiles
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon ancho chile powder
1 teaspoon of canela (Mexican cinnamon)
1/2 teaspoon of cloves
1/4 teaspoon of allspice
1/4 teaspoon of cumin
1 1/2 cup of water
5 cups of Chicken broth
Salt to taste

Steps:

I toasted the pasilla chiles over a flame for a 10-15 seconds, then broke them into pieces and pureed them in the blender with the can of pumpkin, and 1 and 1/2 cup of water.

I browned the onions and carrots, then added the garlic. Let those cool and then blended them with the pumpkin/pasilla mixture. Then I added the mixture to a hot 4 quart saucepan, cooked for about 7 minutes until it reduced to a very thick consistency. Added the 5 cups of broth, along with the array of other spices and simmered for 30 minutes.

The results:

Again I haven't met many dishes with pumpkin that I dislike, but thought it turned out well. It definitely doesn't taste anything like pumpkin pie filling, as no sweeteners are added, and because I left out any cream it's pretty healthy. I added cooked spinach, or grilled chicken breast a few times to make a heartier meal. If I had cranberries I think I would've toyed with some type of spicy cranberry salsa to finish. Goat cheese would've also worked.

Anyways thanks everyone for the suggestions and I'd welcome anymore

Rob C

I make a creamy curried pumpkin soup.

Equal parts canned pumpkin & College Inn chicken broth & canned milk (Carnation evaporated)

Curry powder
cardamon powder
garlic powder
kosher salt
fresh ground black pepper
onion powder
hot paprika

Butter or oil

In a pot combine all the spice powders & heat til aroma is released. Add a little butter or oil to pot and mix in with the spices. Add pumpkin, and mix thoroughly. Slowly mix in the broth, a little at a time, stirring constantly. Add evaporated milk at the end, heat til warm and serve.

This soup travels well & I especially like to pack it in a thermos for a brisk Autumn picnic. I like red wine with this.

Eventhough I'm not a vegetarian, I have never understood the practice of adding chicken stock to vegetable based soups. Why not veggie stock? Or, just water? I always find the flavor of the chicken overpowers the pumpkin too much. Am I alone?[/quote]

I use chicken stock because it makes for a richer tasting soup. Plain water would be very bland. Never thought about vegetable stock...probably would be good.

[quote="figmolly"]Eventhough I'm not a vegetarian, I have never understood the practice of adding chicken stock to vegetable based soups. Why not veggie stock? Or, just water? I always find the flavor of the chicken overpowers the pumpkin too much. Am I alone?[/quote

I guess this is just a matter of taste, but I really like the chicken stock much better with most vegetable puree soups, including pumpkin or butternut squash. I actually find that vegetable stock - not chicken stock - is most likely to overpower the flavor of a soup where a single ingredient is intended to shine. Carrots, celery, onion - all ingredients with tons of dominating flavor. Especially celery, which in many commercially available veggie stocks is way overused. When I make chicken stock, I use just a small amount or mirepoix so that the chicken bones dominate. Vegetable stocks, by contrast, can't take that approach, which is why I think they tend to overwhelm many dishes.

I don't work off a recipe, but I do urge you to try using creme fraiche. Not the healthiest addition, probably, but fail-safe (won't curdle when it hits the hot squash and stock) and completely delicious.

Add in some roasted garlic, and it's off to the races.

Liz and Kennyz just named my reasons for using chicken broth. Plus I usually have chicken broth, homemade or canned, on hand, whereas I don't normally keep vegetable stock.

But it really depends on the soup. To me, the flavors of pumpkin and chicken meld very well (although as you can see in the recipe above, I add many other flavors).

For other soups, I might use beef broth. Sometimes I use vegetable juice (which works better than vegetable stock, I think, for highlighting the flavor of a particular vegetable, but requires getting out the juicer, usually).

Sometimes it's the other way around: I start with a vegetable liquid, such as tomato juice or V-8, and add meat.

The best pumpkin soup I've ever had was at the Asa Wright Nature Center in Trinidad. All I know is that there was a hell of a lot of fresh grated ginger, and a hell of a lot of garlic. If anyone could come up with their recipe, I'd be on cloud nine.