Vegetarian winter soups are some of the healthiest meals you can eat, especially if they are homemade. In this post I provide you with three recipes including Sweet Green Pea Soup (the original handed down to me by my mother and the one here my own vegetarian variation), Indian Spiced Red Lentil Soup (a JWM original), and vegetarian French onion soup (a 1974 New York Times recipe from a 1907 recipe by Ali-Bab in Gastronomie Practique). The nice thing about the sweet green soup recipe is that it can be adapted to make any vegetable soup. All you need to do is substitute the peas for other veggies you like. All of the soups below are each perfect and quick to make for yourself, dinner parties with friends, or families meals.
Sweet Green Pea Soup
Sweet green pea soup is one of my favorite soups to eat. It is so beautiful and delicious and also makes for an incredibly light yet filling lunch, dinner appetizer, or complete dinner with a nice side to accompany it (a crostini perhaps?).
What’s In It?
1 16 oz Bag Organic Frozen Peas
2 Tbsps Olive Oil
Vegetable Bullion Broth
2 Tbsps Flour
1 Shallot Diced
Salt
Pepper
How To Make
Place the frozen peas into a deep pot. Add water to cover the peas about one eighth of an inch. Bring the water to a boil. Add the vegetable bullion and stir it in thoroughly. In a separate saucepan, sauté the shallots in 1tbsp of olive oil until they are slightly translucent. Add the shallots to the pot of vegetable bullion broth and peas (the consistency of the soup at this point should be gauged by the peas comfortably floating in the broth). Remove a large spoon of the peas and shallots and place the contents in a side prep bowl. Puree the soup in batches until smooth. Once the entire pot is blended, take half of the soup and add 1 tbsp of white flour to it and blend it. Pour that half into a larger side prep bowl. Add the second tbsp of flour to the second half of the soup and do the same, blending it until the consistency is smooth. The batches should be a beautiful mint green in color when the flour is completely blended in. Mix the two batches together in the soup pot. Add the salt and pepper for flavor (test until it is right) and stir well. Add the contents of the prep bowl as a garnish. Serve! You can freeze leftovers for up to a month.
Time: 20 minutes
Indian Spiced Red Lentil Soup
This soup’s flavor is unbelievable and though spiced for taste it is not hot. As a yogini, I am a pitta (fire-oriented) person so I cannot handle very “hot”/spicy food. But I love smooth soft spices and my system does too!
What You Need
Red Lentils
Water
1 Chopped Sweet White Onion
Organic Turmeric Power
Organic Curry Power
Organic Ginger Power (you could also use the real thing)
Organic Cumin Powder
Salt and Pepper
How To Make
Rinse the red lentils and place them in a pot. Add double the amount of water to the lentils. Bring the water and lentils to a boil. The lentils will very quickly soften. Make sure to standby because as the lentils absorb the water you will need to regularly add more water to get the right consistency and to make sure the lentils do not burn. Sauté the chopped onions in olive oil. When your lentils and water are of a nice thin consistency, add the onions. Blend the contents of your pot in two batches. Once the batches are fully back in the pot, add a pinch or two of each spice (to your liking, again food is so personal you have to test as you go along). Add the salt and pepper for flavor and stir well. Heat the to adequate serving temperature. You are done!
Time: 15 minutes.
Vegetarian French Onion Soup
This recipe is right out of The New York Times Dining Section from 1974 (I found it reprinted a few years ago) but actually came out Ali Bab’s Gastronomie Practique in 1907. A vegetarian who can never eat French onion soup out at a restaurant because they are always made with meat broths, I could not have been happier when I found this recipe. It is better than any I ever ate as a child before I became vegetarian.
Time: 1 Hour
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