Roasted Veg Soup
By Adriana Zanchi
I made this soup to serve during Green Beans, our Saturday group for children and their families, and everyone loved it. The fun thing is that besides chopping, there is not much labour involved and you end up with a creamy and comforting soup that will make you feel good! So if prepping time is tricky for you, I recommend doing all the chopping while sitting down and then you don’t have to worry much about standing up stirring the soup as your oven will do most of the work.
It’s a good way to use up some of the ingredients in your veg bag, sprucing their flavour up. If you have a freezer, it’s also perfect for big batch cooking, because you can freeze a few portions. Please feel free to play around with the quantities of vegetables or spices you’ll use. This recipe is more to give you an idea for a different cooking method, rather than a rigid set of rules. I’ll add some other ideas at the end of the recipe.
Ingredients (makes 2lt soup)
3 carrots
3 parsnips
1 swede (if large) or 2 if small, medium sized
6 potatoes
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic, whole
1 bay leaf
A few sage leaves
A couple of rosemary sprigs
A bunch of parsley stalks
Lots of freshly ground black pepper
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt
Equipment
Oven
Immersion blender or a food processor
Method
Turn the oven on at 180°C/fan 160°C. Line one or two baking trays with parchment paper.
Wash and peel all your vegetables (except for the garlic). Dice them in small cubes of roughly the same size and spread them on your tray or trays depending on how big they are.
Crush the garlic cloves with the palm of your hand and add to the tray along with the herbs. You can choose if you want to roughly chop the sage and rosemary leaves or leave them on the sprig. If you leave them on the sprig, remember to discard them once the vegetables have cooked. Do not chop the bay leaf 🙂
Add salt, pepper and abundant extra virgin olive oil, coating all the vegetables nicely.
Place your tray(s) in the preheated oven and cook for 40 to 45 minutes. Checking from time to time and mixing them.
Once all the vegetables are cooked and tender, transfer them to a large pot, add 300/500ml (depending on how loose or thick you want your soup) of water and with an immersion blender turn the roasted vegetables into a cream. Once you’re pleased with the texture let it cook for a few minutes until bubbling away. Adjust the seasoning and serve with croutons, a cheese toastie, some toasted seeds on top…anything you like!
Notes
You can swap the fresh herbs for some other spices like a combination of coriander seeds, cinnamon and sweet paprika, or add some harissa and ras el hanout, or you could add some ginger and turmeric. Try different combinations!
