Leek and Parsnip Soup
This easy recipe for a leek and parsnip soup gives you a thick sweet soup with plenty of taste. The sweet taste of the parsnips is complemented by the extra smokiness from roasting the parsnips in the oven as part of the process.
The beauty of vegetable soups
Recently in the winter months, we have been eating a fair amount of vegetable soup. The reason for this is that not only are they so easy to make, with a saucepan and a hand blender, but they are also very healthy and practical.
The beauty is that you can put in anything you want, whether it needs using up or you just fancy that type of vegetable in liquid form.
You can store soup well in the fridge or freezer, and you can take it with you hot to work, hiking, or on a picnic or car journey in a flask. All in all, soup is a great way to make tasty, healthy meals. And you can keep your calories down as well.
Also, it is very easy to make a vegetarian or vegan soup, if you are that way inclined, by just avoiding dairy and meat stocks.
Parsnips ready for the oven
Eating fresh vegetable soup is a great way to get your prescribed amounts of healthy daily vitamins. They are great as a starter, but also can be a perfect main course if you can get some tasty buttered bread to go with it.
So generally speaking, eating soup is a quick, easy and cheap way to have a healthy balanced diet.
Blender, processor or soup maker?
I always make my soups in a saucepan and with a handheld blender or stick blender. I just find it easy to do and it is less cleaning up than getting out my rather old food processor to blend the soup.
But these days there are soup makers on the market that will do everything for you. I do not have one of these yet, but believe there certainly must be advantages to using them. Such as reducing the amount of washing up. I can imagine they must be very useful for people who only have to make small portions if they live on their own for example.
But these days there are so many different pieces of kitchen apparatus available, one wonders where everyone stores them all in their kitchen!
I have quite a big kitchen and am still running out of space! So I will still be using my trusted saucepan in the coming future for all my soup recipes.
I hope you enjoy making this recipe. If you do, please let me know how you get on in the comments section below!
How to make leek and parsnip soup
Leek and Parsnip Soup
This easy recipe for leek and parsnip soup is very easy to make, and so delicious. The sweet taste of the parsnip makes it a great starter.
Ingredients
- 1 shallot, chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, chopped
- 2 leeks (about 200g), cleaned and sliced
- 825g parsnips
- 1000ml chicken stock
- 1 Tbsp flaked almonds
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- Salt and Pepper
Instructions
- Pre-het the oven to 200C.
- Peel the parsnips and cut them into manageable 1-2cm long pieces. [See the photo in the body of the post.]
- Place the parsnips on an oven tray and sprinkle with cumin and olive oil. Roast in the oven for about 30 minutes.
- Sauté the shallot and garlic in a large saucepan in some olive oil for about 5 minutes. Then add the leeks and fry gently for about 5-10 minutes.
- When the parsnips have been roasted remove from the oven and add them to the saucepan, adding the chicken stock and bring to the boil.
- Cover and simmer for another 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, then remove from the heat and blend into a soup with a hand blender (you can of course always use a soup maker if you prefer). Taste and season the soup with salt and pepper to taste.
- While the soup is simmering, gently brown the flaked almonds in a pan over a medium heat.
Notes
Garnish the soup with the browned almonds before serving.
Adjust the thickness and viscosity of the soup by adding more water as necessary.
If you wish to make a vegan soup, then just replace the chicken stock with a vegetable stock.
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Nutrition Information:
Yield: 5 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 273Total Fat: 9gSaturated Fat: 2gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 7gCholesterol: 6mgSodium: 381mgCarbohydrates: 41gFiber: 7gSugar: 13gProtein: 8g
This nutrition information was automatically calculated by Nutritionix, but may not be 100% accurate.
And this leek dish is also one of our favourites: