I just realized that all of my posts that I have planned for this week are vegetarian. Yesterday’s post was a veggie panini, today it’s a veggie soup, and the next two days I plan to share what I made for Thanksgiving; two vegetable dishes. I swear I’m a carnivore, but I guess I had a little too much turkey last week. In today’s recipe bread takes the place of meat in a very hearty, vegetable based soup. This is a recipe that even the soup-haters (aka: crazies!) in your family will love. It’s so packed with flavor and wonderful textures, it doesn’t even feel like soup. It’s almost like eating a Panera soup in a bread bowl, but better, of course.
Creamy Sourdough and Butternut Squash Soup
Ingredients
- 1 medium-large butternut squash**
- 2 T extra virgin olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic **
- ¼ tsp. crushed red pepper
- 6 cups water
- 1 tsp. sea salt
- 5 cups 1-inch pieces of stale sourdough bread **
- 2 T finely chopped fresh parsley
Instructions
- Peel and seed squash. Cut into enough 1-inch pieces to make 3-4 cups.
- Heat oil in a large saucepan or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add garlic and crushed red pepper; cook, stirring until fragrant about 1 minute. Add the squash and stir to coat with the oil. Add water and salt. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, partially covered, until the squash is tender, 15 to 20 minutes.
- Mash about half the squash against the side of the pot to create a thick broth. Stir in bread; return to a simmer,stirring occasionally, until the bread is beginning to break apart, 5 to 15 minutes (cooking times will vary).
- Remove soup from heat, cover and let stand for 15 minutes. Stir in parsley and serve.
Notes
** If you are following a low FODMAPs diet you will need to omit the garlic and use a garlic or Tuscan olive oil to replace the flavor. Also, look for a gluten free bread instead of sourdough (although you could also just reduce the amount of bread in the recipe to about 4 cups, if you aren’t really sensitive to the oligos in wheat). Lastly, butternut squash may cause symptoms at amounts greater than ¼th cup, so a better alternative might be a kabocha squash (it’s Japanese) or possibly even zucchini (haven’t tried this yet, but it may work!). Or of course you could also only add 2 cups squash to the recipe instead of 3-4, thus reducing the amount consumed.
Nutrition Information
Serving size: 1.5 cups Calories: 171 Fat: 6 g Carbohydrates: 27 g Sodium: 447 mg Fiber: 5 g Protein: 4 g
Nutrtition Highlights; Under 200 calories, and an excellent source of fiber, vitamins A and C.
So why use sourdough bread? Because it’s amazing, that’s why. But if you don’t like sourdough I’m sure you could use something else. We actually have a supermarket (Giant Eagle Market District) that sells a wholegrain sourdough bread, which I used in this recipe. It’s so delicious on it’s own, but imagine how good it tasted once it soaked up all the flavors in this soup. Yes, just imagine….
I was thinking you might still have some turkey leftovers from last Thursday. If you want this to be a vessel for your leftover turkey, I think it would work just great. I hope you have a wonderful Tuesday everyone. Can you believe the new year is so close??? Sorry, random, but seriously, time flies! Soon I’ll have to convince my brain to write 2014 instead of 2013 (anyone else find that difficult at first? As in…for typically 1-2 months!!??).
