Category: Soup

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

If you’ve ever read any of my Shabbat menus on Facebook, you know I’m all about the roast-roast-roast. And I don’t mean a couple of pounds of meat. I’m talking about drizzling stuff with olive oil, salt and pepper and sending it for some browning action in a steaming hot oven.

The thing about roasting is – it concentrates flavors in the most delicious way possible, caramelizing veggies into nature’s candy. I know you can taste the difference because every time I serve up my roasted butternut squash pie, people don’t stop asking me what I do different that makes it tastes so good. I’m telling you people. You gotta try it for yourself. Roast. Roast. Roast.

To get the most flavor out of this soup, I roast the squash along with shallots, for amazing natural sweetness. Give it a try and and you’ll never go back to boiling your veggies again!

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

approximately 3 lb butternut squash
3 shallots
1 tbsp olive oil
salt & pepper, to taste
1 honeycrisp apple, peeled, cored and diced
4 cups vegetable stock
1 tsp chinese 5 spice powder
1-2 cups coconut milk (I use original Coconut Dream)

Method:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. With a knife, cut a few slits around the butternut squash (this allows heat to escape and keeps it from exploding) and roast for about 1 hour, turning half way through. Peel the shallots and place on a baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast with the butternut squash for about 30-45 minutes, until caramelized and tender.

Once the butternut squash if fork-tender, remove from the oven and slice in half lengthwise. Remove the seeds and scoop out the flesh. Add flesh and roasted shallots to a pot, along with diced apples. Add the vegetable stock, Chinese 5 spice, salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer until apples are tender. Blend with an immersion blender. Stir in 1-2 cups coconut milk, until desired consistency/thickness is reached.

NOTE: I love the natural sweetness in this soup, but if you’d like it a little sweeter, add a drizzle of honey.

SUBSTITUTION: Chinese 5 spice powder is a mixture of 5 spices used in Chinese cuisine. If you don’t have it, you can use a pinch of any/all of these ground spices: szechwan pepper, star anise, fennel seeds, cloves and cinnamon.

Other Butternut Squash Recipes:

butternut squash fries
butternut squash latkes
stuffed roasted butternut squash

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Lentil Soup

There’s nothing like a healthy and hearty soup when the weather starts turning cold. I love the texture that lentils lend to soup. They add a wonderful thickness, but they still kind of melt on your tongue. Leftover lentil soup is great mixed with pasta for lunch the next day.

As a mom, I have to say that my favorite part of serving soups is being able to hide veggies in there. My older ones are starting to catch on to my sneaky tactics but sometimes I get lucky and they’ll down some veggies. Not an easy feat in my house!

Hearty Lentil Soup

1 large onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
3 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp tomato paste
1 1/2 cup red lentils, rinsed and drained
1 bay leaf
2 sprigs fresh thyme
6 cups chicken or vegetable broth
salt & pepper, to taste
optional add-ins: chickpeas, baby spinach

Method:

In a soup pot, heat the olive oil and saute the onion and garlic until translucent. Add the carrots and celery and continue to saute for 2 minutes. Add the tomato paste and continue to saute until the vegetables are coated and the paste begins to caramelize. Add lentils, broth, bay leaf, thyme, salt and pepper.

Bring the soup to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 30-45 minutes until lentils are soft. Remove the bay leaf and serve.

Other Hearty Soup Recipes:

crockpot mushroom barley stoup
minestrone soup
fire roasted tomato rice stoup
bubby’s cabbage soup with flanken
Asian bigger bowl soup

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Moscato, Honey & Vanilla Poached Apricots


When the Kosher Connection team (a group of Kosher Food Bloggers that I belong to) decided on the theme of “cold soups” for this month’s Link-Up challenge, I was thrilled. I had made these poached apricots a few times already, and I knew I just had to share them. Granted, poached apricots in moscato, honey & vanilla bean syrup is a bit of a stretch for a soup, but I think we’re covered. Cold fruit soups are all the rage in the summer, and this elegant take on a fruit soup is the perfect way to celebrate apricots – summer’s sweet and tart bounty.


Fresh apricots are available from mid-June to mid-July and are best tree-ripened (it doesn’t ripen after it’s picked). Try to find them at your nearest farmers’ market for optimum flavor. Apricots should be purchased ripe or slightly under-ripe, yielding slightly to gentle touch.


Poaching is one of the best ways to prepare apricots, but they can also be grilled. The addition of honey helps to balance out the apricot’s tartness. Vanilla bean and Moscato wine add an amazing depth of flavor that complements the apricots perfectly. The syrup is so unique and flavorful, you’ll want to drink a cupful all by itself!

What is your favorite way to prepare apricots? Share your ideas with me in the comments below.

For more great cold soup recipes, check out the Kosher Connection Cold Soup Link-Up Challenge below! You can also view my recipe for cold strawberry rhubarb soup here.

Moscato, Honey & Vanilla Bean Poached Apricot

10 fresh apricots
2 cups Moscato wine
1 cup water
1/2 heaping cup honey
1/2 vanilla bean
juice of 1/2 lemon

Method:

Cut apricots in half and remove pits. Scrape the seeds off the vanilla bean and place the seeds and the bean in a pot. Add moscato, water, honey, and lemon juice. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring to make sure the honey and vanilla bean seeds are incorporated throughout. Add the apricots and reduce to a simmer. Cook for approximately 5 minutes (depending on ripeness) until apricots are fork-tender. Using a slotted spoon, carefully remove the apricots from the pot. Bring the sauce to a boil and cook over high heat until it is thick and syrupy (reduced by half). Set the apricots and syrup aside to cool. Add to a jar and refrigerate until chilled. Serve with frozen yogurt and chopped nuts.

NOTE: If desired, you may gently remove the skins of the apricots after poaching. I prefer to leave them on as they are quite thin and don’t bother me.

VARIATION: To make apricot sauce, do not remove the apricots from the sauce. Instead, let the apricots continue to cook until they fall apart and the sauce begins to thicken. If you prefer to peel the apricots for the sauce, poach for a few minutes, remove and carefully take off the skins. Return to the pot and continue to cook until apricots fall apart and sauce thickens.  Serve over ice cream or yogurt.

1 year ago: shlishkes
2 years ago: tuna salad with a twist

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Crockpot Mushroom Barley Stoup

It was Rachel Ray who first coined the phrase stoup, and this is a perfect example of what it is: thicker than a soup but thinner than a stew. It’s surprising that I’m posting a hearty dish like this when the weather is finally starting to warm up, but when I made this on a cold and chilly day earlier in the week, my Facepage page went gaga over it. I don’t know if it’s the whole slow cooker thing, but I definitely wasn’t expecting this soup to go viral. Not that it’s not delicious. Because, my, is it ever. With fall-off-the-bone flanken, two types of mushrooms and hearty root vegetables simmered in a thyme-scented chicken broth, this is good enough to make purely for the smell that will waft through your house for hours.

Serve with crusty bread for a whole meal in one bowl!


Crockpot Mushroom Barley Stoup

2 pieces flanken (short ribs)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 stalks celery, diced
2 parsnips, diced
2 carrots, diced
1 container button mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
1 container baby bella mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
5 sprigs thyme
1 tbsp soy sauce
10 cups beef or chicken broth
3/4 cup barley
salt and pepper, to taste

Method:

In a hot pan, sear the flanken, browning it on all sides. Add it to the crockpot. To the same pan, add oil and saute the onion, garlic, celery, parsnip and carrots, scraping up the bits of the flanken as you go. Add to the crock pot. Saute the mushrooms (add more oil, if needed) and add to the crockpot. Add remaining ingredients and cook on low for 6-8 hours.

VARIATION: To make this soup pareve, omit the flanken and cook on low for 4-6 hours.

SUBSTITUTIONS:  If you don’t like thyme, you may use 2 bay leaves instead.

SHABBAT OPTION: to make this for Shabbat lunch, just add 2 cups of water or stock and cook on low overnight.

Note: If you don’t have a slow cooker, you may cook the soup in a pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and  simmer for approximately 2 hours, until barley and flanken are tender.

Related Recipes:
fire roasted tomato rice stoup
wild mushroom barley soup

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Minestrone Soup

I don’t just live in Brooklyn. I was born here too. In fact, I live around the corner from my childhood home. Why am I telling you this? Well it’s got something to do with the weather. Most of the time, the cold doesn’t bother me. Really. I grew up making snow angels in my front yard every winter, and having snowballs thrown at me from the big boys down the block. The cold is just in my blood.

I have to admit though, that every now and then comes one of those bone-chilling winter days where even I want nothing more than to snuggle up under a cozy blanket and wrap my hands around a warm cup of soup. Last week, we had one of those days. As bundled up as I was, the wind just crept it’s way in, stinging my fingers and toes. My kids came home all red-nosed and shivering and I just knew I had to put up a big pot of soup.

And not just any soup. It had to be a stick-to-your-ribs kind of soup that’s a meal in itself. I decided on minestrone because #1, it’s awesome and hearty. #2, it’s pretty quick, and #3 with all the veggies in there, there’s at least something each of my finicky kids will eat. Plus, it’s got pasta, and who doesn’t love pasta?!

Minestrone soup is basically a thick soup of Italian origin, usually consisting of vegetables (especially tomatoes), beans and pasta. You can use whatever beans you like and play around with the veggies to suit your taste. With beans, veggies and pasta, it’s a whole meal-in-one that comes together in no time. Serve with some crusty bread to really take it over the top! It’s sure to keep you warm all winter long.

Minestrone Soup

1 onion, diced
2 tbsp olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 celery sticks, diced
2 carrots, diced
1 large zucchini, diced
3 heaping tbsp tomato paste
1  russet potato, diced
1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1 28oz. can diced tomatoes
1 tsp basil
1 tsp oregano
6-8 cups chicken stock
salt and pepper, to taste
1 bag baby spinach
1/2 box ditalini pasta, cooked according to package directions

Method:

Saute onion in olive oil until translucent and add garlic. Saute for 1 minute. Add celery, carrots and zucchini and continue to saute. Add tomato paste and stir into the vegetables, continuing to saute until the vegetables are well coated. Add potato, beans, tomatoes, basil, oregano, chicken stock and salt and pepper. Stir to combine the ingredients and bring the soup to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes-1 hour, until all the vegetables are tender. Taste and adjust seasonings, if necessary. Stir in in baby spinach and cook until wilted. You may also add the pasta or serve individually in each bowl.*

*I prefer to add the pasta to each bowl as I’m serving the soup because I like my pasta to have a “bite” to it. Leaving it in the soup with make it extremely soft, and it will lose it’s texture.

Related Recipes:

white bean minestrone with zoodles
spinach matzo ball minestrone soup

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