This soup combines healthy pumpkin with the extremely nutritious broccoli, bell pepper for vitamin C and extra carotenoids, coconut oil and coconut milk for beneficial medium chain fatty acids, and garlic and turmeric for even more antioxidant kick.
You’d be hard pressed to make up a pumpkin soup that tastes this good while being this good for you.
I actually came up with this recipe trying to get more broccoli into my diet. I knew how good it was from a health perspective and would have it occasionally in stir fries, but found it hard to eat large amounts of it on its own.
There is a lot of broccoli in this soup but the flavor is complementary rather than overpowering. I’d be surprised if even people who don’t like broccoli didn’t enjoy it.
Perhaps if you have children that are difficult to convince to eat their vegetables, a soup like this could be part of the answer.
Ingredients for 2 -3
- One small or half of a medium-sized pumpkin.
Smaller ones usually have a better flavor, though blended soups can make the best of larger squash with their sometimes less favorable texture and flavor.
- A medium-sized head of organic broccoli.
Chop off the tougher stem but use the whole head. Broccoli blends up well in this recipe and you won’t taste it that much. Unfortunately, broccoli is one of those crops that is quite heavily sprayed, so either soak it well with veggie wash or better still choose organic.
- A medium bell pepper (preferably orange in color, which may contain more zeaxanthin for our eyes than green or red ones).
- A can of BPA-free organic coconut milk (so glad this has recently become available. The more people demand BPA-free cans, the faster food manufacturers will stop using this dangerous chemical).
- A large red onion.
- A teaspoon of organic virgin coconut oil.
- 2 teaspoons of high curcumin turmeric.
- 1 to 3 cloves of crushed garlic (depending on how much you like it).
- A tablespoon of organic fermented tamari soy sauce.
- And cracked pepper to taste (Tellicherry peppercorns have the best flavor).
How to Make Pumpkin and Broccoli Soup
Start by steaming your pumpkin as per the instructions in Cooking Pumpkins for Maximum Nutrition.
Wash the broccoli and pull or cut off the florets it into smaller pieces. After five minutes of steaming the pumpkin strips, add the broccoli to your steamer.
Slice away the top of the bell pepper with the stem and pull out and wash away the seeds. Cut it into quarters and add to the steamer for the last five minutes.
Total steaming time is around 15 minutes, starting with the pumpkin and followed by the broccoli at around five minutes in and then the bell pepper at 10 minutes.
While the vegetables are steaming, cut up your onion and lightly fry it in the coconut oil in a saucepan with a lid on for a few minutes until the onion is turning clear. Stir occasionally. Putting onions in the freezer for five to ten minutes before chopping them up will help prevent tears.
The steaming vegetables should be done by now so scoop the bell pepper and broccoli straight into your blender and put the lid on to keep them warm. Transfer the pumpkin strips, still with their skin on, onto a chopping board to cool for a minute.
If you don’t have a blender you’re really missing out on so many great recipes. This Cusinart 1000 watt model is well-designed and powerful enough to handle anything you can throw at it.
While the pumpkin is cooling enough to remove the skin, add the turmeric and garlic to the gently frying onions. Mix them in and follow with the coconut milk, fermented soy sauce and cracked pepper.
Stir up this bright orange onion and coconut milk mix until very warm then pour it straight into the blender over the broccoli and bell pepper.
Lastly, holding the pumpkin strips down with a fork or folded paper towel, scoop out the pulp away from the skin and pop it into the blender.
Once all the strips have their skin removed and are in the blender put the lid on and blend until you have a rich and creamy consistency.
The pumpkin and broccoli soup will be piping hot and ready to eat immediately. I’d appreciate hearing what you think of this recipe if you make it for yourself.
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Photo 1 credit with thanks: kasiaflickr
Photo 2 credit with thanks: bomb_tea
I just made this soup, it was amazing!!!! Such and unexpected synergy of flavors, the coconut and tamari make it. Thank you for your amazing site, i have been greatly inspired by it. I have been juicing and eating all these wonderful organic nutrient rich foods and am really starting to feel the benefits. Please keep your fabulous recipes coming. I also really enjoyed the warm, salmon and pumpkin salad, and parsley has become a household staple ( one question though, you mention soaking the parsley in warm water before use, why is this? Thank you for all your thorough and easily accessible information, it really helps keep me focus and energized about being healthy.
Hi Naomi and thanks for your encouraging comments. Really glad you like the pumpkin and broccoli soup recipe. It’s definitely one of my favorites. I’ll have some new ones to put up in the near future. If you like you could add the site as a feed and get an update when new pages are published through this link – http://superfoodprofiles.com/feed/
On soaking the parsley, I try to get organic whenever I can, but if that’s not possible I like to soak any greens in warm water with a little sodium bicarbonate and lemon juice or vinegar to get as much pesticide residue off as possible. Hope this helps.