Moroccan Pumpkin and Chickpea Soup
It’s been cold, wet and miserable here in Sydney for too long now. But the up side of this is that I have been making LOTS of soup and experimenting with new and interesting flavours
I love to use spices in the colder months as not only do they provide delicious flavour and extra antioxidants to your food, but some, like ginger and cinnamon, have warming properties. Plus, herbs and spices help to reduce the need to add lots of salt to make your soup taste good…
I just love pumpkin soup and decided to spice this batch up with a Moroccan-style twist by adding garlic, ginger, coriander, cumin and cinnamon. If you want, you could add some chilli too.
I also added chickpeas which not only helped to thicken this soup, but as they contain both protein and fibre, it made the soup a lot more filling…
in the jar are dry chickpeas (before I soaked and cooked them) and in the bowl below, the cooked chickpeas I used for the soup
Its quick, easy and delicious. Three very good reasons to give this soup a go!
Enjoy 🙂
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 1 large brown onion
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
- 2 teaspoons ground coriander
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
- 1.6 kg pumpkin, skin on, diced
- 2 litres vegetable stock
- 2 x 400 gram tins chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- pepper
- juice of 1 lemon
- ¼ cup fresh coriander, roughly chopped
- Heat a large saucepan over medium-high heat.
- When hot, add oil and onion. Cook, stirring often, for 3 minutes.
- Stir in garlic, coriander, cumin, cinnamon and ginger. Cook, stirring, for 2 minutes.
- Add pumpkin. Cook, stirring often, for 2 minutes.
- Add stock and almost all of the chickpeas; reserve ½ cup for garnishing.
- Cover and bring to the boil. Then reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 20 minutes, or until pumpkin is very soft.
- Blend soup in batches, until smooth.
- Return to saucepan, add pepper and 2 tablespoons lemon juice.
- Taste and add more pepper and lemon juice as needed.
- Serve sprinkled with extra chickpeas and fresh coriander.
You could make the same soup with carrots, or half pumpkin and half carrots
We use organic vegetables which I don’t peel as a lot of nutrients are in and under the skin. Not peeling pumpkin makes it much easier and faster to cook with. Besides since the soup is blended, you would never know!
I have listed tinned chickpeas in the recipe, but I prefer to cook my own. If using home cooked chickpeas, use 2 1/2 cups in the soup and reserve 1/2 cup for garnishing
This soup will keep in the fridge for up to 5 days or can be frozen for 2 months
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