Roasted Winter Vegetable Soup - Food and Health Communications

Winter squash soup

I was working on a PowerPoint show for a group of daycare providers to help them be more efficient in the kitchen. One of my favorite tricks for an easy dinner is to put everything in the oven because a roasted dinner tastes great, requires no attendance time and makes the house smell great. Usually this works great with roasted chicken along with roasted potatoes, roasted fennel, roasted ratatouille, or any other roasted vegetables.

For this soup, I did the same thing. I roasted all of the vegetables together and then pureed them in the blender. Soup was cooking while I was working!

Check out the ingredients. Nutritionally speaking, they are impressive. But better still, they present a rich creamy soup with a beautiful orange color. (Shhh, they will never know it is low in fat and sodium and high in fiber!)

Ingredients:

1 butternut squash, cut in half and seeded and stem removed
1/2 onion, peeled
1 yellow bell pepper, cut in half and seeded
2 carrots, cut in half
4 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
1 cup fat-free half and half
dash black pepper
dash Tabasco sauce

Directions:

Place the veggies in a roasting dish. Roast for 90 minutes at 325 degrees.
Puree the veggies with broth and fat-free half-and-half in a blender. It will take a few batches to puree all of the veggies.
Place back on the stove and bring to a boil over low heat. Season with black pepper and a little hot pepper sauce (Tabasco). Adjust consistency with cream. Serve hot immediately or refrigerate for later use.
Serve with whole grain crackers.

Chef's Tips:

The soup is a bright orange color and has a beautiful creamy texture and roasted veggie flavor. We served it in onion soup ramekins with whole grain crackers and salad for a light lunch or dinner.

Serves 4. Each 1.5 cups serving: 194 calories, 3g fat, 1g saturated fat, 0g trans fat, 3mg cholesterol, 166mg sodium, 39g carbohydrate, 8g fiber, 11g sugars, 9g protein. Allergens: Milk

Here is the recipe card PDF with the nutrition analysis:

RoastedWinterVegetableSoup

It is worth mentioning that we served this soup with high-fiber, whole-grain WASA crackers, which is a tip from the new book by Tanya Zuckerbrot, MS, RD, Miracle Carb Diet. We find that eating one cracker satisfies, compared to eating more traditional crackers that are high in fat and sodium. This is precisely her point in her book.

And of course, don't forget the salad! Here are winter greens, tomatoes and shredded carrots, dressed lightly with just a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil and fresh lemon juice.

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Judy Doherty

Judy’s passion for cooking began with helping her grandmother make raisin oatmeal for breakfast. From there she earned her first food service job at 15, was accepted to the world famous Culinary Institute of America at 18 (where she graduated second in her class), and went on to the Fachschule Richemont in Switzerland where she focused on pastry arts and baking. But after learning that the quality of a croissant directly varies with how much butter it has, Judy sought to challenge herself by coming up with recipes that were as healthy as they were tasty.

Judy received The Culinary Institute of America’s Pro Chef II certification, the American Culinary Federation Bronze Medal, Gold Medal, and ACF Chef of the Year. Her enthusiasm for eating nutritiously and deliciously leads her to constantly innovate and use the latest in nutritional science to guide her creativity, from putting new twists on fajitas to adapting Italian brownies to include ingredients like toasted nuts and cooked honey. Judy’s publishing company, Food and Health Communications, is dedicated to her vision that everyone can make food that tastes as good as it is for you.

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