Tutorial on Creamy Roasted Sweet Potato Soup

The Cooking School for Delinquents will be making a pretty complicated soup for the second class so I thought doing a basic tutorial on soup-making would be a good idea. Plus, it is now fall! May the soup-making begin!

The Veggies

My friend Steve is a Cordon Bleu chef and I saw him do a cooking video (where on earth did I see that?!) where he makes a roasted butternut squash soup but he also roasts the celery, carrots and onions. I thought that was genius and would work great with sweet potato.

I roughly chopped 2 celery stalks, 3 carrot, 1 onion and 3 small sweet potatoes. I put them on a baking tray, drizzled with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper.

Roasting

I put them in a 400F oven for 10 minutes, turned down the heat to 300F and kept it in the oven for an additional 30 minutes.

This is all approximate because I was on the phone with my mom and started to worry about them browning. My nose was right! It was close. Lots of caramelized veggies but nothing burned. Phew!

Making Soup

1 put 1 tbsp butter and 1 tbsp olive oil into a large Dutch oven. I had minced two cloves of garlic and did not want it to burn so I tipped the pot to the side and added it to the oil/butter.

Around 30 seconds later I added the veggies, a few sprigs of fresh thyme and a bay leaf.

I poured in around 2 cups of chicken broth.

Just enough to almost-cover the veggies. I brought the soup to a simmer, covered and let cook for 20 minutes on a low heat.

There was not a ton of broth left but I personally would rather too little than too much. Nothing worse than an anemic soup!

Bring the Soup Together

I removed the sprigs of thyme and the bay leaf. I put the contents of the pot in a blender and added more boxed chicken broth.

I find a blender is the best way to make a “cream of” soup. I have tried immersion blenders, food mills… If you want it really creamy, this is the way to go.

There was not enough liquid to bring it together so I added some more chicken broth and pureed the soup in my blender.

Adding “The Creamy”

I warmed the soup up in the pot and stirred in some heavy cream.

Foodie Results

It was still a little thick so I added some low fat sour cream and for additional flavour, home-grown chives. If it still too thick for you, keep adding chicken broth and don’t forget to check the seasoning! I did not need any additional salt and pepper after roasting the vegetables but you never know.

Wow, this totally tastes like fall to me! Roasting the veggies deepened the flavour of the sweet potato soup and was so filling with a nice slice of homemade bread.

Not complicated, just a little time consuming. I promise you, you will never ever get results as delicious as this from a can or a boxed soup.

Making homemade soup has to be one of the most satisfying dishes a foodie can make in her own kitchen.