Ah summer… I think it’s everyone’s favourite month. (At least mine as it’s the sunniest/warmest time in Canada.) But now the weather is growing colder already and I can tell I’m missing the heat…. I was looking around the freezer the other day and wanted to make up something quick and healthy and I saw I had some bags of frozen butternut squash and some fresh corn. I decided to put it together with onions and broth and make a soup out of it, but it wasn’t thick enough so I thought, hey why don’t I try some white beans to add some bulk and cream it up? It turned out to be a great idea and a totally delicious combination. This soup doesn’t need any butter or cream to make it creamy and delicious, the white beans work perfectly. It also needs very little seasoning since it’s so sweet naturally from the sweet corn.
In fact you could even eat this soup without any of the seasonings at all, it would be a great soup for fussy children, or even a good choice for toddlers. Everyone knows children enjoy soft naturally sweet foods and butternut squash and corn is a favourite.
I decided to kick things up a bit with some smoked paprika which added a delicious smokey flavour to the soup. Smoked paprika isn’t of the spicy variety, but sweet so it adds some nice flavour without being spicy.
Summer sweet corn goes really well in almost any dish. It’s a great topping for salads, adds natural sweetness to soups and is great on it’s own, no seasonings required.
Give this soup a try! It’s super easy (especially if you have frozen squash already, available at most health food stores.)
Fat Free Vegan Summer Harvest Soup (Butternut Squash Sweet Corn and White Bean Soup)
Serves 4-5
Ingredients:
4 cups/1 qt./946 mL vegetable broth (homemade or low sodium)
1 large sweet onion, diced (such as Vidalia or Walla Walla)
5 cloves of garlic, minced
6 cups/25 oz./1.5 lbs butternut squash, peeled and cubed (fresh or frozen)
2 1/2 cups sweet corn (fresh, frozen or canned – no sodium)
16 oz./453 g can white beans or chickpeas, drained
1/2 tsp smoked paprika (or any other seasoning of choice)
3/4 tsp Herbamare or salt
1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
Directions:
- Sauté onions and garlic in a large pot over medium heat in 1/2 cup of vegetable broth until soft 5-6 minutes.
- Add squash, corn and beans and remaining broth and cover. Cook until squash is tender.
- Carefully spoon mixture into a Vitamix blender or food processor and blend until smooth.
- Pour mixture back into pot, add seasonings and mix thoroughly. Taste test and adjust seasonings if desired.
What do you think of this summer soup? Have you ever tried smoked paprika before?
Delicious! I just made it today and loved it.
William – the reason you should drain and rinse canned beans is because the liquid is mostly starch and salt, which can alter the taste and consistency of the dish. If you’ve ever boiled dried beans in water, and ended up with beans in a gravy-like sauce, you know what I’m talking about.
Dear Gemgrrrl,
Thank you for replying to my question about the liquid in bean cans.
William
Dear Veronica,
Thanks for the Fat Free Vegan Summer Harvest Soup (Butternut Squash Sweet Corn and White Bean Soup) recipe. With all the GM corn being grown, where do you get the corn for this recipe?
For anyone responding to this comment, please forward a copy to my email address at wrhunter@suddenlink.net
Thank you.
William
William Hunter September 16, 2014 at 6:03 PM
I made this comment about your Vegan Chocolate Banana Cream pie before I realized it was more than a year old and you probably wouldn’t see it. Since this is about a week ago, you may see it either.
This comment isn’t about your pie, but I will try to try it at sometime in the future. This comment is about something you mentioned at another time. Something you said about substituting plant food items for animal products when going to non vegan restaurants triggered an idea in my mind a few days ago. I so wanted some Mexican food, so when I went into a Mexican restaurant yesterday, I ordered a Taco bowl, told the waitress that I was vegan and asked her to substitute refried beans and rice for the meat and dairy. The meal was absolutely delicious. So today I decided to have something similar at home. I opened a can of Eden Foods refried beans, added some bean juice (in order to make the beans more spreadable) that I had left over from cooking up some Garbanzo beans and heated it up on the stove. At the same time I cooked up about a cup of long grain brown rice. After the rice was done I added some Miso to it to give it a little flavor. I also added some vegetarian Better than Bullion to the beans to give them some additional flavor. I took some WW pita pockets that had been laying around in my refrigerator for quite a while, cut them I half and steamed them. When all this was done, I chopped some baby spring spinach, combined the beans and rice and salsa in the steamed pps and ate them. They were good.
Thanks for the idea. And sorry for the long winded comment.
P.S. One question. Why do chefs who used canned ingredients always say to drain the liquid from a can of beans?
William