During autumn and winter, especially around Halloween, we always make a hearty Thai inspired vegan pumpkin soup.
Whether it’s Halloween or not, pumpkins are super delicious and full of goodness. This recipe will show you how to cook fresh pumpkin, quickly and deliciously. So jump to the recipe below, for a vegan Thai curry soup that’s bound to be a hit in your household!
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What can I add to vegan pumpkin soup for flavour?
Pumpkin is such a fantastic ingredient because it can be added to so many hearty dishes, like stews, curries and soup to name just a few. It just soaks up all sorts of rad flavours.
Once you’ve roasted the pumpkin, you can make vegan pumpkin soup with a number of other flavours. Ideas include:
- Curry powder – use a few tablespoons along with seasoning and coconut milk for a creamy curry soup.
- Ginger – increase the quantity of ginger in this recipe, and omit the curry paste for a zingy pumpkin soup.
- Include half a cup of red lentils, curry powder and tomatoes for a more substantial meal.
- Mexican spices such as smoked paprika, cumin and ancho chilli powder can be used to make pumpkin into a Mexican chilli style soup.
Mmm, thinking about these other flavours are making me hungry and may just inspire more pumpkin recipes! Have you tried any of these?
Red curry paste
In this recipe, we paired roasted pumpkin with a vegan Thai red curry paste for a taste of Thailand, which – as you probably already know – we absolutely love.
The sweetness of the pumpkin is naturally paired with the vegan red curry paste, as it balances out the fiery paste with a sweeter flavour. We use coconut milk to add creaminess, and lemongrass and ginger to add a zing that really gets our taste buds going!
In this recipe, we use the same curry paste as the one used in our Thai red vegetable curry. However, sometimes you just might not want to make the curry paste from scratch.
That’s cool. We’ve been there too.
If you want a shop bought paste, we recommend using the Thai Taste red curry paste. It’s accidentally vegan, and is as close to a homemade paste that you can get.
We’ve found that other pre-made curry pastes from the supermarket are not very flavourful, and are even a bit watery. The Thai Taste red curry paste, however, is on point.
We’ve made this soup with shop bought curry paste a number of times and can promise that this one gives the best results.
How to cook fresh pumpkin
In this recipe, we’ve kept the pumpkin cooking super simple. We just chop the pumpkin up, remove the stringy insides, peel the skin off and cut into bite size chunks. Remember, you can keep the seeds instead of wasting them. Just toast them and add to the top of the soup as a garnish, or save them for a healthy snack!
Once the pumpkin is chopped up, just put it on a non-stick baking tray, toss in a little olive oil and lime juice, then roast for 45 minutes. Easy.
Is vegan pumpkin soup healthy?
According to WebMD, eating pumpkin has significant health benefits. It contains a number of antioxidants, so you can feel super good about this soup. Pumpkin contains:
- Vitamin C – which can help you recover from colds faster
- Vitamin A – which is essential for eye health
- Beta Carotene – good for eyes and skin
- Lots of fibre – slowing digestion to help keep you fuller for longer
Even though pumpkin is super healthy, this recipe does call for coconut milk, which contains saturated fat, which isn’t quite as healthy. You can opt to use reduced fat coconut milk, which will still add creaminess to the soup, but isn’t as rich, and contains less saturated fat.
Of course, we believe that everything in moderation is healthy. So even if you do use full-fat coconut milk in this vegan pumpkin soup, as long as it’s part of a healthy balanced diet, it’s all good.
P.S we’re not qualified nutritionists but this is a philosophy that we follow, after carrying out research on what a healthy balanced vegan diet should look like.
Blender pumpkin soup
This vegan pumpkin soup is:
Smooth
Rich
Creamy
A bit spicy
A little tangy
We advise using a high speed blender to whizz this healthy lunch up into a silky smooth and sensational soup.
We use a Magimix blender because its high-power means that not only can it easily and quickly deal with blending up soups, but we can use it for whizzing up harder to blend items like nuts and frozen fruit.
Of course, you could alternatively serve this soup chunky style. Just remember to remove the lemongrass before serving! Additionally, you could even add some red lentils too. However you decide to serve the soup we’re sure it will be delicious!
Vegan Thai curry soup toppings
There are a number of serving suggestions that we would recommend for this vegan pumpkin soup. Mix and match any number of these items:
- Roasted pumpkin seeds (saved from the pumpkin itself)
- Fresh chopped coriander
- Oat cream
- Chilli flakes or chopped fresh chilli
- Hemp seeds
- Croutons
Serve with freshly baked (or bought!) crusty bread for ultimate satisfaction. You could even try baking your own rolls, such as these vegan dinner rolls by our friends at Plant Based Folk. We hope you love this soup as much as we do!
If you’d like to make more Thai inspired recipes, check out our guide to cooking the best Thai vegan food.
Top Tip: if you love this recipe, check out our e-cookbook Vegan Thai Food Made Easy. It's packed with 21 original Vegan Punks recipes featuring curries, curry pastes, stir fries and even the most popular Thai dessert, as well as 3 BONUS recipes!
📖 Recipe
Vegan Pumpkin Soup with Thai Red Curry Paste
Ingredients
- 1.1 kg pumpkin chopped
- 1 brown onion – roughly chopped
- 2 tbsp fresh ginger – roughly chopped
- 850 ml vegetable stock
- 4 tbsp Thai red curry paste*
- 400 ml coconut milk
- 1 stick lemongrass – bashed
- 1 tbsp lime juice
- 1 tsp coconut sugar
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- Salt to taste
Optional garnishes:
- Fresh chilli – chopped
- Fresh coriander – chopped
- Pumpkin seeds
- Soya or oat cream drizzle
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 6 / 200°C.
- Remove the insides of the pumpkin, peel and chop into chunks (see picture above for size reference).1.1 kg pumpkin
- In a bowl, toss the chopped pumpkin in the olive oil and lime juice.2 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp lime juice
- Place on a large oven tray and roast for 30 minutes or until soft.
- Once the pumpkin is ready, remove from the oven and set aside. Fry off the onion and ginger in a large soup pan, until the onion is translucent.1 brown onion, 2 tbsp fresh ginger
- Add the Thai red curry paste and fry for a few minutes more, until your kitchen is smelling rad.4 tbsp Thai red curry paste*
- Then pop the pumpkin, coconut milk, stock and lemongrass into the pan, and stir well.1.1 kg pumpkin, 850 ml vegetable stock, 400 ml coconut milk, 1 stick lemongrass
- Bring to the boil, reduce to a simmer, cover and cook for 20 minutes.
- Once done, remove the lemongrass, add the sugar, lime juice and salt to taste.1 stick lemongrass, 1 tbsp lime juice, 1 tsp coconut sugar, Salt
- Remove the pan from the heat and carefully pour, or ladle, the soup into a blender.
- Blend on high until smooth, or to your desired consistency.
- Serve with your selected garnishes and enjoy!Fresh chilli, Fresh coriander, Pumpkin seeds, Soya or oat cream drizzle
Notes
- Instead of pumpkin you could use butternut squash or a crown prince squash – the result will be equally delicious.
- Use 3 tablespoons of red curry paste if you’d like a milder soup.
- If the soup is too spicy, add a little bit more coconut sugar.
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