Today, I’m bringing you a recipe for creamy, warming tomato and roasted vegetable soup – perfect for winter! This soup packs a variety of vegetables, which come with the benefit of different vitamins and fibre. A meal full of vitamins is exactly what we need during the flu season. Simple to make, this soup will be ready in 45 minutes. Best thing? It’s creamy, but doesn’t require any cream! And thanks to the lentils, it also has some protein in it, for a more balanced meal.

Ingredients for aromatic roasted vegetable soup

For the best winter soup, you’ll need:

• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 yellow bell pepper
• 1 large carrot
• 1 large parsnip
• 1 medium red onion
• 3 garlic cloves – don’t peel them
• 500g tomato passata
• 70g dry red lentils
• 150ml water
• 1 tablespoon oil – I use avocado oil, but olive oil is great too
• seasoning: salt, pepper, turmeric, smoked paprika, cumin, hot chili powder

How to make aromatic roasted vegetable soup

Roasting the vegetables

Start by preheating the oven to 180°C (360°F).

Peel the carrot, parsnip and onion. Remove the cores from the bell peppers.

Chop up the carrot, parsnip, onion and bell peppers into small, even chunks. Ensuring that all pieces are a similar size will help cook them evenly.

Place all of the chopped vegetables in a bowl. Add garlic cloves, without peeling them. Garlic burns easily, and we want to prevent that. You’ll remove the outer shell later.

Add a splash of oil to your veggies and season them generously. I used salt, pepper, turmeric, smoked paprika, hot chili and cumin. Mix everything to coat the vegetables with oil and seasoning.

Line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper and transfer the seasoned vegetable chunks onto the tray.

Roast the vegetables for 25-30 minutes.

Alternatively, if you have a large air fryer, you can use it to roast the vegetables. Use the same temperature and time settings as instructed above.

Cooking the lentils

Whilst the vegetables are roasting, cook the red lentils.

In a small pot, heat up water and bring it to boil. Add the dry red lentils and let them simmer for 20-25 minutes.

Once cooked, drain the lentils and set them aside.

I ran out of red lentils this time and used red lentil rice instead, it works just as fine.

Bringing it all together

Once the vegetables are roasted and lentils are cooked, it’s time to bring everything together. First, remove the dry skin from garlic cloves, then place the roasted veggies and lentils in a large pot and add passata and water.

Place the pot on the hob and cook everything on low-medium heat until hot. Using a fork, pick the roasted vegetables to check they are soft. Let them simmer for a few more minutes if needed.

Finally, take the pot off the heat and grab a stick blender to blitz everything until smooth. You should end up with a creamy mixture. You can adjust the thickness of the soup at this point and add more water if needed. I like my soup very thick, so extra water will be needed to make it thinner.

If you have a large food processor, you can use that to blend the soup – it will make the process much quicker and easier.

You can garnish this tomato and roasted vegetable soup with mixed seeds and fresh herbs. It will also taste great topped with some roasted chickpeas – you can find a great and simple recipe here.

Enjoy!

Nutritional value of roasted vegetable winter soup

The soup from the whole recipe has 797 kcal, 17.2 grams of fat, 33.7 grams of protein, 127.3 grams of carbs and 45.2 grams of fibre. The recipe serves 3. That’s 265 kcal, 5.7gram of fat, 11.2 grams of protein, 42.5 grams of carbs and 15 grams of fibre per serving.

The above values are approximate. The nutritional value of the soup depends on the size of the vegetables used.

Why is fibre important

This aromatic soup is a great source of fibre, coming from the lentils and vegetables.

Fibre is an important element of our diets, helping with digestion, weight maintenance and blood cholesterol control. It is recommended that adults eat around 30 grams of fibre per day, but the vast majority of people don’t reach that target. With 15 grams of fibre per serving, this creamy tomato and roasted vegetable soup will get you half way to that target!

How to store roasted vegetable soup

Let the soup cool down. Then, you can store the soup in the fridge, where it will last a few days.

Alternatively, you can freeze your leftover soup in your chosen container. To defrost the soup, take it out of the freezer and leave it in room temperature until fully defrosted. Then, transfer it to a pot and heat it up on the hob. Make sure to freeze the soup in single portions for quicker defrosting.

Eating 30 plants a week

One of the recent dietary trends is aiming to eat over 3o different plants a week. A variety of fruit and vegetables is believed to positively impact our guts’ microbiome.

If you’re one of those who picked up the trend, you’ll bank over 10 different plants with this soup! Two types of bell peppers, carrot, parsnip, onion, garlic, tomatoes and lentils – that’s 8. Add the seasonings – spices count towards the goal too! – and you’ll end up with over 10 different vegetables in one meal. This soup is packed with goodness!

Closing thoughts

So there you have it – a recipe for creamy tomato and roasted vegetable soup that will warm you up on a cold day and nourish your body with lots of vitamins. Bon Appetit!

Also see:

• Food
• Health
• Savoury