Recipe from "Cooking Light Way to Cook Vegetarian"
Adapted by Tara Parker-Pope
- Total Time
- 1 hour 10 minutes
- Rating
- 5(1,104)
- Notes
- Read community notes
Winter root vegetables lend their complementary, slightly sweet flavors to this hearty soup that came to The Times from Cooking Light magazine. Parsnip chips – thinly-sliced parsnips fried for five minutes in olive oil – sprinkled over the top add a delightful crunch. Stir in more water or broth if you prefer a thinner consistency. —Tara Parker-Pope
Featured in: Cooking Light’s No-Meat Thanksgiving Meal
Learn: How to Make Soup
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Ingredients
Yield:6 servings
- 2tablespoons olive oil, divided
- 2½cups chopped yellow onion
- 3cups coarsely chopped parsnip (about 1 pound)
- 3cups water
- 2½cups coarsely chopped carrot (about 1 pound)
- 2(14-ounce) cans fat-free, less-sodium vegetable broth
- ¼teaspoon salt
- ¼teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- ½cup parsnip, cut into ⅛ inch slices
- 1tablespoon chopped fresh chives
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (6 servings)
171 calories; 5 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 3 grams monounsaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 31 grams carbohydrates; 8 grams dietary fiber; 11 grams sugars; 3 grams protein; 566 milligrams sodium
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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Step
1
Heat 1 teaspoon oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion, and cook 10 minutes or until tender, stirring occasionally. Add chopped parsnip, water, carrot and broth; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 50 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Remove from heat; let stand 5 minutes
Step
2
Place half of carrot mixture in a blender; process until smooth. Pour pureed carrot mixture in a large bowl. Repeat procedure with remaining carrot mixture. Stir in salt and pepper.
Step
3
Heat remaining 5 teaspoons oil in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Add parsnip slices; cook 5 minutes or until lightly browned, turning occasionally. Drain on paper towels. Sprinkle parsnip chips and chives over soup.
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5
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1,104
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Cooking Notes
C.
This is a warming soup, lovely in its simplicity. Not sure why the recipe calls for simmering for 50 minutes; even with "roughly" chopped carrots and parsnip, 20 minutes is more than enough for the vegetables to get super tender. Add spices and herbs for more complexity of flavor.
Jody
I added a fennel bulb and 1 apple, which gave a nice, rounded flavor. I used stock from a bone-in pork shoulder instead of vegetable broth, added a little yogurt at the end as well.
ChefKevin
Larger parsnips sometimes have bitter and slightly woody centers. I always take a taste of the center and if it's too bitter or woody, I remove it.
Shelly
Very simple and 'clean' soup. To save time, I simply put the onion, carrot, and parsnip through the slicer on my food processor. The soup is completely blended smooth at the end anyway so why waste time dicing? I usually skip the chips, though they do add a nice texture.
Elizabeth
While so many soup recipes call for the laborious (and often, very messy) removing of a portion of the soup to the blender and the addition of the extra bowl for the puree-in-progress, it's so much easier (and these days, affordable) to just get an immersion blender stick. You can puree the soup to your liking in the actual soup pot with a lot less labor and washing up afterwards.
AnnieLes
When I make soups that end up puréed, I cut back on the water (making sure there’s still enough to cover). After the veggies are cooked I add enough ice cubes to make up for the water I held back. This cools the soup quickly and allows me to safely purée much sooner.
jennifer
I added about an inch of fresh ginger finely minced with the onions. I also only puréed half the soup, leaving chunks of carrots and parsnips which add some nice flavor as you eat the soup.
Claire Duncan
Vegetarian food doesn’t have to be boring. Add ginger and garlic to onions right at the beginning, keeps it from being too sweet. Also go head and salt then as well. I didn’t have chives so I added thyme, whole, then removed before blending. Good Winter/Fall soup.
Casey Jones
A very nice winter/early spring soup. The chips add some nice texture.
Cloud
Based on a comment by Jody, I added a chopped fennel bulb and apple along with the carrots and parsnip. Then had the inspiration of subbing a bottle of dry apple cider plus water for the vegetable broth. This produced a soup with an excellent slightly tangy flavor. It's quite good cold as well as served hot so would be a good summer soup. I'd cooked it before according to the recipe and prefer the additional flavor notes added this way.
Cherryspy
If we're sharing our alterations then, I recommend fulfilling this soup's quantity requirements with what you have on hand. I used three small salsify, one large parsnip, one pound of carrots, one leek, half of a yellow onion, one small fennel bulb, one clove garlic, and one quarter of an apple (it was sitting on my counter needing a purpose). Probably tastes only slightly like Tara intended but, it is delicious!
Micky
I made this soup last week...added dried thyme, a bit of honey and a baked yukon gold potato to make it more creamy without cream. I'm about to make it now. A chef suggested I use silken tofu instead of the potato, which I"ll do and also add apple as Jody suggested. So many ways this soup can be varied!
Sara
I added rosemary and some smoky ground pepper to make it more flavorful.
MSB
This is a great recipe. I added a small sweet potato because it was in the farm box. In addition to onion, I added garlic, thyme and a pinch of powdered harrisa. To save some steps, once the veggies were soft and cooked, I used an immersion blender. It's not a smooth soup now, but became a delicious rough looking peasant soup. Made parsnip chips in air fryer.
healthy easy recipe
So easy to make! I added 2 tbs of garlic and 1 of ginger. Came out incredible.
Olga
Wonderful soup! I used chicken stock and spiced it up with ginger, a lot of roasted garlic, two shakes of Siracha and some cayenne. Will make again!
Rina
Following recommendations here: dded 4 garlic cloves and approx 0.5inch of ginger.Skipped the roaster parsnip garnish.Was excellent
ML
My parsnips burned pretty fast, so think I need to turn the heat down and monitor more closely. 5 minutes was too long. I made the soup in the IP on high pressure for 7 minutes. I chop the vegetables into big 1-2 inch pieces. Added some butter and salt at the end. It was so sweet and flavorful. We ate it with naan.
Katie
amazingly delicious
Teens
Delicious! Ran out of parsnips, so no crisps on top bit extra chives and a bit of cottage cheese worked well.
LA
we used all homemade veggie stock instead of store bought stock and water and found the soup had a nice simple flavor. it was a bit too sweet for us and the parsnips we used were a bit strong in the bitter department and in the mouth tingle department (you know that thing strong parsnips sometimes do?). i plan to cut the sweetness with some lemon juice or yogurt while i eat leftovers this week.
K
It seemed bland to me. I might try ginger and garlic, as other folk suggested. didn't have time to make the parsnip chips, so I put pita chips in for crunch and salt.
RB
Meh. Pretty bland even with all farm fresh veggies and added ginger based on other notes.
Fabian
I followed the recipe exactly and the soup tasted very plain.I added mustard seeds to try to get some flavor but next time I would start with adding ginger and maybe some heavy cream at the end
Ricard
too soapy flavor
Mo
Underwhelming. I had high hopes given the 5 star rating. I added a some ginger and garlic with the onions as some others had suggested. It was fine. But nothing special. Kind of bland. I feel like it needs something, but I'm not sure what.
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