Recipe – Vegetable Soup

Recipe from the book 90% Healthy by Sharon Bar-Gil
Photography: Nimrod Sonders
Styling: Oria Geva

Vegetable soup is classic healthy comfort food. A soup pot full of colourful vegetables is always a joy on a cold day. This soup happily welcomes fresh herbs and spices that add extra flavour to the already healthy mix.

It is easy to turn the soup into a full meal: just add to the pot a cup of boiled butter beans or chickpeas and you have a nourishing meal.

Ingredients:

• 2 carrots, cut into small dice
• 1 celeriac, top and tail discarded, peeled and coarsely grated
• 2 celery sticks, thinly sliced
• 1 leek, thinly sliced
• 1 potato, cut into small dice
• 1 red onion, cut into small dice
• 8 Swiss chard leaves, stalks and leaves separated, roughly chopped
• 6 cups vegetable stock or water
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1 tsp ground coriander seeds
• ½ tsp coarsely ground black pepper
• 3 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
• 4 tomatoes, roughly chopped
• 2 sprigs fresh thyme of ½ tsp dried thyme
• A handful of shredded basil leaves

To serve:
• ¼ cup olive oil
• Grated parmesan cheese (optional)

Instructions:

• Place the carrots, celeriac, celery sticks, leek, potato, onion, and the stalks of the Swiss chard in a large pot.
• Add ½ cup of the stock or water, the olive oil, salt, coriander, and black pepper, and sauté over medium heat for 10 minutes until the vegetables are partially softened.
• Add the garlic and the tomatoes and sauté for another 5 minutes.
• Add the remaining stock or water, bring to a boil, and cover the pot.
• Reduce the heat and simmer gently for 20 minutes.
• Remove from the heat and add the leaves of the Swiss chard, thyme, and basil.
• Spoon the soup into individual soup bowls and add to each bowl a teaspoon of olive oil and some parmesan cheese if you like.

Other Notes:

• 6 – 8 servings of vegetable soup.
• The soup will keep in a closed container in the fridge for up to 2 days.
• When choosing ingredients, go for darker-skinned potatoes. They are richer and healthier in general.
• Most of the olive oil in this recipe is added just before serving. This technique allows you to enjoy its flavour that often gets lost when heated during the cooking process.

Other Recipes:

• Spicy Chickpeas
• Herbs and Vegetable Muffins
• Rolled Oats and Nuts Addictive Bread