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Sweet Potato Soup
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- Total Time
- 1 hour
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
- 2ounces (½ stick) unsalted butter
- 1large clove garlic, minced
- 1medium-size onion, diced
- 1medium-size carrot, peeled and diced
- 1rib celery, peeled and diced
- 1sprig fresh thyme, leaves only
- 1¼pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
- 1¼pounds tart apples, peeled and diced
- 12ounces Belgian style white beer
- 1cinnamon stick
- Salt and ground black pepper
- ½teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1cup heavy cream
- 40mini-marshmallows
Preparation
- Step 1
Melt the butter in a 4-quart saucepan. Add the garlic, onion, carrot and celery and cook on low until tender and translucent. Add the thyme. Add the sweet potatoes, increase the heat a little and cook, stirring from time to time, until the sweet potatoes are tender and start to caramelize, about 12 minutes. Add the apples and cook another 5 minutes or so, until they are tender. Pour in the beer and deglaze the pan.
- Step 2
Add 5 cups water and the cinnamon stick and simmer for 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Allow soup to cool slightly, then purée it in a blender. You may have to do this in two batches.
- Step 3
Return the soup to the pot, stir in the nutmeg and cream and simmer for 15 minutes. Check seasonings.
- Step 4
Thread the marshmallows on several bamboo skewers, leaving a little space between them. Ignite them over a flame, just a few seconds, so they’re lightly toasted. Blow out the flame and gently remove the marshmallows to a cutting board. Pour the soup into bowls, top each with a few toasted marshmallows and serve.
Private Notes
Cooking Notes
I came across this recipe when I was searching for a way to use up old sweet potatoes. I had to make several alterations, but it still came out great. I subbed pear for apple, dried thyme for fresh, white wine for beer, and evaporated milk for cream. I also skipped the marshmallows, as my kids do NOT need to know that's even a possibility for soup. Still delicious, and no one was the wiser. :)
Try canned coconut milk. It's healthy and very good.
Instead of the ale I used a hard green Apple cider and it was INCREDIBLE!!
Calling the cook time for this is ‘1 hour’ is a dramatic underestimate. The active cook time listed with 62 minutes, and that’s presuming all vegetables chop themselves and water boils to a simmer instantly. 2 hours is more accurate.
EVOO, not butter; more onion, more thyme 2:1 ratio of sweet potato to apple Sub hard cider for beer Sub coconut milk for cream Sub cardamom for nutmeg
Use at least half chicken broth instead of water
For someone who is lactose intolerant, you can use lactose free cream. If they don't eat any dairy, try a high fat coconut milk.
We found this soup to be too "appley," and if I ever make it again, will cut the apple ingredient in half, and increase the sweet potatoes by 1/2 pound. Also found the soup to be a bit watery, so added 1/2 tsp. instant chicken bouillon and boiled soup down a bit before adding the cream.
It takes more than an hour to make this. The cooking time alone, according to the recipe (assuming the onion, carrots, and celery will cook in about 10 minutes), is an hour and 12 minutes. And that's not counting the time it takes to chop the vegetables to get the soup started, or to cool it, or to puree it. Plan on an hour and a half to an hour and 45 minutes.
It's a bit too sweet and the apples overpower the sweet potatoes. If I make it again I will cut the amount of apples in half.
Sub chicken stock for water, add more thyme, add another clove of garlic and another carrot, and use half and half instead of cream. I used only one apple and it turned out great.
For the lactose intolerant, would this be good without the cream? What might be a suitable substitute?
The soup was easy enough but definitely took longer than 1 hour. The time to get the sweet potatoes caramelized took at least 2x as long as the recipe stated. We followed the recipe exactly, using apples we have recently picked and a local Belgian white beer. While a good soup, it wasn't great - lacking a robust flavor. I missed the sweet and roasted taste from the sweet potatoes - maybe roast before putting into the pot? Sub veg stock for water? We garnished with olive oil.
After reading previous reviews I made the following changes and thought the soup came out very good; nice texture and not too sweet. - 1 apple - 3 cups chicken stock - sage instead of thyme - pinch of cumin instead of cinnamon - 8oz pale ale - no garnish Served with crusty bread. Enjoy!
Great recipe if you substitute coconut milk for cream, reduce apples & add more sweet potatoes, less water by 1 cup (add back if too thick), more garlic & fresh oregano & if you don’t have marshmallows try toasted slivered almonds! Delicious!
Don't like it, it's super watery, difficult to find sides that work with it, and a whole union is a little much. My whole kitchen smells like onions.
No beer, thyme, marshmallows. Make it in instant pot
I subbed dry white wine for the beer. I removed the cinnamon stick before pureeing, even though the recipe said nothing about that, mostly because I worried that even my Vitamix might not be able to turn out a silky smooth puree if I left them in. After pureeing I felt that the soup was definitely on the sour side and lacked any hint of cinnamon. I added some powdered cinnamon and adjusted the sweet/sour balance with agave syrup. The soup was a huge hit. Definitely a keeper.
Novice question: Do you remove the cinnamon stick before pureeing?
This soup would benefit to layering the salt application - a pinch of salt with the initial aromatics, a pinch with the sweet potato, a pinch with the water, etc. Dumping it all in at the end was a bit ho hum
Nice filling soup, with a sandwich or salad a satisfying meal. But a firm NO to the marshmallows. Yuk!
yes next time i will add only 3-4 apples. and yes maybe it’s an unusual kind of soup but it‘s a great summer evening dish and the marshmallows melt in your mouth together with the liquid - a delicious and rather unusual topping.
Not worth the effort. Agree too many apples too watery
Who am I kidding this was apple sauce. Please use less apples.
I personally did not like this recipe. This is supposed to be a Sweet Potato soup, which to me indicates a sweet tasting soup. However, there were too many apples in the recipe, which overpowered and nullified the sweet potatoes' sweetness. Putting a whole cinnamon stick and cooking it for 30 minutes also overpowered the sweet potatoes. It's an interesting taste, but it didn't work for me as a soup, let alone a sweet potatoes soup. C+ for being interesting.
I usually put some maple syrup in these type of soups if it doesn't feel sweet enough. Helps with balancing the flavors a bit sometimes.
Great recipe if you substitute coconut milk for cream, reduce apples & add more sweet potatoes, less water by 1 cup (add back if too thick), more garlic & fresh oregano & if you don’t have marshmallows try toasted slivered almonds! Delicious!
This one was a big hit! My only change would be to cut back on the apples by about a third. The juicy and sweet apples I had (Macouns) at hand were a bit too sweet for my taste, but as I said, they ate it all up - no leftovers.
Can I make ahead and freeze?
I accidently grew about 5 pounds of sweet potatoes in my failed compost pile and needed a way to use them. This was the perfect way. I was blown away by this one. I read through the comments before cooking and made the suggested alterations and they were spot on. Twice as many Sweet Pots as Apples (I used granny smith), 3 cups of "water" instead of 5 (could have gone with 4 as it was fairly thick, but I used 2 cups veg stock 1 cup chicken stock). Had a crunchy sourdough that went great with it.
cashew cream works very well as a dairy substitute
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