Protein-Rich Pumpkin Soup

You want to make something quick and easy after work, which will delight all your senses, but won’t make you too full?

Especially after a long workday, thick and freshly made soups are the best dish to soothe your body. They are easy: You put all of the ingredients in a pot – let it take care of itself, spice it up et voilà – you have a delicious meal.

During this time of the year – autumn, known as the transition from warm Pitta to colder Vata time – we need more grounding food. What could be more grounding than a pumpkin soup?

Pumpkin is heavy, grounding and nutritive. Those earthy qualities give it a natural relaxant effect, which is comforting in times of stress and may help you to fall asleep easier.

Pumpkin specifically pacifies the Pitta dosha and may aggravate Vata and Kapha if consumed in very high amounts.

Since you will add delicious spices, people with all constitutions can eat this meal.

When feeling too much heat (Pitta) you can leave out some of the spices, as well as people with excess Vata. If you have a Pitta imbalance or a very high digestive fire, swap the slightly pungent parsley for cooling cilantro and use less ginger and less pepper.

Urid dal is used to make us feel full, it contains three times more protein than meat.

We cook this recipe with rice or leave it out and eat it with grainy bread. We do this, because grains together with legumes, ensure that essential amino acids can be absorbed by our body.

The lime or lemon gives us the sour taste that is needed, to incorporate all 6 tastes in this meal. It furthermore aids against gassiness and helps take up the iron from the legumes into our body.

This recipe makes 4 big servings and takes approximately 20 minutes to make.

INGREDIENTS

-       1/2 Hokkaido pumpkin

-       1 big sweet potato

-       4 tbsp of split urid dal (or red lentils or split mung dal)

-       2 tbsp basmati rice (you can skip the rice if you eat it with some sort of grainy bred)

-       100 ml coconut milk

-       1 tbsp ghee or coconut oil

-       1/2 tsp ajwain seeds (you may omit)

-       1/2 tsp black cumin seeds

-       1/2 tsp ground cumin

-       1/3 tsp ground fenugreek

-       1 tsp ground cilantro seeds

-       1/4 tsp asafoetida (hing powder)

-       1/2 tsp ground turmeric

-       2-4 cm finely grated ginger (depending on how your body feels)

-       1 1/2 tsp kala namak

-       1/2 tsp black pepper

-       juice of 1 lime or lemon

-       optional, to garnish: parsley, cilantro, roasted pumpkin seeds, coconut milk, pumpkin seed oil

If you do not have all the spices, simply use what you can find at home, it will always taste a little different. I recommend at some point trying the soup with all of these spices as each of them has specific healing properties. With them, this is a perfect meal that incorporates all 6 tastes, which in Ayurveda covers all the elements in our body and leaves us feeling satisfied and nourished.

INSTRUCTIONS

Soak the urid dal (or other legume you use) and rice overnight or at least a few hours.

First heat ghee (or coconut oil) in a pot. When melted add all spice seeds, then the spice powders, then ginger and toast them slightly until the aroma arises (not the salt and pepper yet).

Then rinse the legumes and rice properly and roast them in the spice mix.

Cut the pumpkin and sweet potato in pieces, add into the pot and add 4-5 cups of water. Let it simmer for about 15 minutes, you can use a fork to see if they are cooked.

Now add salt, pepper and let the spices become friends with the soup, so that they blend in perfectly. Now you can puree until you have reached a soupy consistency and add lime juice in the end.

Garnish with finely chopped fresh herbs – including the stems as they are rich in nutrients – a dash of coconut milk, pumpkin seed oil and roasted pumpkin seeds.

Pumpkin seeds are warming, blood building and aid our digestion. Although, they are heavy, and oily they are easy to digest and can also regulate insulin levels. They contain phosphorus, magnesium, manganese, copper, zinc and iron. As well as vitamin E, it is antioxidant, anti-microbial, anti-fungal and anti-viral. These seeds pacify all three doshas.

This is my all-time favorite soup recipe! I make it so often, because it’s filling and absolutely delicious. This time, I have served it with spiced Naan bread.

If you’ve enjoyed this recipe as much as I do, please let me know either here or through social media and share your experience with me!

Much love,

Lisa