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Freezer-friendly meals! Just hearing those three words makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. This is one of the soup recipes that I made and froze before our baby arrived. I absolutely adore soup this time of the year, even better when it’s already made for me. It’s versatile, soul-soothing, filling, and healthy. Plus, it’s easy to make it into a complete meal without much fuss. I like to serve it with some toast/bread and/or salad for a lightening fast meal. I can’t tell you how comforting it was to have this soup waiting for us when we got home from the hospital.
By the way, thank you all for your tips on freezing meals. I picked up a few good ones (seriously, read the post + comments if you haven’t!), including labeling all the containers. I now add a piece of painter’s tape (because it’s easy to remove) onto each container and I write the name of the meal and the date that I froze it. This way I won’t ever have to wonder what the heck is hiding in the container and when it was made. Why haven’t I done this before?
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Before I get to this soup recipe that I’m sharing from The Oh She Glows Cookbook, let me tell you about another revelation I had when I was making all of this soup in bulk several weeks ago. I finally taught myself how to substitute fresh tomatoes for canned diced tomatoes in my soup recipes. I try to avoid buying a lot of canned tomato products since acidic foods often leach chemicals from the lining of cans, so I figured it was time to finally bite the bullet and experiment with making my own using fresh, in-season tomatoes. I’m happy to report that this method worked well as a substitute in two of the soup recipes I tried so far. The only thing I found was that I needed to add more salt to make up for the salt that would’ve been in the canned product. Also, I only recommend using in-season, über tasty tomatoes for best results.
How I substitute fresh tomatoes for canned diced tomatoes:
1. I use about 1.8 pounds of fresh tomatoes to replace one 28-ounce can. Many sources online suggest 2 pounds, so I wouldn’t go much more than that or you are probably adding too many.
2. Using a paring knife, create an “X” slit in the bottom of each tomato. This will make the skin easier to peel off after blanching.
3. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Carefully drop the tomatoes into the boiling water with a ladle. Reduce heat to medium-high and turn the timer on for about 1 minute. When you see the skins start to peel away from the tomato, remove and plunge directly into a bowl of cold ice water.
4. Once cool to touch, remove tomatoes from water and peel off the skin. Core and dice tomatoes. Reserve the juice and be sure to add all the juices into the pot along with the tomatoes (unless of course the recipe calls for drained canned tomatoes).
You now have an easy, fresh substitute for canned diced tomatoes! Yippee.
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When I don’t have fresh, in-season tomatoes on hand, my go-to brand for BPA-free canned tomatoes is Ontario Natural Food Co-op – they are organic, sourced from Ontario, and use BPA-free cans. Another alternative is buying them in glass containers.
Now onto this creamy, spicy, vegetable-packed soup!
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![10-Spice Vegetable Soup](https://ohsheglows.com/gs_images/2016/01/20160124-App-Soups-00425-768x768.jpg)
10-Spice Vegetable Soup
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Yield
10-12 cups
Soak time
2-8 hours (for cashews)
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
This is the ultimate bowl of comfort food, made with a decadent creamy broth and loaded with an array of health-boosting spices and vegetables. Be sure to soak the cashews in water the night before (or see my 30 to 60 minute quick-soak method) so they are ready when you plan to make the soup. Recipe is lightly adapted from The Oh She Glows Cookbook (page 237).
Ingredients
For the soup:
- 3/4 cup raw cashews, soaked
- 6 cups (1.5L) vegetable broth, divided
- 1 tablespoon (15 mL) extra-virgin olive oil
- 3 large garlic cloves, minced
- 2 cups diced sweet onion (about 1 medium)
- 1 heaping cup peeled and chopped carrots (about 3 medium)
- 1 red bell pepper or 1 cup jarred roasted red pepper, chopped
- 1 1/2 cups peeled and chopped sweet potato, regular potato, or butternut squash
- 1 heaping cup chopped celery (about 2 stalks)
- 1 (28-ounce/796 mL) can diced tomatoes, with their juices
- 1 to 2 tablespoons Homemade 10-Spice Mix, to taste
- Fine-grain sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 2 to 3 cups baby spinach or destemmed torn kale leaves
- 1 (14-ounce/398 mL) can chickpeas or other beans, drained and rinsed
Homemade 10-Spice Mix (makes 1/2 cup):
- 2 tablespoons smoked paprika
- 1 tablespoon garlic powder
- 1 tablespoon dried oregano
- 1 tablespoon onion powder
- 1 tablespoon dried basil
- 2 teaspoons dried thyme
- 1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
- 1 1/2 teaspoons fine grain sea salt
- 1 teaspoon white pepper (optional)
- 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Directions
- Place cashews in a bowl and add enough water to cover. Soak the cashews overnight, or for 8 hours. For a quick-soak method, soak the cashews in boiled water for 30 to 60 minutes. Drain and rinse the cashews.
- In a blender, combine the soaked and drained cashews with 1 cup of vegetable broth and blend on the highest speed until smooth. Set aside.
- In a large pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and onion and sauté for 3 to 5 minutes, or until the onion is translucent. Season generously with Herbamare or sea salt.
- Add the carrots, bell pepper, potato, celery, and diced tomatoes with their juices, the remaining 5 cups broth, and 1 to 2 tablespoons 10-Spice Mix (to taste). Stir well to combine . Bring the mixture to a boil and then reduce the heat to medium-low. Season with salt and black pepper.
- Simmer the soup uncovered for at least 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are tender. Season with salt and black pepper. During the last 5 minutes of cooking, stir in the cashew cream, spinach (or kale), and drained beans. Add more 10-Spice Mix, to taste.
- To freeze, ladle the soup into containers (leaving 1 inch for expansion), cool completely, secure lid, and place in the freezer for up to 6 weeks.
Tip:
- If you don’t wish to make the 10-Spice Mix, feel free to use your favorite store-bought Cajun or Creole seasoning mix and add to taste.
- You will have leftover spice blend. Store it in a container and keep it handy anytime you want to spice up a dish! It's great in pasta sauces, soup, as a tofu seasoning, in a stir-fry, and more.
- When thawed, this soup's broth looks a bit grainy, but rest assured when it's heated up again it will return to its former smoothness. Regardless, it'll taste just as good!
Nutrition Information
(click to expand)
The Oh She Glows Cookbook now sold in Australia!
I’m thrilled to announce that The Oh She Glows Cookbook is now officially published in Australia by Penguin Books Australia!
You can find the cookbook at the following retailers:
LOVE LOVE LOVE this soup!!!
Has anyone tried making this without the tomatoes? I’m just not a huge fan of them unless they’re in bruschetta. Any thoughts on omitting/substitutes?
OMG!!!!! this was the best soup I have ever made!!!!!! Kudos to you!!!!! LOVE, LOVE, LOVED IT !!!!!
This was soooooooo amazing!!! I loved every bite!
I made this soup last night and… WOW! It is so delicious. And easy. I threw together the 10 spice powder a few days ago so the soup came together quickly.
Hi Angela,
I have been searching for a cookbook holder similar to the one in the photo above after seeing it in your book! I can’t seem to find anything nearly as cutesy. Do you remember where you bought it?
Love your book btw, my diet is pretty much OSG exclusively ;).
Thanks!
Alex
Hi Alex, It’s from Homesense – hope this helps! Thanks for your kind words. :)
Oh my goodness, it was sooooo gooood!
Made it with chickpeas and butter nut squash.
Absolutely, hands down, my favorite soup EVER!
Thank you, Angela
(from a vegan newbie)
so happy to hear that!!
I just made this and it is to die for. Honestly, it’s one of the best soups I’ve ever tasted. I put a bit extra cashew cream in because I didn’t measure my cashews and I didn’t have any black pepper and it is SO freaking good. Thank you, as always!!!
This soup was AMAZING!!! Thank you so much for the recipe, it was gone faster than it was made :)
I am new to making soup, but I want to try this one over the weekend. Does anyone have any advice on what size I should be chopping the veggies? I guess my main concern is the squash or sweet potato. I want to make sure it cooks though. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! :)
I chopped my veggies pretty messy/not exact, and I used sweet potato, chopping it about 1/2 or so thick and almost an inch wide, and it worked fine!
Fantastic, thanks so much for your help!
This was the best soup that I have made this year! An absolute perfect Autumn soup!
Thank you for sharing! This has to be one of my new favorites. :) I’ve been living in Asia for the past 2 1/2 years and your recipes have been part of what makes me feel at home here. :)
So earlier this afternoon, I googled “spicy vegetable soup” and stumbled upon this recipe and I am so glad that I did. This soup is so delicious it’s ridiculous! Being impatient and not wanting to wait to soak the cashews for hours, I opted to make the soup without the cashew cream, though next time I will try it since I imagine it helps to cool the heat from the pepper. I added vegan italian sausage into mine, since I’d already had an open package of it and didn’t want it to go to waste. Additionally, I also added about 1/2 cup of quinoa and 1 tbsp of coconut flour to thicken it up. Thank you for sharing this recipe. It will be a mainstay in my collection!
This soup is incredible! The first time I made it, it was very spicy, which was surprising! Maybe I made a measuring mistake with the spices – I haven’t noticed any other comments about this, so that’s good. Even with the heat, we gobbled it up! Another batch is cooking tonight, with less cayenne!
This is my favorite soup!!! I made this twice in a week!! So flavorful and creamy, I can’t get enough! Thank you for sharing this recipe. As sways, you create the most delicious food!
I made this one this weekend and added extra spice! Sooo good
DELICIOUS! this is now our staple vegetable soup…thank you!
I made this soup tonight and I loved the flavor, but it didn’t thicken up like I think it should have. The “cream” was pretty grainy even when hot. What did I do wrong? I used a quart sized jar of fresh tomatoes that I canned earlier this season, so a little more than called for, could that have made it too watery? What could I do to fix it, make and add more cashew cream? Thanks for the feedback!
Hi jenny, It sounds like a blender issue – you need to use a good high-speed blender that has the capability of pureeing cashews smooth. A vitamix works great, as would a blendtec and Im sure a few other brands!
I just made it and while it tastes GREAT my broth is grainy also. And I used a Vitamix to puree the cashews super smooth- left it on high for about 2 minutes! BUT I did use about 2 cups of pureed tomatoes from my freezer (I pureed a bunch of garden tomatoes this summer and froze them in 2-C. batches). I also added a 15 oz can of diced tomatoes to get the volume closer to where it should be. Do you think it has something to do with the fresh tomatoes Jenny (above) and I both used? Bc blender is not the issue for me.
I’ve made this probably 5 times in the last month. I can’t eat cashews, so I leave those out, but it’s still amazing!
I made it! Yummy! It turned out great. The cashews are the best part IMO. Here’s a photo! https://twitter.com/WendyonaWhim/status/542417768797044737