I always feel a bit strange making soup during the heat of summer but all the amazing produce calls for a batch or two. This particular squash soup first made an appearance after a summer party at the CSA where someone had brought a similar soup. It's a flexible soup whereas the potatoes and/or carrot can be left out if you don't have them. The ingredient list is long but a good chunk of it are spices you most likely already have on hand.
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This summer squash soup is an easy and beautiful way to use up an abundance of summer squash.
Tips & Tricks: Don't have all the spices listed in the ingredients? Use a few teaspoons of curry powder instead!
Stock up: get the pantry ingredients you will need: coconut milk, cumin, summer squash
Nutrition: see the information.
I'm a big advocate that soup really doesn't need a recipe because you can practically throw anything in a pot, puree it, and come out with something delicious. The key to this summer squash soup are the spices. Beyond that, you can really mix and match based on what's at the market or what you already have on hand.
Legumes: I don't do this as often as I used to but you can swap out the potatoes for chickpeas, using the chickpeas as a thickener and an added protein. You can also cook about 1/2 cup red lentils with the broth and puree in the soup.
Curry Powder: Missing a few spices or don't feel like measuring everything out? A tablespoon or so of good curry powder can be used. Occasionally I'll swing this soup another spice direction and use chipotle powder with a bit of cumin and coriander.
Grains: To make a complete meal, serve over a cooked grain such as rice, sorghum, or millet (any will keep this recipe gluten-free).
It's the time of year when gardens and markets are overflowing with zucchini and summer squash. This tends to correlate with an abundance of squash recipes, which is where this summer squash soup comes in to the rotation. If you find yourself with quite a few squash, a few other recipes to make:
Pesto Summer Squash Bruschetta
Curry Marinated Summer Squash Salad
Zucchini and Squash Ricotta Galette
*Recipe originally published on July 29th, 2010. Last updated on June 26th, 2016. Looking for the original recipe? Find it here.
I cant believe this is vegan! yaay! beautiful photos! I hope you will submit this to http://www.findingvegan.com! ~Kathy
That is such a vibrant beautiful soup! Ill bet it was extra delicious with the coconut milk in tit! I loooove coconut!
When I started making this soup, I was planning on using heavy cream until I realized I still had coconut milk in the refrigerator. I'm glad I did too- I don't think this would have been as good without the coconut milk!
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Encarna Llor, erin alderson. erin alderson said: Latest Post:: Summer Squash Soup https://naturallyella.com/2010/07/29/summer-squash-soup/ [...]
The soup looks terrific, as do those adorable bowls. Where did you get them????
Thanks! They are actually part of an appetizer set I got from Target!
Hope Target still has them!! Thanks so much.
this looks fabulously delicious. the bowls are pretty awesome as well!
I love squash- it tastes great and it's healthy, too! Have you ever tried squash pear soup? It's awesome!
That looks delicious- I'll have to try that!
I made this last night...very easy and delicious! Love that it's vegan!
...spoon one tablespoon each on top of soup, sprinkle a little paprika on top of each. Spoon one tablespoon of what? on top of soup??? Is it sour cream? yogurt? Thanks!
Coconut Milk!
Can this be frozen or canned?
I'm not sure about canned but it is great for freezing!
This soup is sooo good! Thanks for sharing your recipe. We have a ton of squash from our garden so I will definitely be making this again 🙂
did you use culinary coconut milk or regular (beverage) coconut milk?
A friend had a ton of leftover squash for her CSA so of course I had to make soup! Wanted something vegan to avoid the cheese, butter, and cream that other recipes called for. I doubled the recipe, left out the potato, and added fresh lime because I love citrus flavors - everything turned out perfectly. Thanks for the fantastic and easy recipe!
This tastes like a curry sauce, not a soup
Very good curry sauce, but not a good soup recipe.
This looks amazing! When picking plants at the greenhouse this year, I meant to get two zucchini and two summer squash, but I accidentally got three summer squash and only one zucchini. I am SWIMMING in summer squash! So this recipe couldn't come at a better time.
Would this freeze well?
I think that it would! I would freeze it without the coconut milk then reheat it, adding the coconut milk then.
Thank you for the awesome summer squash recipe! During the summer we have grilled it with zucchini, but I hadn't thought about soup. (Until now!)
This looks gorgeous! I wish more people knew how delicious and fun being vegan can be!
Out of interest how do you come up with most of your recipes? Is it trial and error, or do you base them on something?
Trial and error- I use the Flavor Bible quite a bit. This older recipe might have been based on another recipe but I didn't take notes and my brain can't remember from 6 years ago!
Love this recipe, it looks like a nice recipe to follow for a cold night 🙂
This soup was amazing! I swapped out the curry powder for the turmeric and omitted the potato and carrot and it was fantastic!!
I made one batch last night to try it. Tonight I made three more batches! I've never liked squash soup (was making it for others), but I just ate two bowls! For anyone trying this for the first tiime, I would point out that the cumin taste is very strong. I find that delicious, but if you're not a big cumin fan, consider cutting it back to quarter teaspoon. Otherwise, follow the recipe exactly. Easy to make, delicious to eat, and beautiful to present!
Loved this dish. Squashes have been one of my all time favorite and using them in soup is superb
My squash plants from the garden are overflowing, so this recipe initially grabbed my attention. However, I'm on the whole30 and can't do the white wine in the recipe. Would it be possible to just add more vegetable broth in the wine's place? Do you think that will drastically change the flavor?
I think it would be fine- the wine doesn't make a huge difference!
Love me some squash. Never think of making soup with it before though. Just roast it usually. Bookmarked! Thanks.
Made it with the curry powder as I didn't have several of the spices, and omitted the wine (which I also didn't have). It was very good! My husband was a little reluctant at first, but polished off a big bowl no problem. 🙂 I think next time I'd like to try it with the main spice combination listed instead of the curry powder as we do truly like cumin and I think the cinnamon would be a nice addition. This one earned a spot in my recipe binder! 🙂 Thank you for sharing it!
I made this soup but I was fairly disappointed. 12 minutes is not long enough for the spices to meld so they still tasted harsh. Also, the mustard powder was overpowering. I had to modify the recipe by cooking it for an extra 20 minutes and added cayenne to cover up the strange spice mix.
Thank you for this. I had a glut of yellow squash and I can, so I made pints of this to take to work to eat. It is delicious and I shared it to fellow canners!
Amazing recipe! Frankly I didn't think it'd come out so good as never before had I been able to get the creaminess of any soup. And it did! Despite not having potatos nor coconut milk (I replaced it with almond). Thanks for sharing!
I'm glad others enjoyed this recipe but I think I may be one of the few that really did not like this soup. For a summer squash bisque, I felt the smoked paprika was overwhelming and added a heaviness. Perhaps it was the particular squash I used, but the final product was bitter. I tried adding a small amount of honey to hlep cut the bitterness but it did not help much. The overall flavor combination did not work for me. A small amount of creme fraiche made it tolerable and helped balance out both the bitterness and smokiness but all in all it was a fail and not a soup I would serve to guests.
You might have burned the spices. Especially paprika turns bitter if you toast it too long. I usually just stir it with the fat to release color and add liquid ASAP.
Very good soup. It was a little too spicy for me so I would omit the cayenne pepper next time since I did not add any cream to the soup. Saving this recipe for the future.
This was a delicious soup! Quick and easy too. Nice way to use my garden squash. Good topped with pine nuts too!
Yum! Great way to use up the summer squash (and lots of other veggies!) in my weekly veg box!
It came out pretty good but it was missing something. Ended up adding some sugar and that did the trick for me. It rounded it up the flavor. Thanks for the recipe! Definitely will be making it again.
I quadrupled the recipe and was pretty lax on the measurements but it turned out fantastic! Our garden is pumping out so much squash we needed yet another thing to do with it. This is going in my recipe bookmarks. Thanks!
I love this soup! I used a fresh chilli to give it more kick. The spice blend is fantastic 👌
Amazing!
I used half & half instead of coconut milk. Also substituted the dry white wine with ginger ale (sounds crazy but turned out so well)
Added a dash of curry, and for spice I added two fresh habaneros during the cooking process. Also added a dollop of ricotta at the end. Yum yum yum.
Where can I find bowls like that!!
Oof- these are Crate and Barrel from years ago!
I was lazy with measuring and since the kitchen was very busy I skipped the saute step and just threw everything in a pot of water. It still came out delish, thanks to the really great combo of recommended spices. I used beans instead of potatoes and it came out rich enough to be a main dish.
Absolutely delicious! Had an overabundance of summer squash, and this recipe was perfect!
This is more of a squash curry. I wish this had been more prominent in the recipe or in the title. I added a tablespoon of sugar and doubled the coconut milk. It would go well with some rice and tofu chunks/chickpeas thrown in.
I honestly haven't made this recipe in years but my guess would be that it could stand to use a bit more broth to thin the soup out to soup consistency but I also like the idea of making it into a curry.
Wonderful recipe, perfect amount of spice. Definitely a keeper 😁
Can this be canned?
* just found that you cannot home can a soup with the coconut milk. But you can omit it and add it when opening and heating. Just write on the jar lid to add 3/4 C to the soup when heating.
Thanks for the info- I'd not looked into canning it!