What tastes better than a hearty soup when you come home after a day in the cold? Nothing of course. This spicy pumpkin soup with wild rice gives you warmth and energy. You will be immediately refueled with energy. Cutting the vegetables into small pieces takes some work. But after that it is very easy. And this large pot of soup will probably last for several days. Below the recipe card you can learn all the details for making this soup. And did you ever wonder what exactly wild rice is? We will explain it for you.
Hearty pumpkin soup with wild rice
Ingredients
- 500 gram pumpkin Hokkaido or butternut
- 100 gram wild rice
- 1,5 liter vegetable stock
- 3 carrots big ones
- 1 red bell pepper
- 6 stalks celery
- 1 white onion
- 3 cloves garlic
- 2 red chili peppers
- 400 gram white beans 1 can
- 150 gram corn 1 can
- 400 gram diced tomatoes 1 can
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 5 bay leaves
Other spices
- salt
- pepper
- cumin
- smoked paprika
Instructions
Preparing the vegetables
- Cut and peel the pumpkin and remove the seeds. Then cut it into cubes of one to two centimeters.
- We also peel the carrots and remove the ends. Then we also cut them into bite-sized pieces.
- We cut the celery stalks in half lengthwise. then we cut off pieces about half a centimeter.
- Remove the top and bottom of the bell pepper. Then take out the inside. After that cut the bell pepper into strips of two to three centimeters. Finally remove the stem and also finely chop the top and bottom.
- Remove the skin from the onion. Then halve it and then cut it into rings or fine pieces.
- Crush the garlic and remove the skin. Then finely chop it.
- Halve the chili peppers and remove the seeds. Then finely chop it. Wash your hands afterwards so you don't accidentally get the spicy juice in your eyes or nose.
Making the hearty pumpkin soup with wild rice
- Heat olive oil in a large pot and fry the onion, garlic and chilli peppers for a few minutes.
- When they are fried you can also add the bell pepper, carrots and celery. Put the lid on it and let it bake for five minutes. You can also add a little vegetable stock to prevent burning.
- Then add the pumpkin and the rest of the stock. Now bring everything to a boil. The bay leaves can also be added now.
- When the soup boils you can lower the heat and add the diced tomatoes, white beans, corn and wild rice. Now let it simmer for half an hour.
- Meanwhile you can add the spices. Don't be shy with spices. It is quite a lot of soup, so you need some to bring it up to taste.
- Add the lemon juice just before finishing the soup. Also taste a last time whether the seasoning fits up to your taste.
Nutrition
How to make spicy pumpkin soup with wild rice
Chopping the vegetables
Cutting the vegetables into small pieces is the biggest job. But there is no fixed rule to cut the veggies, so you may do some freestyle if you want. Coarser or finer? Doesn't matter all that much. Do whatever that makes you happy.
The pumpkin
Although there are many other vegetables in this soup, it is and remains a pumpkin soup. You can use both a Hokkaido pumpkin or a butternut squash. And you do not need to measure accurately to the last gram, or ounce. This soup is ideal for using up leftover pumpkin. For example, if you made a pumpkin pie. You will find many more tasty recipes with pumpkin later in this article.
Although not strictly necessary, I still remove the skin from the pumpkin. Just like the seeds of course. Use a large, stable and sharp knife for this. Then you don't have to use much force and you can easily cut through the pumpkin. After removing the skin you can cut the flesh into cubes or strips of one to two centimeters. Bite-sized for your mouth.
The other big vegetables
We start with the carrots. We peel them and we cut off the ends. It is also recommended to use a large and sharp knife for large carrots. You can then halve or quarter them lengthwise and then cut them into strips of two to three centimeters.
I always first cut the top part with the stem and the bottom off the bell pepper. Then you can very easily remove the seeds inside. We also remove the stem. Then you can cut the flesh again to taste, into cubes or strips.
Finally, we have the celery stalks. This is fairly easy. I cut the separate stalks in half lengthwise. And then you can cut pieces of about half a centimeter.
The little vegetables
Now the preparations are the small but tasty vegetables: the garlic, chili peppers and the white onion.
We first crush the garlic with a knife. Then you can easily remove the outer skin. Then we finely chop the clove.
We also remove the outer skin from the white onion. Then we halve the onion and cut rings or cubes.
Finally, the red chili peppers follow. They are of course spicy, so we keep them to the last. We cut off the stem and then halve them lengthwise. Then we remove the seeds. Those are the biggest culprits that set your mouth on fire. Then we cut the remaining chili peppers into fine pieces.
After all that fine cutting, it is advisable to rinse your hands thoroughly. Certainly the chili peppers are very spicy, and you might accidentally touch your eyes, nose or mouth with your chili spiced fingers…
Cooking the spicy pumpkin soup with wild rice
So, now we are done with the preparations. Time to find a big pot to make our hearty pumpkin soup with wild rice.
We first heat some olive oil in it. Then we fry the onion together with the chili peppers and the garlic. When this starts smelling, celery, bell pepper and carrots can also be added. Those can then bake for a few minutes. If you see that it risks burning, you can already add a dash of vegetable stock. Let this stew for five minutes with the lid on.
Then we add the pumpkin, the remaining vegetable stock and the bay leaves to the soup. Now we need to bring everything back to a boil. Then it's time for the wild rice, together with the canned ingredients: the white beans, the corn and the tomato cubes. We can reduce the heat now. The spicy pumpkin soup with wild rice may now simmer for half an hour.
Meanwhile, we can add the spices. Since this is a fairly large pot of soup, you do not need to be shy of seasoning, you won't over-season that quickly. Add salt, pepper, paprika and cumin to taste.
Some final advice
We are not talking about an exact science here, but about a science of taste. And this differs from person to person. So add the herbs and taste regularly how it tastes for you personally.
If you don't have vegetable stock, you can also use water. Then you need extra seasoning with amongst others salt, because otherwise your soup will be a bit watery.
Don't have all the herbs at home? Or other? No problem. Why not use nutmeg? Or some coriander powder? Or cayenne pepper if you want it extra spicy.
Are you afraid that the soup will be too spicy? Then use only one chili pepper and also pay attention to the other spices. But we're talking about a really big pot of soup here, so you really shouldn't be afraid.
But what to do if by any means you overdo the spicy seasonings? No problem, the best way to cope with that is to add extra vegetable stock to dilute everything.
What is wild rice?
And now comes the big surprise: wild rice looks like rice, cooks like rice, but is no rice. In fact it are the seeds of a type of marsh grass. Mostly it is sold in combination with brown rice. You may read more about it in the following articles:
- Types of rice (Jessica Gavin).
- Wild rice nutrition review - is it good for you? (Healthline).
- Wild rice - Wikipedia.
- What is wild rice? (The spruce eats).
- How to cook wild rice - the ultimate guide (Cookie and Kate).
More surprising.pumpkin
As mentioned at the beginning of this article, this spicy pumpkin soup with wild rice is perfect for using leftover pumpkin. You don’t need to be accurate to the gram and soup is classically a perfect recipe to use up leftovers. So here are some recipes that you can make first and then give the surplus in this meal soup:
- Pumpkin cake with raisins.
- Biscoff pumpkin pie.
- Indian inspired pumpkin pancakes.
- Lukewarm pumpkin salad.
- Pumpkin cake roll with pecans.
More surprising.soup
Are you also in love with hearty soups that act as a meal? Then you should certainly try the following recipes:
- Minestrone meal soup.
- Fish soup for the fall.
- Vegetarian Orzo soup.
- Fiskasúpa - Icelandic fish soup.
- Red lentil soup with chorizo.
If you speak Dutch, you can find the Dutch version of this recipe on gerechtenweb.blog.
Natascha's Palace
Looks beautiful!