There’s nothing like the feeling of grabbing a cozy blanket and cuddling up with a delicious bowl of hot soul-soothing soup. Rich, luscious, and bursting with flavor, this Creamy Smoky Butternut Squash Soup is clean comfort eating at its best. Vibrant butternut squash, hearty cauliflower, rich cashews, garlic, onions, and spices all blended together and topped with velvety almond cream, crispy seasoned butternut squash “croutons,” buttery pumpkin seeds, and hemp hearts for deliciousness in every bite. A perfect snuggle up “cold weather is coming” soup. Whole Food Plant Based, Vegan, plant based, oil free, refined sugar free, no highly processed ingredients and gluten free.
Hi! Robin here.
We are a soup loving family. TP109 goes crazy every time he thinks we are working on a soup recipe. He is typically the first in line to do a “taste test,” spoon in hand or rather multiple spoons in hand.
Yup, I’ll just say it, we can’t handle “double dipping.” Call us germaphobes or whatever, we gladly accept the name calling as we just can’t get past taste-testing with the same spoon. Just . . . can’t . . . do. . . it! A new clean spoon is required every time for every taste test.
Sink full of spoons!
So, as you can imagine, when we cook, our kitchen sink is literally filled with tons of spoons, so much so, that we sometimes use every spoon in the house when doing kitchen tests as we are ALL required to weigh in multiple times for flavor testing and recipe scoring.
Oh yes, we have quite the recipe taste test scoring system. Anyways, wooden spoons are kinda my thing as you will later find out. LOL
Food TV Network or Cooking Channels
Sometimes, it gets kind of crazy at our house when we are watching the Food TV Network. Especially when watching certain chefs/cooks taste test with the same spoon over and over again into large pots of food. Monkey and I are like “Who can eat that now? No one! What about the camera crew?”
The Family Cooking Spoon
Now, please understand that we aren’t here to judge anyone (sounds like it though, doesn’t it? LOL). What you do in your own household with your own family is fine by us. Your house, your rules. We truly don’t care, but for us, we simply can’t do it.
I was one of those weird moms who wouldn’t let my kids drink from my glass. I just couldn’t handle all that “back-wash” that little kids are notorious for leaving behind – all those floaties – ewwwww. Excuse me for a second while I recover after typing that. *gag*
The Family Mapine (Muh-peen)
So, before you think “How dare she judge me!”, just know that my husband’s family all shared the same cloth napkin (also known as the family “mapine” – Italian for napkin or so I am told.)
Lord, I don’t know which is worse, using the same spoon to cook with and then taste test with, or wiping one’s mouth with the same cloth and passing it around the table. LOL
So, I guess we all have our own little idiosyncrasies, right?
Is it soup yet?
All to the point, that this soup was taste tested by all (using different spoons, of course), and was found to be utterly delicious! We hope you give it a try! Let us know what you think!
This post contains affiliate links, and we may receive a very small commission if you purchase through those links at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting Monkey and Me Kitchen Adventures! For more information, see our disclosures here.
Ameera here!
Mom cracks me up with her little stories. She is absolutely correct about us being germaphobes! It’s all her fault. She made me this way. Ahem, however, they DO make tasting spoons for a reason!
Wooden Spoons
We have tons of wooden spoons, no seriously TONS. If Mom sees an old rustic wooden spoon at a flea market, the odds are pretty high that she is going to buy it. Also, there is this store in Hartville, Modern Vintage, where one of the co-owners, Ellie, has a great supply of vintage wooden spoons.
Mom can’t seem to resist buying up all her spoons. I am like “Mom, we seriously do not need another wooden spoon! You need to go to a RWSA (Rustic Wooden Spoons Anonymous) meeting because you can’t control your obsession with buying wooden spoons! Get a grip woman!” She seriously does need to get a grip! LOL
What’s funny is she gave a small wooden spoon to Charlotte to cook with on her little pretend kiddie stove. Charlotte loves that wooden spoon!
She is always cooking up a storm for her stuffed animals and dollies. Too cute! She loves to cook! She helps her dad all the time with cooking for their family. We have a lot of videos of Charlotte helping daddy (my brother) stirring soups and other various dishes.
We hope you get out your wooden spoon and cook up this tasty Smoky Butternut Squash Soup! It is definitely very “spoon worthy!”
Products Used:
- High-Speed Blender
- 6-quart or 8-quart enamel-ceramic lined Dutch oven or similar large stock pot
Creamy Smoky Butternut Squash Soup
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 45 minutes
- Total Time: 55 minutes
- Yield: 7 Cups 1x
- Category: Soup
Description
There’s nothing like the feeling of grabbing a cozy blanket and cuddling up with a delicious bowl of hot soul-soothing soup. Rich, luscious, and bursting with flavor, this Creamy Smoky Butternut Squash Soup is clean comfort eating at its best. Vibrant butternut squash, hearty cauliflower, rich cashews, garlic, onions, and spices all blended together and topped with velvety almond cream, crispy seasoned butternut squash “croutons,” buttery pumpkin seeds, and hemp hearts for deliciousness in every bite. A perfect snuggle up “cold weather is coming” soup. Whole Food Plant Based, Vegan, plant based, oil free, refined sugar free, no highly processed ingredients and gluten free.
Ingredients
Base Ingredients:
- 1 large yellow onion, chopped
- 5 ½ to 6 cups cauliflower, chopped (small cauliflower)
- ½ small butternut squash, chopped into small chunks (peeled)
- 1 Tablespoon minced garlic
- ½ cup raw cashews
- 1 cup vegetable broth *
- 3 cups water (or broth)
- 2 Tablespoons ume plum vinegar *
- ¼ cup nutritional yeast
- 1 Tablespoon white miso *
Spice/Herb Ingredients:
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 2 Tablespoons dried minced onions
- 1 Tablespoon +1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 2 teaspoon sea salt (+/-) *
Optional Topping Ingredients:
- ½ small butternut squash, cut into tiny pieces, then roasted (see recipes notes)*
- Vegan Cream Cheese thinned with unsweetened plain plant milk (we used Kite Hill)
- Microgreens
- Sprinkle of hemp seeds
Instructions
- Over medium-high heat, add all the soup Base Ingredients and Spice/Herb Ingredients into a large ceramic/enamel lined Dutch oven/pot or similarly large stock pot. Bring to a boil, then immediately lower to a simmer. Cover with a tight-fitting lid and simmer for 20 minutes with the lid on.
- Remove from the heat and allow to stand for 5 minutes, then and transfer the soup mixture into a high-speed blender and pulse until completely smooth, about one minute.
- Transfer all the pureed soup back into the pot and place the pot back on the stove over medium-low heat, simmer for 3 minutes. After 3 minutes, taste the soup for seasonings and adjust accordingly to suit personal preferences.
- Serve, or if you wish to ramp things up top with roasted butternut squash pieces (see recipe notes), vegan cream cheese (thinned with unsweetened plant milk), microgreens, and/or hemp seeds.
Notes
*Vegetable Stock: We use Pacific Organic Low Sodium Vegetable Stock. We love this brand because it is Whole Food Plant Based compliant, as it does not contain MSG, has no oil, and does not contain any highly-processed ingredients.
*Ume Plum Vinegar: Ume Plum Vinegar is perfect for this recipe as it has that deliciously tangy flavor which complements the sweetness of the butternut squash. There really isn’t a great substitute for it. We’ve tried other vinegars with this recipe, and we have found that ume plum vinegar is a key ingredient. It is relatively inexpensive. We use it quite frequently and it worth requesting it from your local grocery, or ordering off of Amazon in our humble opinion.
*Miso: We used Miso Master Organic Mellow White Premium Lite Miso, Certified Gluten Free. Miso really lends itself to balancing flavors when you don’t use oil. You can also substitute with chickpea miso for a soy free version.
*Sea Salt: Please adjust the sea salt based upon your family’s sea salt preferences and/or based upon dietary needs.
*Roasted Butternut Squash Topping: We loved cutting the other half of the butternut squash into tiny squares, then placing in a bowl and sprinkling with some sea salt, pepper, sweet paprika, then dump onto a lined parchment paper covered baking sheet, spread them out so they have room to breathe, then roast for 15 minutes in a 400 F oven until tender. If you want them to have some color, then place them under the broiler for a few minutes after they are done roasting.
*Serving: Makes 7 cups (approx. 3 to 4 servings)
*Storage: Refrigerate and use within 5 days.
Storage: Refrigerate and use within 5 days.
This post contains affiliate links, and we may receive a very small commission if you purchase through those links at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting Monkey and Me Kitchen Adventures! For more information, see our disclosures here.
Loving these recipes! Have you ever tried a cooed bean replacement for cashews to make soups creamy? I’m hoping to serve soup for a crowd of more than 50 and need something nut free but creamy.
Hi there Judy 🙂 Yay! Thank you so much for your kind words <3 For this recipe, we have not tried replacing the cashews with an alternative ingredient. However, in another soup recipe, we have tried to replace the cashews with butter beans. It does work, but it loses the rich flavors that the cashews provide. You could try something like that. This is a very thick and creamy soup, so you may be able to get away with not adding the cashews and not using a replacement. We suggest doing a test batch and see what works best. We… Read more »
Hi, I was just wondering how many cups in a half a small butternut squash because I just bought some already cut up. Thank you!
Hi there Scottie Marie 🙂
Thank you so much for reaching out to us! We apologize for the late response. We unfortunately don’t have a measurement for the ½ small butternut squash, but we will take that into consideration for future posts. We would have to guess about 1 ½ cups to 2 cups small chunks. Hope this helps.
-Ameera and Robin 🙂
This soup is delicious.
Hi there Kim 🙂
Yaaayyy!! We are so thrilled that you enjoyed this recipe.
-Ameera and Robin 🙂
Just made this. It’s so good!!
Hi there 🙂
Woo hoo!!! We are so glad you enjoyed this soup. Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful feedback with us!
-Ameera and Robin 🙂
Anyone made it without the vinegar? only ingredient I don’t. have
Hi there Darlene 🙂
Thank you so much for reaching out to us. We are not aware of anyone making it without the vinegar. So sorry,
-Ameera and Robin 🙂
Our CSA box had two very small butternuts in it. I used one to make this soup; and Holy Frickin’ Cow is this amazing! I made it last night and warmed it up for lunch today. It tasted like a twice baked potato, but there is not potato in the soup! Chef’s kiss, ladies, chef’s kiss!
Hi there Sarah,
WOOO HOOOO!!!! We are so happy that you gave this recipe a try and thought it was amazing! Totally made our day! Thank you so much for taking time to leave us this awesome review!
-Ameera and Robin
How about complete nutritional information included in all recipes on site. That would help ALOT for me because I have issues where I uave to watch protein, potassium, phosphorus Nd sodium.
Hi there Kaye,
We understand and appreciate your request; however, the nutrition app that we purchased for our blog does not come with the items that you are requesting. We suggest that you use an app that can get you the information that you need and calculate it on your own. So sorry.
-Ameera and Robin
Hi there! I also have to watch the same due to kidney disease. I have the Cronometer app that allows me to import recipes off of websites to get all of that information and it’s been very helpful for me! Best of luck to you!