Author: Kelsey Talley

Ingredients

• 1 large onion
• 3 garlic cloves
• 2″ piece of ginger
• 1 large butternut squash
• 1 13.5 oz can unsweetened coconut milk
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
• 3 tsp salt
• 1 cup vegetable broth
• 1 cup cashews

Directions

1. Break down your squash.Trim off both ends of the butternut squash. Cut squash neck and bulb in half length wise. Peel both pieces of squash with a veggie peeler. Using a spoon, scoop out the seeds from each of the bulbs, discard seeds. Place squash pieces cut side down on board and cut each piece in half lengthwise. Cut squash crosswise into 1″ thick slices. Place in bowl and set aside.
2. Prep your veggies: Cut the onion down into cubes, NOTHING has to be pretty, it will all be blended in the end, so don’t worry about pieces being uniform. Using a spoon, peel the ginger and cut into two large pieces. Then take your chef knife and smash the garlic and peel & coarsely chop.
3. Heat 2 tbsp oil in a Large dutch oven saucepan on medium. Add chopped onions, red pepper flakes and salt. Sweat out the onions.
4. As soon as onions are translucent, add the garlic and the peeled ginger.
5. Add squash, cashews and vegetable broth to the pan. Pour in 90% of the coconut milk (the remaining 10% you can use for the garnish, or you can put the whole can in now, up to you). Add enough water to just submerge the squash. (note: too much water will make the soup really runny. You want the liquid to just reach the top of the squash.)
6. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally
7. When it reaches a boil, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the veggies are very tender, about 15 minutes.
8. Once veggies are tender, it’s time to blend!
9. Set up your work station: you’ll need your pot of soup, blender, a large bowl, a ladle and a kitchen towel. Using the ladle, fill the blender now more than half way with equal parts broth and veggies. **If you fill it up too much, your blender will overflow as it blends (hellooooo mess!)**
10. Now that you have some of your soup mixture in the blender, secure the lid and crack the vent so the steam can escape. Otherwise you’ll have a nice soup explosion on your counter. Holding the lid down with the kitchen towel, blend soup, starting at a low speed and working up to high speed, until smooth and silky. Transfer to the large bowl. Repeat with remaining soup in pot, working in small batches, until all the soup is blended.
11. Clean out your dutch oven and return your blended soup to the stove. Heat soup on medium, stirring occasionally until you can see steam rising from the pot. **When you blend the soup, it loses a lot of the heat, you’re just warming it back up to serve nice and hot**
12. Now it’s time to eat! Ladle soup into bowls or cups, whichever you prefer. Swirl the remaining coconut milk on top as a garnish.
13. Grab a spoon and ENJOY!

Notes:

• As and added garnish, you can use tasted coconut or pepitas.
• I always serve this soup with a nice toasted bread for dunking.
• The cashews are to thicken the soup and add “body.” Depending if you’re looking for more or less, you can adjust the cashews accordingly. I love my soups really savory, and that’s where the cashews come into play.
• On your first try, this soup can get messy with the blender if you aren’t familiar with blending hot liquids. Just go slow and don’t do too much at once.
• IT FREEZES! Go ahead and throw your leftovers into a freezer safe container or bag and save it for an easy dinner another night! SCORE!