Creamy squash soup (that you can also make with squash) topped with candied bacon, pumpkin seeds and crispy sage leaves fried in brown butter. A perfect, cozy fall meal. Just add a hearty bread!
I swear to you no one has a more difficult time writing posts about soup than me. I get soup block.
Which doesn't really make much sense since I love soup so much. If someone were to come up to me in the grocery store and ask me my thoughts on soup I could probably go on for the entire duration of their grocery shop, hop in the car with them, go get gas, pick the kids up from school, help put the groceries away, make dinner, watch a little tv, hop into bed with them and still have many more things to say about soup.
But writing a post on soup? I got nothin'. Nothing more eloquent than ... I like soup. Soup is good. Now that we have that eloquent writing out of the way onto the soup.
The premise of this recipe is simple. Cut up all of your ingredients and put them on a baking sheet or in a roasting pan.
Roast them in the oven until ... roasted.
Transfer the roasted vegetables to a pot of broth, simmer and blend.
But the best, the very BEST part of this soup is the crispy bacon and pumpkin seeds caramelized in brown sugar. WITH butter fried sage leaves.
Without the garnish this soup is just your basic wildly, incredible soup. WITH the garnish it's a one way ticket to restaurant quality euphoria.
Pumpkin Soup
Ingredients
- 2.5 pounds of sweet squash kabocha, delicata, butternut or acorn
- 1 onion peeled and cut into wedges
- 1 Granny Smith apple cored and cut into wedges
- 3 garlic cloves whole and unpeeled
- 1 tsp. cinnamon
- ½ tsp. nutmeg
- 6-8 cups chicken broth
- 2 heaping tablespoons brown sugar
- Ingredients
- 2 Tbsp. olive oil
- 1 bunch sage leaves
- 3 slices of bacon cut into batons width wise
- each "baton" is width of bacon x slightly less than ¼"
- ½ cup of pumpkin seeds (pepitas)
- 3 Tbsp. brown sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 f (180 c)
- Put squash, onion, apple, garlic cloves onto roasting pan. Sprinkle with cinnamon, nutmeg, a generals dosing of salt and pepper.
- Roast in oven until vegetables are cooked and soft. Approximately 30 minutes)
- Once cool enough to handle, remove squash from skin and squeeze out garlic.
- Add everything to a soup pot with 6 cups of chicken broth. Simmer for 15 minutes.
- Puree in blender or with stick blender. Add brown sugar to taste. Add more broth if needed to thin soup and reheat.
- Heat 2-3 Tbsps olive oil in frying pan over medium high heat.
- Add sage leaves and fry until crispy but not darkened. Remove and drain on paper towel.
- Add bacon batons to pan and fry until golden brown and starting to get crispy. Add pumpkin seeds and cook another minute or two.
- Add brown sugar and continue to stir until brown sugar has melted and caramelized over bacon and seeds.
- Serve soup in bowls and top with a tablespoon of bacon and pumpkin seed mixture, and one or two fried sage leaves.
Nutrition
It's an easy, easy recipe that has HUGE taste. Which is exactly how I like my soups. Just ask me in the grocery store. I'll tell you all about it.
This sounds amazing! I could eat soup anytime of the year (100º outside, why yes I'd love a bowl of simmering hot soup). My hubby on the other hand, believes soup is only for days when it's below 55º, or when you're sick. Thankfully we have cold weather (and no sickness) so this is going on my menu for next week!
I like soup too.....I think soup is good too! LOL
I always use Hubbard squash ....grow it in my garden!
Great post Karen!
Yummmm. I used to make terrible soup then discovered that those tetra pak broths (like Pacific), either chicken broth or veggie or even mushroom broth. Now I make good soup. :) Anyway, I am trying this one for sure. Thanks.
About time! I feel like I've been waiting for this recipe for-EVUH! And unbelievably... I have everything to make this in my kitchen right now... except the sage leaves. Are they an "absolute," too?
It was so good that I went to see about the sage leaves, because I discovered the piece of cooked salmon waiting on the top shelf of the fridge for the last several days. Or as I'm going to call it... fish jerky. Bleh! Bad things happen in my fridge....
Sage leaf isn't mandatory but every little thing you do makes it better and better. It adds a unique flavour. ~ karen!
After the fish jerky, I'm not sure I need more "unique flavors." But I will be making this soup, probably tonight. :) Thanks for the recipe.
Could this soup come out as tasty with actual pumpkin? A sugar pumpkin perhaps?
You could give it a shot Ana. I'm sure it would work perfectly. ~ karen!
I made it this weekend and it was AMAZING!! Sugar pumpkins work great!
This soup is very similar to one I make. Except for the topping. That sounds amazing. But I do very limited carbs so I would have to adapt the topping just a little. My taste for sweet has changed a lot since going this direction, so I could probably make it with about 1/4 the sugar and still think it is plenty and that would lower the carb value considerably.
Copied your recipe into my vast list. Now I have to find out what bacon batons are!
This looks really yummy - but what is a bacon baton??
All that I can say from one soup lover to another is "WOW!" My mouth was watering when looking at the pictures and those roasted vegetables are a thing of beauty!
Looks like a great recipe but.......what the heck is a bacon baton. Is that basically cut the bacon into little squares?
Hi Jody - I've revised the recipe to explain. It's like a matchstick but slightly wider. Cut bacon across the width into appx. 1/4" pieces. Slightly less actually. ~ karen!
Quick Question-- Do you add the 2 Heaping Tablespoons of brown sugar onto the squash before roasting? I'm assuming yes, to help it caramelize....but doesn't mention in directions...I am also a "lova' of soup!" I've been on the chili kick here....but can't wait to make~ I've been making pumpkin cookies also- my4 year old was amazed you can roast a pumpkin and make cookies with it!
Hi Darin - Sorry for the confusion. The brown sugar goes into the soup once it's blended. I'll fix the recipe right now. ~ karen!
Good for you for hiding the topping so you could have it for later. Privilege of hosting, I say. I'm afraid if I made it, it would never make it onto the soup. I'd just scarf it right down standing over the pan.
And there is that lovely marble again and I recognize the wood, too, I think. Although, I'm tired of my suspicions being wrong, so I will bite my tongue until it bleeds on this one.
"Ooouuutthhhhh!"
in my household, we love pumpkin so much that every fall we fear we may actually turn into pumpkins. It actually all started when I made your pumpkin pie recipe for the first time (following the real vs canned pumpkin post). Now we're unstoppable. Yesterday we ate pumpkin quinoa salad for supper and had pumpkin layered cake for desert (all made with real pumpkin of course). And as I write this I am drinking pumpkin chai tea. But the best thing we make? Pumpkin risotto!
I want to hear about pumpkin quinoa salad!! does it have room for this soups toppings too??
it's actually a Sobeys' recipe, ha! I didn't follow it exactly and I'd say it definitely has room for this topping!
http://countylive.ca/blog/?p=40951
Karen, a question re terminology: what size is a bacon baton? In my neck of the woods, a baton is something a cute girl twirls at a football game.
I love the idea of this topping. Would be great on a white bean soup also.
Hi RosieW - Just cut the bacon across the grain (so across the width) so you have strips that are slightly less than 1/4". ~ karen!
Your opening photo is beautiful! I'm a soup lover and pinning this baby.
Thanks Maureen. I love a good Pin. ~ karen!
Yummy! I make roasted butternut squash soup for the store all the time and it just happens to be the all time favourite soup especially at this time of year! Those cartelized seed things sound fabulous though. Now I can hardly go to sleep. I want to go to work now and make them for the topping! Yummy!
It's a pretty spectacular topping Sue! And fast, fast, FAST to make. ~ karen!
YUM! I'm definitely going to try this recipe! The soup sounds awesome, but that garnish - I may just make the garnish on its own and eat it like popcorn...or ON popcorn. Oh the possibilities...
Thanks for sharing! :)
I know. At Thanksgiving I had to hide the garnish after the soup was served so I would be sure to have some for the next day for my leftover soup. People were eating it by the spoonful. And by people I mean my piggy relatives. ~ karen!
An example of cultural differences - I never knew that squash was a pumpkin! Go Australia, though master chef here is considered a little staged... Don't you guys have pumpkin in a can?
Pumpkin in a can? BITE YOUR TONGUE! BITE BITE BITE. ~ karen
i am going to make this so hard. cannot wait!!!!
I love the look of this soup. What I love even more are your baking sheets. They look well used and exactly like mine ( a little worn around the edges).
Baking sheets that are worn around the edges bake better ! :-)