Chipotle sweet potato soup with queso blanco makes any weeknight dinner a comfort-food celebration. Cozy, spicy and easy, it’s pretty much the best meal you’ll have all week.
You may not think of soup as a culinary experience. Especially a simple pureed soup like sweet potato or butternut squash soup. But my, oh my, this soup explodes with flavor and is such an exciting meal! True, true, it’s just a Wednesday, or a Monday – you just want dinner on the table. If I were you, I’d vote for this!
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How to make pureed soup:
Pureed soup is one of the easiest soups to make. For the most part everything cooks all together, no fancy steps to take. This is where an instant pot, multi cooker and slow cooker also come in handy! All of those cooking appliances, or just a low simmer in a stockpot on the stove, make cooking your soup ingredients a breeze.
Also, your chopping skills can be, well, non-existant if you want…it doesn’t have to look pretty or be uniform for even cooking. Just roughly chop all the ingredients and they simmer together until soft enough to blend. To make chopping easier, I always like to keep my knives sharp and have high quality knives in the kitchen.
You most often see pureed butternut squash soups, but I wanted a more flavorful base and went with sweet potatoes. They are, in fact, sweeter. To play up the sweet and savory mix of this soup I actually added a little honey. I included lime juice too. The acid acts like salt, both bring out the flavor of other ingredients and gives the soup balance.
The cumin, garlic and smoky chipotle all bump up a Mexican flavor and simmer into the veggies as the soup cooks. Of course with flavors like those, you garnish with an authentic Mexican cheese like queso blanco. Queso blanco is an unaged, cow’s milk cheese with just a little acidic taste. It’s mild and great paired with something smoky or spicy.
A mildly spicy, sweet and savory meal, chipotle sweet potato soup with queso blanco is an easy dinner to get on the table for a cozy night in.
How to make silky smooth pureed soup:
Some use a stick or immersion blender. I used to have one. Honestly I don’t know what happened to it. I think it broke and I got rid of it…but I can’t guarantee that’s what happened.
Others use a food processor and others use a traditional blender. The fancy folks use a Blendtec or Vitamix. I have to admit I have all of the things (minus that immersion blender that went missing). And I use the Vitamix most of all. My traditional blender is a great Oster brand blender, but boy, oh boy that Vitamix makes soups silky smooth.
Immersion blenders are fantastic for not dirtying another dish. When I get a new one, I’ll go for one of these:
This blender from Cuisinart is straight-forward and simple. It touts 2 speeds and a great blade. Easy to store in the kitchen drawer.
The Kitchenaid model here is loaded! Three speeds and all the attachments one could desire.
Whatever your method for pureeing, feel free to add more chicken broth if your chipotle sweet potato soup is too thick. There’s a fine balance between baby food and a lovely pureed soup. You don’t want it too thick, or too thin.
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 large onion chopped
- 2 garlic cloves crushed
- 3 lbs sweet potatoes peeled and diced
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1 tbsp fresh lime juice
- 1½ tbsp honey
- ¾ tsp cumin
- 1 chipotle pepper in adobo seeds removed
- 4 cups low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth
- ¾ cup evaporated milk
- ¾ cup queso blanco crumbled
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In a 4½-quart pot over medium-high heat, combine oil, onion, garlic and sweet potatoes. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, 10 min. Add salt, lime juice, honey, cumin, chipotle pepper and 3 cups broth and bring to a simmer; cover and cook until very soft, 18 to 20 min.
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Remove from heat. Add 1 cup broth and milk. Use an immersion blender to purée the soup. (Alternately, in batches, purée soup in blender, holding lid on with a towel while blending.) Serve with cheese.
A mildly spicy, sweet and savory meal, chipotle sweet potato soup with queso blanco is an easy dinner to get on the table for a cozy night in.
For more hearty, delicious soups, try one of my Best Winter Soups. They have tons of healthy vegetables and taste just as good in spring!
Recipe by Tara Bench and Vanessa Seder. Photographs by Sang An. Prop Styling by Tiziana Angelo. Food Styling by Jee Levin. Originally published 02/09 in LHJ.
The chipotle adds a fantastic depth of flavor!