I made this soup yesterday. There are a few different components to it, and they all worked really well together.

INGREDIENTS

3 medium carrots

5 red potatoes

1/2 onion

8 cloves garlic

2 Tablespoons fresh ginger

2 Tablespoons fresh turmeric

2 Tablespoons Olive oil

2 Tablespoons Sesame oil

Ground Pepper

5 cups broth

2 1/2 cups water

OPTIONAL INGREDIENTS

2 pinches Citric acid

1 package udon noodles

PEANUT BUTTER SAUCE (Ingredients below)

1/3 cups creamy peanut butter

1 Tablespoon vinegar

1 Tablespoon Teriyaki sauce

1/2 Tablespoon hot sauce

I had some home made chicken broth on hand, but broth from a store will also work. It doesn’t have to be chicken broth, just a broth of your choosing.

The first step is to preheat the oven to 400 degrees. I chopped up the carrots, potatoes, and onions. I also chopped the garlic. I smashed once to remove the skin, and then smashed again to have it broken down into large chunks. If you would prefer minced or chopped up, that will also work.

Coat the bottom of the roasting pan with olive oil. Add the carrots, potatoes, onions and garlic. Swish it around to get as many pieces coated as possible. Ground some pepper and swish it around again. Place in oven and bake for 15 minutes.

While the veggies are roasting, cut up the ginger and turmeric. If you prefer to have them minced of finely chopped, that will work. I enjoy the flavor of biting into fresh ginger, but it’s not for everyone. When the 15 minutes of baking are done, take out the vegetables. Add the ginger and Turmeric, and then drizzle with the Sesame oil. Swish around and continue to bake for another 15 minutes.

Once the vegetables are ready, you can remove them from the oven. Let them rest about 5 minutes. The carrots and potatoes should have a slight firmness on the outside and should be soft on the inside.

Place the roasted vegetables into a large pot. Take 1 cup of the broth and add it to the roasting pan. Using a spoon or spatula, try to scrape up any bits of flavor that may have been left on the roasting pan. Pour it into the pot, then add the rest of the broth and the water. If you are cooking with low sodium, you can add in the pinches of citric acid. Cook on medium heat until it comes to a slow boil. If you want a basic vegetable soup, it would be ready at this point. If you want to add things to it, then you can start adding them in. I added a couple of different things to this soup.

The first thing I added was a peanut butter sauce. In a small bowl, combine the peanut butter, vinegar (I used distilled white, but rice wine would also work), Teriyaki sauce and an optional hot sauce of your choice. Once these are all combined, they can be added to the soup.

I also had a package of udon noodles. Cut them into cubes, so the pieces will be much smaller when cooked. After the peanut sauce is incorporated, let the soup get back up to a slow boil, and then add the noodles.

Once the udon noodles are added to the soup, it should cook for another 5 minutes. The cubes should be broken apart by that point. The soup will still be thin, but the color will change after the peanut butter sauce is added.

Once the noodles have been incorporated, the soup is ready to be served. The flavors of this soup really go well. The peanut butter sauce provides a nice kick to the soup, and it also has a nice balance with the noodles. There are bites of ginger, turmeric, and garlic that add a punch of flavor and freshness to the soup. The roasting of the vegetables help to add a bit of a deeper flavor than if they were boiled, and the outsides of the carrots and potatoes have a nice textural bite to them.

This soup put me in a happy place, and I look forward to eating more as the weather continues to get colder. Enjoy!