Soup series 4: Beetroot and sweet potato

The colour of this soup is so vibrant and bright. If your food is this colour, you can bet it has beetroot in (unless it's food dye). It's such a beautiful colour and definitely adds the wow factor! Asides from the colour though, this thick and creamy soup tastes delicious, although probably does turn your insides pink!

If you are anything like me, using raw beetroot is new to you. I have always just bought ready cooked beetroot from the shops. It does take an hour to cook, so make sure you have plenty of time to make this recipe!

Ingredients

4 sweet potatoes

400g fresh beetroot

1/2 lemon (juice of)

400ml can coconut milk

1/2 tsp chilli powder or 1 tsp chilli flakes

3 cloves of garlic

salt and pepper to flavour
olive oil

The raw beetroots that I got hold of were organic so were really small. Don't be alarmed if you only have 2 or 3 for 400g. Heat your oven to 200°C. Chop the stalks off your beetroots and place on a baking tray with a bit of olive oil, and place in the oven for 1 hour.



Whilst your beetroot is cooking, you want to boil your sweet potatoes. Peel and chop up your sweet potatoes and boil for 10 minutes, making sure a knife easily slips through them before draining. They may need a few more minutes depending on the size you chopped them. Put aside whilst you wait for the beetroot to finish cooking.

When you take the beetroot out of the oven, the skin will be all crispy and wrinkly.



Allow the beetroot to cool for 5-10 minutes so you are able to handle them. Peel the skin off, which should be easy to do. Under the crispy skin, you will have the beautiful deep purple beetroot that you are probably used to seeing in the shops. Be really careful as beetroot is great at staining your clothes!



Add your beetroot, potatoes, coconut milk, garlic, lemon juice, chilli powder/flakes, a little bit of salt and pepper all into your blender and blitz until smooth. If you find the consistency slightly thick, add in some water until you reach your desired thickness.

Add into a saucepan and heat it up! Grind a bit of pepper on top to serve.

If you didn't know, over winter I decided to do a soup series - you can find the others here. I must admit, one of the main reasons I love this soup is the colour, but luckily it does taste amazing too.