This sweet potato soup is not only full of flavor, it’s a healthy meal. After all, around the big food holidays isn’t it wise to cook light to balance out the indulgences? Yet, a flavorful soup like this for dinner helps us feel that we’re enjoying something rich and elegant. Serve this dish with a glass of one of the wines suggested below and nobody feels deprived.

Another bonus is that soup is quick and easy to put together. In fact, this sweet potato soup recipe can incorporate leftover roast sweet potatoes and carrots you may have from the Thanksgiving feast or other fall dinners. Soup recipes, generally, can be tweaked to use up whatever you have on hand. For example, if you have a leek but no onion, no problem. Do you have parsnips but no carrots? No worries! Go ahead and substitute with what’s in your pantry. Normally, I’d add a chopped up stalk of celery to the pot. However, I didn’t have any on hand when whipping up this batch. This sweet potato soup, regardless, is still big on flavor.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon coconut or vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
1 tablespoon Madras curry powder
1 teaspoon salt
4 sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
2 large carrots, diced
1 apple, peeled and diced
1 cup white wine such a Riesling
2 cups chicken or vegetable stock

Heat the oil in a large pan over medium heat. Next, add the onion, ginger, and curry powder and sauté for three minutes. Then, put the sweet potatoes, carrots, apple, and white wine into the pot along with one cup of the stock. When the mixture comes to a boil, cover the pan and reduce heat to low. Cook over low heat until the vegetables are soft and can easily be pierced with a knife, about 10-15 minutes (this depends in part on how small the veggies were cut). Blitz the mixture with an immersion blender, or transfer the mixture to a food processor and puree until the mixture is smooth. Add the additional stock either all or in part, until the soup reaches desired consistency.

Makes 4 small portions or in our house, 2 dinner portions plus a small bowl for lunch the next day.

Tip! Add a can of coconut milk to or a splash of cream for a richer version of this soup.

Wine Pairing for Curried Sweet Potato Soup

The old school philosophy says that pairing wine with soup is tricky business because of all the diverse flavors in the concoction. Well, that doesn’t scare me off! With the spices in this Curried Sweet Potato Soup I turn to aromatic white wines. Due to the natural sweetness in the veggies and the apple, my preference is for an off dry wine. That’s a wine with a teensy bit of residual sugar.

Riesling
Often, I’ll use Riesling in this preparation and pour the same to accompany the dish.

Siegerrebe
That’s right – Siegerrebe! Pronounced see-gar-rah-bay, this cross of the Madeleine Angevine grape and the Gewurztraminer grape grows well in the Puget Sound AVA. Wonderful bottlings are produced by Lozpez Island Vineyards and Bainbridge Vineyards.

Gewurtztraminer
The curry and ginger spice in the soup can be complemented by a nice spicy Gewurtztraminer.

Viognier
A rich and aromatic Viognier would not only complement the spices in this soup, but the lush texture as well.