My perfect autumn/winter Sunday evening meal involves a warming pot of this Butternut Squash, Chilli and Coconut Milk Soup bubbling on the stove and fresh Pumpkin Seed and Rye Soda Bread cooking in the oven. Best of all I can make this whole meal in under 45 minutes. Plus if you make a double quantity of the soup you have a couple of lunches sorted for the week ahead. And making soup and bread on the same day makes me feel like some sort of domestic goddess!
This soup uses a whole butternut squash, but if you don’t like chopping up squashes, the supermarkets do packs of ready chopped squash in the freezer department, making this a handy standby meal. If you have kids (or grown-ups) who don’t like green things, then leave the coriander leaves out and serve separately. The same applies for the chilli flakes which can be served separately for everyone to add however much they want to their portion.
This soup would also make an excellent dinner party starter, as it can be made ahead of time and reheated. It’s particularly good if you have invited people with different dietary requirements as it is vegetarian, vegan, gluten free and dairy free. The soup looks very pretty decorated with fresh red chillies, pumpkin seeds and coriander leaves. But if that is too much fuss, just leave the decoration off, it will still taste delicious without the decoration!
This soup can be enjoyed chunky or smooth. To get your soup super smooth I would really recommend using the Froothie Optimum 2.3 Blender – it’s amazing at getting soups silky smooth! (If you want to find out more read my Froothie Optimum 2.3 Blender review.)
Butternut Squash, Chilli and Coconut Milk Soup
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 onion diced
- 1 butternut squash (approx. 1kg/2lb), peeled and chopped into 1cm cubes
- ½ teaspoon chilli flakes or to taste
- 2 cloves garlic grated or crushed
- 2 cm ginger grated
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 400 ml tin coconut milk
- Juice of ½ lime
- 2 tablespoons coriander (cilantro) leaves chopped, plus extra for garnish
- Pumpkin seeds and sliced fresh red chilli for garnish (optional)
Instructions
- Put the olive oil in a large saucepan and add the diced onion. Fry on a gentle heat with the lid on for 5 minutes until softened but not brown. Stir occasionally.
- When the onions are softened, add the cubed butternut squash, garlic, chilli flakes and ginger and fry on a low heat for 2 minutes.
- Add the coconut milk, bring to the boil then simmer for 15-20 minutes until the butternut squash is soft.
- Turn the heat off and add the juice of half a lime plus the chopped coriander and blitz with a blender until smooth.
- Serve the soup decorated with coriander leaves, pumpkin seeds and slices of fresh red chilli.
Notes
Want to find more great vegetarian meal ideas? Check out my collection of Easy Peasy Vegetarian & Vegan Recipes…
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Carina says
ooo I love it, I make carrot/butternut/chilli /ginger soup regularly, warms me up! Never tried coconut milk in soups yet though, must give it a go.
Eb Gargano says
Thanks, Carina! I love coconut milk and try and add it anywhere I think it will work! It goes really well with the Asian flavours of this soup. It sort of has a thai curry vibe about it. Let me know what you think if you try it! Eb x
Corina says
Lovely! This soup has so many of my favourite flavours in it!
Eb Gargano says
Mine too! Thanks for commenting, Corina! Eb x
Mandy says
Yummy, I love the sound of this. I’ve never put coconut milk in a butternut squash soup before, definitely one to try! #CookBlogShare
Eb Gargano says
It really works – I love it! Tastes a lot like a Thai curry only all blended together. Thanks for commenting, Mandy! Eb x
Kirsty Hijacked By Twins says
Oooh yummy!!! This sounds like such a delicious, full flavoured, warming soup. Simply perfect. Thank you for sharing with #CookBlogShare x
Eb Gargano says
Thank you, Kirsty. Yes, that little kick of chilli makes this soup really warming – perfect for chilly evenings! Eb x
Lisa says
That is an impressive bowl of goodness. Thanks so much for sharing with NCR.
Eb Gargano says
Thank you, Lisa!
Grubby Little Faces says
This is similar to one of my favourite soups too. It’s so delicious, colourful and perfect for this time of year isn’t it? Love how you have put all the steps together in photographs and that bread looks like the perfect accompaniment. Clare x
Eb Gargano says
Thank you, Clare! I am trying to include more step by step photographs in my posts…I think it makes it much easier to follow a recipe if you can sort of see where you are going! Eb x
Jenny Davies says
Eb, I made this soup this evening – I did tinker about with it a little bit – but it is fantastic. I love it! Here’s what I did differently – I used 1 tsp ground oregano instead of fresh, because my son dislikes fresh. I also added a low salt fish stock cube at the same time as the coconut milk and then – once the soup had been blitzed – 200g of small cooked peeled prawns at the very end. Thank you so much – this one (with or without prawns) is going to be a regular on the menu, I can tell!
Eb Gargano says
Really pleased you liked it!!! Love the sound of your ‘tinkerings’! I am always tinkering with recipes. I find it very hard not to! Sometimes, if I’m doing a review, I have to do a recipe exactly as written and I find it so difficult – there is always something I’m itching to tweak!! Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a lovely comment to tell me all about it – it brings me such joy to know that my recipes are being made and enjoyed 🙂 Eb x
Rachel says
Delicious… eventually! Took much longer for the butternutsquash to soften than stated, and I checked I cut to the right size.
Very warming though I very much enjoyed!
Eb Gargano says
I am so sorry you had trouble with this one, Rachel. I always test my recipes thoroughly and try to make the timings as accurate as possible…so I can only apologise that this took longer than stated…when I get a chance, I will retest the recipe and amend as needed. It’s a real frustration of mine when recipes take longer than stated, so I will certainly get this fixed. Thanks so much for giving me a heads up and letting me know you enjoyed it, though! Eb x
Corina Blum says
This soup sounds really tasty and would be great with the soda bread. It’s got all the flavours in I love and would definitely be something I’d love for lunch. Thanks for sharing with #CookOnceEatTwice x
Eb Gargano says
Thanks Corina 🙂 It makes a great lunch! I often make a big pot of soup on a Sunday. We eat some with fresh soda bread on the Sunday evening and then I have the rest for weekday lunches. Eb x
Kate says
I am definitely going to try this one – has some ingredients I am not used to but I want to try to eat more vegan recipes this year. #BrilliantBlogPosts
Eb Gargano says
Thanks Kate! I would love to know how it goes if you try it 😀 Eb x
Mo Lyall says
Can this soup be frozen?
Eb Gargano says
Yes, absolutely!
Nikki says
Hubby and I absolutely loved this… It has all the flavours we adore and was soo gorgeous and warming! Have also made it with a load of pumpkin I had in the freezer after Halloween… It was equally yummy. Thank you for sharing the recipe ?
Eb Gargano says
Yay! So pleased to hear that you enjoyed this – and thank you so much for taking the time to let me know! Eb x
Victoria says
Hey Eb, I made this soup last night. It was super yummy and warming on a chilly night.
I’m glad I came across your site, and will be checking you out on instagram for more gastronomic delights.
Best
Victoria x?
Eb Gargano says
Yay! So pleased you liked it – that makes me very happy. And especially thank you for the 5* review – so kind! Eb 🙂
Mandy says
Hi, I have tried this and it’s amazing (although I did put in more chilli flakes as we like spicy but will go with your suggestion next time as was a bit overpowering). I have bought the ingredients again but this time I have bought ready chopped frozen butternut squash (too lazy to chop). Will that make much difference to the cooking time? Do I just chuck it in frozen? Thanks x
Eb Gargano says
Hi Mandy – so pleased you liked this! Yes you can absolutely use frozen butternut squash in this recipe. I would definitely chuck it in frozen and maybe add an extra 5 mins to the cooking time (worth testing the BNS, though to make sure it’s soft before you blitz). Let me know how it goes! Eb 🙂
Margaret Burke says
Just made this soup don’t know what went wrong but it has seperated
Eb Gargano says
Oooh that is strange. I’m not sure what to suggest, that has never happened to me before. The only thing I can think of is it could be related to the type of coconut milk you used? I normally use the full fat tinned variety. If you used something different to that, that could explain it. Eb 🙂
YVONNE says
ORDERED THIS SOUP WHEN EATING OUT IN BRENT CROSS SHOPPING CENTRE WAS BLOWN AWAY – SO GOOGLED IT.
Eb Gargano says
Yay – so pleased you were able to find my recipe so you could recreate this at home 😀
Anne says
So easy to make , apart from the chopping 😂. So tasty .
Eb Gargano says
Aw, I am so pleased to here that! Eb 🙂
Isabel Freeman says
Had this soup in a restaurant so looked for a recipe. Your recipe is simple, no faffing and easy to make. I didnt add corriander as i dont like it. Soup was very tasty -better than restaurant one! Next time im going to make with low fat coconut milk to try it and cut fat down. Do you think it will work?
Amazing recipe, thanks for sharing
Eb Gargano says
Yay! I am so happy to hear you enjoyed this recipe so much. Thank you for taking the time to leave a review… and especially for the 5 star rating! I know it will definitely work with low fat coconut milk as I do that myself sometimes. It’s obviously a little less creamy, but still delicious. Eb 🙂
Heather Le Rossignol says
Tried this last week when my grand daughter came to lunch. No chilly so used a teaspoon of curry powder.
absolutely delicious.
Eb Gargano says
Yay! That’s great to hear 😀