I love spring veggies. Green, crunchy, full of vitality after the heavy, sugary root vegetables of winter. As tasty as they are raw, sometimes I need a little warmth in the transition from winter to spring. This spring veggies soup does the trick.
This soup is light, satisfying, and deeply nourishing.
It’s also incredibly easy to make. Most of the soup cooking time in inactive. So if you’re short on time, you can start the soup in the morning, let it sit through the day, and then add the veggies at night when you reheat, right before you’re ready to eat.
This soup is also really versatile, so if can swap out some ingredients for others for a distinctly different flavor.
And I should also mention that all of the credit for this soup goes to Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks. This recipe is lightly adapted from her cook Super Natural Cooking, one of my favorite whole foods vegetarian cookbooks.
While her recipes aren’t always “family-friendly” with funky, hard-to-find ingredients and sometimes more complicated meals, I love the flavors and find her recipes are very easy to adapt. If you’ve never checked out her site, please do now!
Spring Veggies Soup with Brown Rice
Serves 4
Ingredients~
1 Tbs olive oil
1 small bunch of spring onion, green and white parts sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup brown basmati rice (if you want more rice and less veggies, increase the rice to 3/4 cup)
6 cups veg stock
1 cup sugar snap peas, trimmed
8 asparagus spears, diagonally sliced into 1-inch pieces
1/2 cup green peas, fresh or frozen
salt and pepper to taste
Directions~
Heat the oil in a large pot. Add the spring onions and garlic. Saute for a few minutes, watching to make sure you don’t burn them. When they’re soft, add in the rice and cook, stirring consistently until lightly toasted (about a minute). Add in the stock, cover, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer until the rice is fully cooked.
Add in the sugar snap peas, asparagus, and peas. Remove from the heat. They don’t need to cook long. Just get really green. They should still be crunchy.
Season with some salt and pepper. Enjoy while the veggies are still bright and crispy.
