Wild Thistle Kitchen: Thai Red Curry Sweet Potato Soup

This soup is my defiant answer and rebellion to the overly sweet treatment of sweet potatoes. It is balanced, savory, creamy and warming. I adore sweet potatoes’ earthy sweetness and this soup celebrates that without adding more sweetness. And I don’t know about you, but I always buy too many sweet potatoes and leave them sitting in the pantry until they’re slightly past their prime. Well, this Thai Red Curry Sweet Potato Soup is the perfect way to use them all up.

I created this soup for just that reason; I had a few pounds of rather shabby looking sweet potatoes — still totally edible, just kind of forgotten and getting a little spotty. So, I started pondering what to do with them and decided on soup. Then, as I’m always in search of balance in my recipes, I quickly turned to one of my favorite flavor profiles: Thai Red Curry. The heat, the tang, the creaminess. I knew it would be the perfect pairing with my sweet little taters.

Choose Your Own Sweet Potato Adventure

I chose to roast them, but you could just as easily peel, chop, and add them right to the pot raw when you add your broth. Just cook them until tender and continue with the recipe as written. I just hate peeling potatoes and avoid it at all costs, so I rubbed them with olive oil and salt and tossed them in the oven out of pure laziness. I should also mention that this would be a great way to use up leftover mashed sweet potatoes. I would not recommend it for sweet potato casserole leftovers unless you want a very sweet soup. And finally, you could make this with any kind of winter squash, pumpkin, or even cauliflower if sweet root veggies aren’t your thing. I’m planning to try it with cauliflower soon.

What Goes Into the Thai Red Curry Sweet Potato Soup?

Well, lots of sweet potatoes. But while their flavor really shines, for me it’s all about the mostly Thai inspired flavors and toppings:

• coconut milk
• white miso paste
• coconut oil
• toasted sesame oil
• lots of minced ginger
• minced garlic
• onion
• Thai red curry paste – I use Thai Kitchen
• ground white pepper

For serving, any or all of the following drizzled, sprinkled, or spritzed:

• chili crisp or chili oil – I recommend Fly by Jing or Lao Gan Ma
• coconut milk
• toasted sesame oil
• toasted sesame seeds
• cilantro
• sliced green onions
• toasted, unsweetened coconut flakes
• fresh lime wedges

I feel I must mention that this soup is naturally vegan as long as your Thai Red Curry Paste is — I use Thai Kitchen brand, which happens to be vegan. If you aren’t worried about keeping it vegan you could use chicken broth and add a few dashes of fish sauce for some extra savoriness. And you must squeeze fresh lime over for serving — in my opinion, it is essential and so delicious. It just makes all of the flavors pop.

Don’t overthink this recipe – Use any kind of onion you have, if you love ginger like I do, add lots of it! Don’t have miso paste? Add soy sauce. Soups are so laid back and you should be too. Just make sure to taste it for saltiness at the end. I prefer to add soy sauce at that point rather than salt, but feel free to use either.

For full recipe and instructions go to https://wildthistlekitchen.com/thai-red-curry-sweet-potato-soup/.

tagsSweet PotatoesThai Red Curry Sweet Potato SoupveganWild Thistle Kitchenwinter recipesyummy soup