Lemon Orzo and Sweet Potato Soup
Living in the Midwest I deal with some pretty frigid winters, but these are nothing a steaming pot of soup can't fix.
On winter Sundays when I was growing up, my mother could always be found in the kitchen making a giant pot of soup. This soup would last us through the week, and then we would move on to the next soup. Over the years, this soup obsession resulted in about 10,000 varieties of vegetable soup in my household.
Don't get me wrong, I love classic vegetable soup. But in this recipe I wanted something a little more refreshing that would make the most out of this amazing winter citrus. I searched and search for an easy and simple lemon soup and finally found Michelle Braxton's Lemon and Spinach Orzo Soup on Food52.
Her recipe called for carrots rather than sweets potatoes, but I always like the flavor of sweet potatoes, especially combined with lemon. I also opted for homemade chicken stock and I encourage you to do the same. To make homemade stock or broth, simply boil a chicken carcass or some vegetable scraps in water for a few hours and then strain it. Not only does homemade stock add a heck ton of flavor, but it is also a sustainable way to use up meat or vegetable scraps.
And so, this soup was born. It's warming, flavorful, simple and impossibly easy to make.
Let me know what you think of the recipe and don’t forget to follow the sustainability tips below!
Time: 1 hour
Serves: about 8 people
Ingredients
(adapted from Michelle Braxton on Food52)
6 tablespoons olive oil
3 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1-inch pieces
2 medium yellow onions, diced
4 stalks of celery, finely chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 pinch red chili flakes (optional)
10-12 cups homemade stock or broth
1 1/4 cups orzo pasta
1 cup milk of choice
2 small lemons, plus 1 lemon for garnish
6 cups kale, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
Steps
Sauté sweet potatoes, onions, celery and garlic in olive oil in a large pot over medium heat until the onions are translucent, about 10 minutes. Then, add the stock and bring to a boil over medium-high. Let that boil until the sweet potatoes are soft, about 35-40 minutes.
Meanwhile, bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Toward the end of the soup's cooking time, boil the orzo pasta in the water for 6 minutes (3 minutes short of the package instructions). After six minutes, drain the orzo and transfer it to the stock mixture. Immediately add in your kale, milk and zest and juice of 2 lemons. Stir this until your kale has wilted. Garnish with fresh herbs, a sliced lemon, salt and pepper.
Sustainability tips
Olive Oil: Go for organic and fair trade olive oil to get the most eco friendly bang for your buck. Read more about this in my sustainable cooking oils post!
Vegetables and garlic: The onion, sweet potato, celery, garlic and kale are all either in season or can be found in fall storage during the winter months. This means locally grown varieties should be pretty easy to find, which will cut down on GHGs from travel.
Lemons: If you live somewhere with cold winters, you will probably have no choice but to get your lemons from pretty far away. In this case, your best option is to buy organic lemons that were grown relatively close by (read: in your home country, a neighboring country or as close as you can find). Buying organic will ensure that narsty pesticides weren’t used on your lemons, and buying from close by will mean that your lemons didn’t have to travel as far to get to you.