This Roasted Parsnip and Leek Soup is the first recipe in my ‘Plant-based on a budget’ series.
I want to show that healthy eating doesn’t have to be expensive and you can make delicious meals from scratch using fresh ingredients on any budget. The series is run in collaboration with Aldi, who have won multiple awards for the quality of their products despite being a low cost supermarket. All of the ingredients in the recipes will come from Aldi and I will be focusing on fruit and/or vegetables from their ‘super 6’ to make tasty, easy and cheap plant-based recipes.
The ‘super 6’ are six seasonal fruit or vegetables from UK suppliers sold at a really low price- typically 45p per pack!
SUPER 6 (9th-20th October 2016): Parsnip, Leek, Beetroot, Brussels Sprouts, Swede and Onions.
I chose Parsnip and Leeks to make a really thick, creamy and comforting soup (I’ve already made a swede soup on my blog so I thought I’d go for something different). The soup also contains butter beans for protein as well as potato, cauliflower and almond milk to add to the creamy taste and texture of the soup.
I think it is going to be one of my staple recipes for winter. The weather is getting colder and the heating in my office is particularly unreliable, which usually means that I am looking for something warm and filling for lunch. This roasted parsnip and leek soup certainly fulfils that brief. It’s extremely filling so if you’re going to eat it with bread I’d say it makes 3-4 portions. If this is all you’re having I’d suggest it makes 2 portions.
Roasted Parsnip and Leek Soup.
Serves 2-4
1.5 to 3 of your 5-a-day
Ingredients
- 2 medium parsnips (3 for 45p = 30p)
- 1 baking potato (4 for 45p = 11.25p)
- ½ leek (3 for 45p = 15p)
- ¼ large cauliflower (1 for 79p = 19.75p)
- 400g (240g drained) can butter beans (1 for 33p)
- 2 cups unsweetened almond milk (1 litre (4.2cups) for 99p = 47p)
- ½ -1 ½ cup water
- Mixed herbs (1 for 49p = 5p)
- salt and pepper, chilli flakes to taste (from cupboard)
Total Price= £1.61/ for 2 = 80.5p!
Method
- Heat the oven to 180°C.
- Peirce the potato several times with a knife and place it in the oven – you will need to cook the potato for about 45-50 minutes in total.
- Peel and chop the parsnips into 4 pieces and place them on a lined baking tray. Once the potato has been cooking for about 15 minutes place the parsnips in the oven.
- Chop the cauliflower into 4 pieces and leave the leek as a single piece. Add them to the lined baking tray after the parsnips have been cooking for 20 minutes.
- After 10 minutes take the vegetables out of the oven.
- Drain and rinse the beans then place all of the ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend until the soup reaches your desired consistency. I added half a cup of water, but you can add more if you would like a thinner soup.
- Reheat the soup in a pot on the stove or in the microwave before serving.
DID YOU KNOW
You can eat parsnip raw! Although I don’t really fancy it!
I like to eat roasted parsnips or blend the into soup.
What’s you favourite way to eat parsnip? I think I need some new ideas!
This is great! Sounds delicious!
Thank you so much 🙂 I definitely ate too much after making it!!
This looks lovely thank you 🙂
Quick q- my husband is allergic to nuts, do you recommend another plant based milk to swap in for almond milk?
Cheers
Susie
Hi Susie,
I think rice milk might be a bit sweet but you could give it a try. Or maybe coconut milk if you wanted a bit of a different flavour. If you like the taste of soy you could try that, but maybe 1 cup and sub the second cup for water because I think soy has quite a strong flavour.
You could also try adding stock instead of milk (usually I used the premade vegetable one from Sainsburys in a bag or vegan bullion powder). I don’t really like adding plain water to soup because sometimes I think it makes it taste ‘watery’ (if that’s even a taste!).
Hope that helps.
I adore leeks so so so much, I do not eat them all that often though. I tend to forget about them but I really need to change that!
Yeah, I always forget about them as well. I think they get hidden on the supermarket shelves! Also I feel like you have to base your whole meal around leeks, where as if I have peas or cauliflower it’s easier to put that with anything.
I’m loving soup now that the weather’s turned colder – trying to make one a week for my lunches! Think this one will be next on the list
Thanks for your comment Emma. This soup is really satisfying and great for winter! I hate it when you have soup and then your hungry 30 mins later, but this was very filling. Let me know how you get on. I love to repost peoples recreations of my recipes on twitter/facebook, so let me know if you share a photo of it 🙂