Winter Vegetable Soup
Chunky winter vegetable soup with sweet potato, potato, carrot, parsnip and peas, a quarter of it blended so it's creamy without cream. Vegan as written.
One pot of root vegetables, simmered soft and partly blended: thick and creamy, with chunks to chew.
Recipe inspiration
The vegetable drawer at the end of the week: a soft carrot, half a bag of potatoes, the parsnip you bought for a roast that never happened. This soup takes all of it. Everything costs a few dollars, it feeds six, and it's better on day two, so it's lunch sorted for the week.
It's also the dinner for a crowd you weren't expecting. Add another potato and a cup of stock and it stretches; put a loaf of bread on the table and nobody notices.
About this dish
Every cold country has this soup. Italy's minestrone comes out of cucina povera, the cooking of the poor, and the Italian line is clear: chunky is minestrone, puréed fine is passato di verdure. This sits between the two on purpose. In central Appalachia, "winter vegetable soup" or "country soup" was a staple from December to February, made from what kept in the cellar. Potage, a thick soup of whatever grew, is on record by the 1400s.
What you get: soft, sweet cubes of sweet potato and parsnip, potato that still holds its edges, carrot with a little bite, peas that pop, all in a broth thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Tomato paste, browned first, gives it a savoury depth that tastes like it simmered for hours. Thyme and bay make the kitchen smell like Sunday.
Additions & substitutions
- Other roots: swap the parsnip for celeriac, pumpkin, swede or turnip. Keep the total weight of vegetables around 1.5 kg. Celeriac and parsnip are strong; more of them and they take over.
- Beans: a 400 g tin of drained cannellini or butter beans with the peas. More filling, more protein, still one pot.
- Greens: a big handful of spinach, shredded kale or silverbeet with the peas. It wilts in 2 minutes.
- Curry: 1 tbsp mild curry powder with the thyme. RecipeTin Eats uses it in her root vegetable soup so it tastes of more than puréed vegetables.
- Parmesan rind: drop one in with the stock and fish it out before blending. Deep, savoury, not vegan.
- Creamier: 125 ml (½ cup) cream or coconut cream after blending.
- Fully smooth: blend the whole pot, leave out the peas. That's passato.
- Pasta: 100 g small pasta (ditalini, risoni) for the last 10 minutes, with an extra cup of stock; it drinks the liquid.
Expert tips
Shopping
- Floury potatoes (Sebago, Russet, King Edward) give the most starch and the creamiest blend. Waxy ones (Kipfler, Nicola) hold their shape but blend thinner.
- Orange sweet potato is sweeter and brighter than the white or purple kinds; any works.
- Stock is half the flavour. Taste it before you buy into it: a good liquid stock, or a stock cube made up a little weaker than the packet says, then salt to taste at the end.
- Frozen peas beat fresh in winter. They're frozen within hours of picking.
Preparing
- Cut everything the same size, 1.5 cm. Even pieces cook in the same time; a few big chunks stay hard while the small ones fall apart. Our chopping vegetables guide shows the dice.
- Soften the base slowly. 8 to 10 minutes on medium for the onions, carrot and celery. Rushed on high, they brown at the edges and stay crunchy in the middle.
- Brown the tomato paste. Two minutes in the oil until it goes from bright red to brick red. Raw, it tastes tinny.
- Blend briefly. A few pulses with a stick blender in one corner of the pot. Potato blended too long or in a high-speed blender goes gluey.
- Lemon last. Squeezed in at the table, not cooked in; cooked, the fresh taste goes.
Make ahead, or for a crowd
- Keeps 4 days in the fridge and 3 months in the freezer. Freeze it before adding the peas if you can; add them when you reheat.
- It thickens as it stands. Loosen with water or stock when you reheat, then check the salt.
- Doubles easily in a big stockpot. Give the base 5 more minutes and the simmer 5 more.
Serving suggestions
- Crusty bread, or toast rubbed with garlic and drizzled with olive oil.
- A grilled cheese sandwich for dipping.
- A spoon of pesto or a crumble of feta on top.
- Before baked apples for a whole winter dinner that costs almost nothing.
Winter Vegetable Soup
Published 2 Oct 2026 · Updated 3 Oct 2026
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, plus extra to serve
- 1 brown onion, finely chopped
- 2 carrots, peeled and cut into 1.5 cm pieces
- 2 celery sticks, sliced
- 1 parsnip, peeled and cut into 1.5 cm pieces
- 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 sweet potato (about 450 g), peeled and cut into 1.5 cm cubes
- 2 floury potatoes (about 400 g), peeled and cut into 1.5 cm cubes
- 1.5 litres (6 cups) vegetable stock
- 1 cup (120 g) frozen peas
- Salt and black pepper
- Chopped parsley or dill, lemon wedges and crusty bread, to serve
You need a large heavy-based pot (5 litres or more) and a stick blender.
Method
- Soften the base. Heat the oil in the pot over medium heat. Add the onion, carrot, celery, parsnip, garlic, bay leaf and thyme with a good pinch of salt. Cook, stirring often, 8 to 10 minutes, until the onion is soft and see-through and the kitchen smells sweet. Turn the heat down if anything starts to brown.
- Brown the paste. Stir in the tomato paste and cook 2 minutes, stirring, until it darkens from bright red to brick red and coats the vegetables.
- Simmer. Add the sweet potato, potato and stock. Bring to the boil, then turn down to a gentle simmer, cover and cook 20 minutes, until a knife slides through a potato cube with no resistance.
- Blend a quarter. Fish out the bay leaf. Tilt the pot, push the stick blender into one side and pulse a few times, until about a quarter of the soup is a rough purée and the broth turns thick and orange. Stop there. (No stick blender? Ladle 2 cups into a blender, blitz for a few seconds and stir it back in.)
- Add the peas. Simmer 2 to 3 minutes, until bright green.
- Season. Taste, then add salt and pepper until the vegetables taste sweet and bright, not flat. Loosen with a splash of water or stock if it's thicker than you like.
- Serve. Ladle into bowls, scatter with herbs and drizzle with olive oil. Lemon wedges and bread on the side; squeeze the lemon in at the table.
Notes
- Too thin? Blend a little more, or simmer uncovered 5 to 10 minutes.
- Too thick, or set like porridge the next day? That's the potato starch. Stir in water or stock, a ladle at a time, while it heats.
- Gluey, sticky texture? The potato was over-blended. You can't undo it, but a cup of stock and an extra drained tin of beans makes it a different, good soup.
- Vegetables still hard after 20 minutes? The pieces were bigger than 1.5 cm or the simmer too gentle. Keep going, 5 minutes at a time, and check with a knife.
- Tastes flat? It needs salt, then lemon. Add both a little at a time and taste between.
- Peas grey? They cooked too long, often on reheating. Add peas just before serving next time.
Sources
- "Vegetable soup", Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetable_soup
- "Minestrone", Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minestrone
- "Country harvest root vegetable soup", RecipeTin Eats (Nagi Maehashi), https://www.recipetineats.com/country-harvest-root-vegetable-soup/
- "Winter-Vegetable Soup", Epicurious, https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/best-vegetable-soup
- "Good vegetable soup", BBC Food, https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/goodvegetablesoup_73412
