Creamy butternut squash, carrot and ginger soup

Peeling and cubing a whole squash is its own kind of effort, and some nights you do not have it in you to do much else besides that. This soup asks for exactly one round of chopping, squash, carrots, and ginger into a pot, broth poured over the top, and then it simmers itself while you do something else, or nothing at all.

There is real work happening in that pot beyond warming you up. Bone broth is a source of glycine, an amino acid tied to how the gut lining repairs itself, and the squash and carrots hold their own beta-carotene, one building block your body uses to make vitamin A. A bowl of this is quiet repair, one spoonful at a time.

Make the whole batch even if it seems like more than you need tonight. About 3 quarts means the next hard afternoon this week already has dinner waiting, and a bowl of something warm, ladled out and finished with a little coconut milk, is worth the extra pot.

Ingredients

• 1 small butternut squash (about 2.5 lb), peeled and cubed
• 6 large carrots (about 1 lb), chopped
• a 3/4-inch knob of fresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
• 2 quarts chicken bone broth
• 1/3 cup full-fat coconut milk, plus more for garnish
• sea salt to taste
• optional: oven-roasted beets and chopped scallions, to garnish

Method

Put the cubed squash, chopped carrots, and sliced ginger in a large pot. Pour in the bone broth, cover, and bring to a simmer. Cook until the vegetables are fully tender, roughly twenty minutes.

Take the pot off the heat. Blend right in the pot with an immersion blender until the soup is smooth.

Stir in the coconut milk and salt to taste. Serve with a drizzle of coconut milk and, if you like, roasted beets and scallions on top.

To peel the ginger quickly, scrape the skin off with the edge of a spoon.

Instant Pot variation

Add the squash, carrots, ginger, and broth to the Instant Pot. Seal and cook on high pressure for 10 to 15 minutes (timing from the source comments, untested here), then release the pressure, blend with an immersion blender, and stir in the coconut milk and salt.

*Adapted from asquirrelinthekitchen.com*