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Creamy Roasted Rutabaga Soup :: Gluten & Dairy Free

January 31, 2023

Roasted rutabaga soup is beautiful simplicity, and a super kid friendly creamy soup way to get mineral rich veggies in!

Creamy Roasted Rutabaga Soup :: Gluten & Dairy Free

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Beautiful simplicity…

If you haven’t noticed from the last year of recipe posts on the blog, our family is most definitely knee deep in pre-teen and teen years. I’m so happy to hear from so many of you with teens, that you are pumped about the help you are getting from this space as my girls make their way through their teenage years. It’s interesting though…when I really stop to think about it, we aren’t truly doing a whole lot differently than when they were very little. Sure, we have to double (and triple!) the portions and recipe sizes for bigger kids, but my M.O. has always, always been…beautiful simplicity.

Nourishing soup for ANY age!

Because those big kids in the picture above? They still eat the same power packed soups that I fed them as little ones. The pictures below? Dear momma with little ones at home, please let this be your inspiration…and motivation! Those babies in your house are absolutely *blank slates* for developing taste palates! I’m gonna get all tough love on you, and promise that if you skip the toddler puffs and cereal, and go for the beautiful simplicity of a little mug of veggie soup, you will be rewarded with older kids that actually *ask* for certain veggie soups in their thermoses for school lunch. My 3 very different personality kiddos are living proof! So let’s learn how to make a very simple veggie soup that your little ones (and you too, momma!) can sip from a mug, slurp up from a bowl, or lick off a spoon!

Why rutabaga?

Well other than the absolute budget saver that this simple root veggie is, rutabagas are packed with fiber and vitamin C. They have the perfect balance of minerals including potassium which so many of us and our kids need more of! The slow burning carbohydrates give busy, growing kids the energy they need, and that coupled with a load of antioxidants? Well, let’s just say sometimes I think the humblest of foods sometimes don’t get enough credit!

Yes, rutabagas are absolutely divine!

At least when you know how to cook them they are! Rutabagas are just like every other root veggie, in that when you roast them, you’re going to get a slightly sweet, very satisfying starchy taste, that any little one that hasn’t been inundated with sugar will find very, very appealing. And when you blend it up with some bone broth? Those natural, slow burning starches make for a smooth, creamy, very potato soup like texture, and a sweet root vegetable flavor. So let’s learn how to make roasted rutabaga soup!

The Method :: Prepping the veggies

To get your soup started, peel and chop your rutabaga. The skin is super thin, so a simple peeler is all you need. And since this soup gets completely pureed in the end, no precision cutting skills are needed here! Just a coarse chop, and you’re ready to roast. This bods well for busy families, new mommas with active toddlers, and those newer to cooking!

The Method :: Roasting the veggies

Once the veggies are chopped, transfer them to a large baking sheet. If your baking sheets are smaller, simply use two of them! Toss the veggies with melted butter or olive oil and sea salt, then let the oven do the rest! While your veggies are roasting, you can change the baby’s diaper, read the toddler that book, or *gasp!* take that shower you have been trying to get in all day!

The Method :: Finishing the soup

When the veggies are soft and starting to caramelize, you can blend it with your bone broth and a little cream or coconut milk. That is literally it! You get to control the texture and thickness! Add or subtract more or less broth to get a thicker or thinner soup.

Tips for feeding soup to little ones

Here are some thoughts to keep in mind when serving soup to babies, toddlers, and younger children!

Serve the soup at a cooler temp than you would probably enjoy the soup. Hot soup is very intense for little ones, and I always found that they ate soup better at pretty close to room temp. That might gross you out, but they will eat it better! You can cool it off with an ice cube, or pop it in the fridge or freezer for a few minutes.
Try different serving vessels! Most little ones like to “do it myself” so try a very small tea cup with a straw or small spoon. Or a smaller bowl. They may even prefer to drink it from a cup or sippy.
Some little ones love to dunk! Make some grilled cheese and cut it into strips for dunking, use some crackers or pita bread, or toast up some tortillas in a hot pan as “chips” to dunk.

Don’t forget about the school aged kids and teens!

These are the soups that my kids live for! Easy to eat and super yummy! The girls used to pack straws with their thermoses of soup when they were younger. My teens either drink it right out of the thermos like a cup, or pack a spoon now. But the possibilities are endless, really. Pack whatever sides and protein they need to go with it! Below are chicken quesadillas from dinner and some apples. My teens packed some more chicken quesadillas, as well as guacamole to dip the quesadillas in.

Serving suggestions and freezer friendly tips!

I just love soups like this for the versatility and because they freeze for later use so well. When I had very little ones at home, those 2 points were game changers. If your little one loves this soup, it is versatile enough to serve in a little mug with a plate of eggs for breakfast, or in a bowl with some grilled cheese dunkers for lunch! And if you want to double up and freeze, that just makes life that much easier during busy weeks that you don’t have time to be in the kitchen. I like using these SOUPER freezer cubes for soups that I want to portion out for little ones.

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Creamy Roasted Rutabaga Soup :: Gluten & Dairy Free

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

2 small/medium onions coarsely sliced into strips
3 cloves of garlic peeled and left whole
1 rutabaga peeled and cut into 1-inch sticks
½ large head of cauliflower coarsely chopped
4 tbsp olive oil or melted butter I like to use a combination of both olive oil and butter for the flavor
1 ½ tsp sea salt
1– 1 ½ quarts bone broth depending on how thick you want the soup
¼ cup coconut milk if you tolerate dairy, cream or milk works too
Sea salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees
Toss the onions, garlic, rutabaga, and cauliflower on a large sheet pan with the olive oil and sea salt. Roast at 425 degrees for 45 minutes, until the veggies are soft.
Blend the roasted veggies in a high speed blender with the bone broth and coconut milk until smooth. If you do not have a high speed blender, you can pour the veggies and broth into a large soup pot and blend with and immersion blender.
Season the soup with sea salt and pepper to taste. I like cracked black pepper to garnish, or a drizzle of olive oil.

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Dinner Ideas Healthy Kids and Teens Lunch Ideas Nourishing Staples Real Food 101 Real Food Tips school lunches Soup

Creamy Sausage, Potato, & Spinach Soup :: A Copycat Olive Garden® Zuppa Toscana Done Gluten & Dairy Free!

January 16, 2023

This creamy sausage, potato, & spinach soup is a Copycat Olive Garden® Zuppa Toscana with all of the creamy flavor, and none of the gluten and dairy!

Creamy Sausage, Potato, & Spinach Soup :: A Copycat Olive Garden® Zuppa Toscana Done Gluten & Dairy Free!

Cold weather comfort food, and a teen favorite!

Earlier this fall, my 13 year old had a potluck to cook for at school. We scanned the sign up, and noticed it was fairly “Italian” themed with different pastas and salad. When I saw the section that asked for someone to bring soup, I thought I’d show my middle schooler the delicious comfort of an old Olive Garden restaurant favorite, with a healthy real food spin of course!

A new teen hit with an old restaurant favorite

She helped me make that “Zuppa Toscana,” and I’m telling, you those middle schoolers licked every last drop clean! Creamy sausage and potatoes…what teenager wouldn’t love that?! We have made it a number of time since, and the girls have claimed this as one of their favorite winter soups now, so I just had to share!

The Method :: Brown the Sausage

You’ll start your Zuppa Toscana by browning some sausage in a soup pot. I like to use a little of the bacon grease leftover from the weekend to cook in to add even more flavor to the soup, but a little butter or olive oil work great too. And speaking of options, you have choices for the sausage too! If you have a local farmer that you like to support, you can get either their ground sausage, or get plain ground pork and season it yourself! I have an MSG free and sugar free Sausage Season Blend on the blog! There are even some store bought sausages that aren’t so bad in the ingredient department if you look around. At our home, we tend to use our grassfed ground beef from the cow we get for the freezer each year, and season it with my own Sausage Season Blend. If you have ground venison, turkey, or chicken, that does work too!

The Method :: Cook the veggies

After you brown the sausage, you’ll scoop the meat out with a slotted spoon, leaving behind all of the cooking fat. Use this flavorful cooking fat to sauté your veggies in. This step gives a yummy caramelized flavor to the veggies that will flavor the broth – don’t skip this step!

The Method :: The Potatoes & Creamy Broth

Once your veggies have softened, you’ll stir in some garlic and flour of your choice to coat the veggies. I use a GF flour blend. I would not try using almond or coconut flours as these will not yield the same texture results for the broth. The flour gives the broth a rich, velvety texture that will mix with the coconut milk or cream at the end to create a super creamy, decadent broth. After you stir the flour in, you can pour in the broth and toss the potatoes in. You’ll simmer this until the potatoes are soft, stirring along the way.

The Method :: Finishing the Soup

Once your potatoes have softened, you can stir in the spinach to wilt and also the coconut milk to add creaminess. You have some options here as well. I like to use baby spinach since I always have a large box of it on hand, and it wilts super quick. Baby kale works well too. If you want to use large kale, you’ll want to add it in while the potatoes are cooking for the last few minutes so the tougher kale has a chance to soften. If you don’t need to be dairy free, you can swap the coconut milk for cream or milk. If you are using raw cream or milk, be sure to add it after the heat is turned off so you don’t ruin the beautiful health benefits of the raw dairy!

Leftovers!

The leftovers of this soup are…incredible! The flavors marry over time and just get better the next day. So plan this one into your dinner, and you can have it for lunch the next day, or pack it in the kids’ thermoses for school the next day! My teen and tween in particular ask for this in their lunchboxes a lot lately. I’m not a fan of freezing soups that have potatoes – they just don’t have the same texture when they thaw out, and I wouldn’t waste it. Make enough for the week and leftovers and enjoy. It’s simple enough to make on a monthly or bi-weekly basis if the family loves it that much!

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Creamy Sausage, Potato, & Spinach Soup :: A Copycat Olive Garden® Zuppa Toscana Done Gluten & Dairy Free!

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

2 tbsp bacon grease butter, or olive oil to cook in
1 lb ground sausage of choice See Notes for options
1 large onion diced
2 large carrots peeled and diced
1 celery stalk diced
4-5 cloves of garlic minced
¼ cup GF flour blend
1 ½ quarts bone broth
4 large yellow potatoes cubed in ½ inch pieces (ends up being about 4 cups of cubed potatoes)
4 cups baby spinach or baby kale chopped small
1 cup coconut milk or cream
Sea salt & pepper to taste

Instructions

Melt the bacon grease in a soup pot over medium high heat, and brown the sausage. Using a slotted spoon, remove the sausage from the pot once it is browned, leaving the cooking fat behind in the soup pot. There needs to be a good tablespoon of fat in the pot leftover from cooking the sausage – if there isn’t, add a little more bacon grease, butter, or olive oil so you can cook the veggies.
Over medium heat, saute the onion, carrot, and celery in the leftover sausage cooking fat with a pinch of salt, until the veggies are soft and sweet, around 7 minutes or so.
Add the garlic and flour and cook for 1 minute.
Add the bone broth and potatoes, stir to combine, and put the lid on your pot. Bring the soup to a simmer, and cook until the potatoes are very soft – about 10 minutes. Stir the soup every few minutes to be sure the potatoes don’t stick to the bottom.
Once the potatoes are soft, stir in the cooked sausage and the chopped spinach to wilt in. If you are using kale, you’ll need to cook it down a few minutes to soften.
Turn the heat off, add the coconut milk, and then salt and pepper the soup to your taste.

Notes

You can use farm-bought, store-bought, or homemade ground sausage. I typically use my own DIY sausage seasoning blend mixed into ground beef actually, since we get a grassfed cow every year and our freezer is stocked with grassfed ground beef. The blend also works in ground pork if you have access to good ground pork. If you are a deer hunter, ground venison would work nicely!

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Roasted Sweet Bell Pepper Soup :: Gluten Free & Dairy Free!

November 15, 2021

Give those sweet bell peppers a roast with creamy kid friendly sweet potatoes and carrots for a super smooth, velvety blended soup that the kids will ask for every time!

Roasted Sweet Bell Pepper Soup :: Gluten Free & Dairy Free!

First snowfall of the season, and a new kid favorite soup to warm up with!

The first snow of the season is quite possibly my kids’ most favorite day of the year. My little northern crew lives for fresh snow, and this weekend we got our first dusting, despite the fall trees not quite agreeing with the timing! We were visiting our new home, and the girls just had to make a snowman for the construction crew to enjoy this week. And with the plummeting temperatures around here, I hopped in the kitchen to play around with a new soup to the blog for you!

Weekly soup routine

During the cooler months of the year, I like to get a vegetable soup of some sort made every Sunday. Easy favorites like creamy broccoli soup (this one is in my cookbook, The Little Lunchbox Cookbook – it’s just like Panera!), this blended winter veggie soup done in the IP, and Copycat Campbell’s Veggie Soup are among some of our staples. Not only does this help me with an easy lunch for Sunday afternoons that I don’t have to think about, it also gives me soup to pull from for the week to fill up lunchbox thermoses…and fill up my soup mug during the week to get more healing bone broth in.

The Veggie Line-Up!

Sweet bell peppers may be the “star” of the show in this soup, but the real “secret weapon” lies in the sweet, creamy vegetables saddling up next to those peppers! Sweet potatoes and carrots are on most kids’ favorite veggie lists, and when you roast them, they get even sweeter. This veggie line-up also happens to be loaded with vitamins and minerals that the whole family needs to stay healthy and focused all winter long.

The Method :: Roasting the Veggies

To get the most kid friendly soup flavor for this soup, simply toss the veggies on a sheet tray with some olive oil and little bit of smoky paprika, salt, and pepper, and roast away. You’ll have the soup more than halfway done at this point, and completely hands free while it all roasts!

The Method :: Blending the Soup

Once the vegetables are done roasting, I dare you to snitch a little bite! You’ll have to hold yourself back from eating the whole sheet tray at this point, but I promise it will be worth the wait to quickly blend the soup up! Scoop the roasted vegetables into your blender, pour in some bone broth, and buzz away. I like to use the soup setting on my high powered blender for optimal smooth texture. Use whatever you have though! I didn’t always have one of these, and have made this soup using a regular blender, and an immersion blender works too.

The Method :: Finishing the Soup

After you blend the soup, pour it into a soup pan and stir in the coconut milk. You’ll want to warm the soup through from here, and season with salt and pepper to your taste once it has simmer a bit. If you like your soup to have a more “brothy” texture, add another cup of bone broth as well. You can ladle your roasted sweet bell pepper soup and finish with a swirl of coconut yogurt or olive oil too!

Freezer friendly?

Absolutely! That is the beauty of soups like this. That whole “cook once, eat twice” deal works well for blended soups, and this one is not any differently. Let your soup cool completely, and store in these freezer safe BPA free quart containers, or in these incredible BPA free silicone soup dividers – you can freeze in 1/2 cup portions, 1 cup portions, or 2 cup portions!

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Roasted Sweet Bell Pepper Soup :: Gluten Free & Dairy Free!

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive oil
4 large red, orange, or yellow bell peppers quartered and seeds scooped out (you can use a combo of those colors)
1 small/medium sweet potato cut into 1-inch wedges
2 medium carrots peeled, cut into ½ inch strips
2 small onions halved and then sliced into strips
3 cloves of garlic peeled (leave whole)
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp sea salt
½ tsp dried thyme
¼ tsp pepper
2-3 cups bone broth
1 cup coconut milk

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees. You’ll want to use a large, unlined baking sheet for the roasting.
On a large sheet pan, toss the bell peppers, sweet potato, carrots, onions, and garlic with the olive oil, smoked paprika, sea salt, thyme, and pepper. Roast at 425 degrees for 20 minutes.
Scoop the roasted veggies into a blender (high powdered blender, if possible, for optimal smooth texture), add 2 cups of bone broth, and blend until smooth. I use the “Soup” blending setting on my Blendtec pictured in this post.
Pour the blended soup into a soup pot, add the coconut milk, and bring to a simmer for 5 minutes. Taste for salt and pepper to your preference. You can add more bone broth if you want a thinner soup.
Garnish with swirls of coconut yogurt and/or olive oil if you wish.

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Dinner Ideas Healthy Kids and Teens Lunch Ideas Nourishing Staples Real Food 101 Real Food Tips school lunches Soup

Roasted Pumpkin Chicken Noodle Soup

October 12, 2021

Give your chicken noodle soup a flavor upgrade using roasted pumpkin to create a creamy and sweet kid friendly broth!

Autumn changes and family transitions!

There are just “barely there” hints of the leaves changing colors around these parts in the last few weeks, and as we watch the autumn transition in Michigan, our family is moving into new transitions as well! We aren’t leaving our sweet little beachy town that we love so dearly, but we are moving into a new home, and while the build finishes in the next couple of months we will be making all of the transitions that come along with moving a family of five, while trying to keep a sense of normalcy for the kids.

Comfort food

It is absolutely a thing, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with easing the stress of temporary life happenings with a bowl of something familiar and comforting. One of my kiddos was having a particularly hard time with the thought of leaving her bedroom for someone else, and after we talked it through, and worked through all the life skills one little 10 year old can muster, we talked about what we could possibly move on with that evening and have for dinner. Her choice was chicken noodle soup, and that just made my real food momma heart burst. I want my kids to think of the food from home when they think of comfort, and this just hits that mark for me!

Classic chicken noodle with a comforting, creamy fall twist!

I just happened to notice the little pie pumpkin still sitting on my counter that needed to be used up, and decided to give it a quick roast to stir into the broth of my chicken noodle soup. Sure, a can of pumpkin would do the trick, but filling the house with that roasted pumpkin flavor after a day of hard emotions was exactly what my family needed. There is also nothing like the depth, sweetness, and creamy texture that you get from putting a roasted pumpkin puree into a soup broth. It is one of my tricks to incredible soup broth in 3 soups here on the blog – the Beef & Kale Soup, Smokey Sweet Pumpkin Corn Chowder, and also the Autumn Harvest Chicken Stew, and I just knew it would take this chicken noodle soup to the next level!

The Method :: Roasting the pumpkin

There is really nothing easier. And pumpkins are easier to cut than a thick butternut squash – promise! Just cut the pumpkin in half, and butter the flesh. Sprinkle the pumpkin flesh with salt and pepper and also a bit of cinnamon. YES, cinnamon in a chicken noodle soup! There is just the slightest hint of warm sweetness that will knock your socks off when it simmers with the sage once it’s in the broth. It’s truly everything about fall that we love!

The Method :: The pumpkin puree

While your pumpkin roasts, you’ll make the base of the soup. It is a very classic chicken noodle soup base with a slight twist because the sage brings the comfort level up about 10 notches! After you pour the pasta into the broth to cook, you’ll scoop your pumpkin flesh into a blender and to puree until smooth. Give the kids a taste if they have never tasted roasted pumpkin before – be warned you may not end up with much left for the soup though! It is one of my girls very favorite side dishes all fall and winter long!

Finishing the soup off

Once you’ve blended your cinnamon roasted pumpkin, you’ll add the puree to the soup broth while the pasta finishes cooking. The squash will melt right in, giving a sweet creaminess to the broth. But we’re not done there! Once the pasta is cooked, and the heat is off, a generous splash of creamy coconut milk adds to the decadency of this soup, and you can also wilt in some finely chopped spinach. The spinach leaves zero flavor, but adds pretty color and a pop of nutrients too!

A few tips for prepping ahead for faster soup making

From start to finish, this soup may not be the most weeknight friendly in prep considering the roasting time for the pumpkin, BUT you CAN do a couple of things to prep ahead before the week so that you CAN make this soup on a weeknight. Firstly, the pumpkin can be roasted and pureed days in advance. Pop it into the oven on the weekend when you are at home, and stash it away in the fridge for later in the week. The chicken can also be a prep ahead item. If you don’t have leftover chicken, you can brown up chicken breast cubes right in the soup pot before you make the soup, or make it days ahead of time. There are multiple ways to cook a whole chicken every week in order to have leftover chicken for weekly meals! If you aren’t in to a Sunday dinner roasted chicken, you can cook a whole chicken in your slow cooker, or cook your whole chicken in your Instant Pot!

If you don’t have leftover chicken, you can brown up chicken breast cubes right in the soup pot before you make the soup. Remove the browned chicken and start the soup from there. There are multiple ways to cook a whole chicken every week in order to have leftover chicken for weekly meals! If you aren't in to a Sunday dinner roasted chicken, you can cook a whole chicken in your slow cooker, or cook your whole chicken in your Instant Pot!

A note about our favorite fall squashes!

Dear momma, squashes are not just “baby food!” If you have veggie hesitant kids, greens are not the easiest place to start in my humble opinion! Squash not only tastes amazing, they are absolutely loaded with minerals. These kids need real, and substantial fuel. Squash will replenish electrolytes, fill them up with slow burning carbohydrate fiber, and open their palates to the idea of veggies tasting good. Give the kids a spoonful of that roasted squash before you add it to the soup – I really think you are going to see how a buttery cinnamon roasted pumpkin can quickly become a veggie favorite for your crew.

Print Recipe

Roasted Pumpkin Chicken Noodle Soup

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

2 tbsp butter divided (you can use ghee, coconut oil, olive oil, or avocado oil if you are dairy free)
1 small/medium pie pumpkin halved and seeds scooped out
½ tsp sea salt
¼ tsp pepper
¼ tsp cinnamon
1 medium onion diced
1 large carrot diced
1 large celery stalk diced
2 cloves of garlic minced
½ tsp dried thyme
½ tsp ground sage
2 cups cubed cooked chicken I use leftovers from our weekly roasted chicken
2 quarts bone broth
2 cups dry pasta of choice I use the GF Jovial Rice Spirals
½ cup full fat coconut milk
1 big handful of baby spinach finely chopped
Sea salt/pepper to taste

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees.
Place your halved pumpkin flesh side up in a baking dish. Rub 1 tablespoon of butter over the flesh and sprinkle with ½ teaspoon sea salt, ¼ teaspoon pepper, and some cinnamon. Roast the pumpkin at 425 degrees for 50 minutes, until the flesh is fork tender and fragrant. While the pumpkin roasts, you can prepare the rest of the soup.
Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a large soup pot over medium high heat, and add the onion, carrot, and celery with a pinch of sea salt. Cook the veggies over medium high heat, stirring occasionally until the veggies are soft and fragrant, about 5-7 minutes.
Add the garlic, thyme, and sage to the soup pot, stir to combine, and cook for a minute or two.
Add the cubed chicken and bone broth, and bring to a boil. Add the pasta, and reduce to a simmer to cook the pasta until al dente. While the pasta starts cooking, you can prepare the pumpkin to add to the broth.
Scoop the pumpkin flesh out of the shell and into your food processor or blender. Blend the pumpkin until smooth. Add the pumpkin puree to the soup pot where the pasta is cooking and stir to combine.
When the pasta is cooked to al dente, turn the heat off, add the coconut milk and chopped spinach, stir to combine, and season with salt and pepper to your taste.

Notes

If you don’t have leftover chicken, you can brown up chicken breast cubes right in the soup pot before you make the soup. Remove the browned chicken and start the soup from there.
There are multiple ways to cook a whole chicken every week in order to have leftover chicken for weekly meals! If you aren’t in to a Sunday dinner roasted chicken, you can cook a whole chicken in your slow cooker, or cook your whole chicken in your Instant Pot!
You can use regular milk or cream in place of the coconut milk if you are not dairy free.
You can use canned pumpkin if you wish – about 1 cup of puree. The roasted flavor from cooking a pumpkin is super worth it in the flavor though just fyi!
Save your pumpkin seeds to roast! I like to soak them in sea salt and water, toss with avocado oil, sea salt, and cinnamon on a sheet tray, and then cook at 325 degrees for about 25 minutes.

More real food recipes you might like!

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Creamy Cabbage Soup

March 15, 2021

Creamy and velvety cabbage soup, packed with nutrients and full of flavor!

It’s been over 15 years.

About 20 years ago I got the diagnosis that would change everything for me. Hashimoto’s – an autoimmune thyroid disorder. I’ll spare you the details of the 3-4 years after that diagnosis of trying to actually figure out what that meant, and how to feel even an ounce of better. After a few years of trying everything mainstream medical and not feeling any different, I saw more of a natural, functional medicine practitioner. Answers and more of a “root issue” approach helped me quite literally peel back layers and layers of healing that my body needed. I learned how to listen to my body. I learned what worked for me, what the red flags and warning systems looked like, sounded like, and felt like….and I have felt what “good” really and truly feels like.

Back to the basics

And because certain things like stress (hello 2020), infections, inflammatory foods, and toxins can trigger an autoimmune “flare,” I’ve learned how to nail down those triggers so they don’t spiral out of control. I’m feeling one of those “flares” in the season I’m in right now, and after about 6 months of ignoring the red flag symptoms (because we have all been in survival mode in 2020, amiright?!), it’s time to get back to what I know I need to be doing for my body. And for me, that always means getting back to less inflammatory foods even if they are considered “healthy” for most, and hello to more cooked veggie minerals at every meal. It has, and probably always will be a game changer for me. It is one of the biggest reasons there are so many veggie soup recipes on the blog, and in my cookbooks, and why you’ll always hear me talking about “breakfast soups.”

Breakfast Soup

And lunch an dinner soup. Cooked veggies just digest easier, and it is so much easier to get a variety and abundance in when you roast or “soup” your veggies. Souping your veg doesn’t have to be boring either. There are so many ways to change things up, and give your body the mineral variety it needs! If you are new to veggies at breakfast, soup might sound so strange, but hear me out. A little mug of steamy soup, a muffin, and some sausage or egg? It is perfectly dreamy to be honest. Sure, a veggie hash or a smoothie with greens works for breakfast too, but there is something about souping breakfast that has been the ticket to feeling amazing for me for years.

Cabbage…nutrient packed and anti-inflammatory

And did I mention a big time budget saver? Because let’s face it – that part matters too! Cabbage is about as cheap as it gets, but it is also loaded with micronutrients and minerals. Cruciferous veggies like cabbage can also be anti-inflammatory. For some, cruciferous veggies can be a problem digestively, especially in the raw state, but cooking can help with digestion. It also helps to eat these veggies with a healthy fat, so cooking the veg in a nutritious fat that works for you such as butter or olive oil is perfect. If you are someone that tolerates cabbage well, you are going to love this soup!

But how does it taste, and will my kids eat it too?!

The last thing I want you to be doing is making a bunch of meals that the rest of the family won’t eat, dear momma. Even though I have seasons of needing to eat a little differently than a growing, metabolism burning kid, it doesn’t mean that they can’t also be eating many of the same foods! The girls love just about every soup blend that has come out of my kitchen for their lunchbox thermoses. When they were babies I served them soups for breakfast often right along with myself. It is perfect for those seasons of sleepy babyhood for everyone to eat the same. These days it looks a little more like the kids having a muffin with eggs and a packed out smoothie, and mom having the same muffin, but with some meat, and a mug of soup. This works for our metabolisms where they are right now in the season we are in at the moment. The cabbage for this soup cooks down and and gets sweet with sautéing and really is a blank slate for whatever flavors you want to add in. I use some nutritional yeast to give it a cheesy flavor without the dairy, as well as some of my sausage seasoning blend to give the soup the warmth of cooking with sausage.

Simple, easy soup making method

This is a one pot deal, and I think that is something just about everyone can handle these days! Just use the slow sauté approach to bring out the sweetness and flavor from the veggies, toss with some potato starch and then simmer them with your broth. The potato starch gives the soup a grain-free velvety, creamy texture that is to live for! You’ll use your immersion blender to puree the soup to a perfect creaminess once it is finished, but if you don’t have an immersion blender you can use a regular blender too.

Other creamy soup purees that work well for any meal of the day!

My rhythm has most often been to make a soup for the week on the weekends or on Monday’s. If you don’t like to eat the same soup for days in a row, make a couple different kinds and start building your freezer stash. If you store a quart of soup into the freezer each week, you’ll soon have a lush soup stash to pull from so that, perhaps, on an extra busy week you don’t have to cook a soup. Or so that you can pull some variety throughout the week.

Cauliflower & Kale Soup
Creamy Broccoli Soup
Classic Vegetable Soup
Creamy Vegetable Soup
Spring Onion Soup
Asparagus Soup
Winter Vegetable Soup
Butternut Squash Soup
There is also a whole chapter of different soup purees in my cookbook, Nourished Beginnings, including 2 of our household favorites, Nourishing Greens Soup, and Spring Vegetable Soup!

Print Recipe

Creamy Cabbage Soup

Author: Renee Kohley – Raising Generation Nourished

Ingredients

2-3 tbsp butter to cook in bacon fat, olive oil, or avocado oil work well here too
2 small onions halved and sliced into strips
1 carrot coarsely chopped
1 stalk of celery coarsely chopped
1 small/medium head of cabbage sliced into strips
3 tbsp potato starch
1 tbsp nutritional yeast optional but lends a cheesy flavor without the dairy!
1 tsp of my sausage season blend optional, but gives the flavor of having meat/sausage in the soup
1 quart bone broth
1/2 – 1 cup full fat coconut milk or regular milk if you tolerate dairy
Sea salt/pepper to taste

Instructions

Melt the butter in a large soup pot over medium high heat, and saute the onion, carrot, and celery for a few minutes while you chop the cabbage. There is so much cabbage, so give the first few veggies a few minutes to get started first.
Add the sliced cabbage and saute over medium high heat until the cabbage reduces down about half, and gets really soft and sweet. This takes a good 10 minutes to achieve and the flavor is amazing. Stir throughout the cooking process.
Put the potato starch, nutritional yeast, and sausage seasoning blend into the pot, stirring to coat the veggies in the starch and seasonings.
Pour the broth in, stir, and bring the soup to a low simmer for 10 minutes. Turn the stove off, pour in the coconut milk, and blend the soup with your immersion blender or in a regular blender until smooth. Salt and pepper the soup to your taste once it is blended.

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