My Go-To Beetroot Soup Recipe

One of the first things I knew I wanted to grow at my allotment was beetroot. I'm a big fan of homemade soups and beetroot soup is quite an easy one to master, even if it is a bit messy. It's also packed with a lot of goodness too including iron, vitamin C and folate (which is especially good to add to your diet if you are pregnant). It's a very simple recipe so I wanted to share it here.

Ingredients:

- six salad tomatoes

- beetroot (around 6 golf ball sized beetroots are what I am for)

- one onion

- olive oil

- stock cube (beef is the tastiest, but chicken or vegetable is fine too)

Steps:

1. Slice the tomatoes in half and place in an oven proof dish. Add a dash of olive oil and place in a pre-heated oven (approx 160 degrees Celsius) and cook for 25-30 minutes.

2. Make up 500ml stock and chop the onion and the beetroot (as small as you can be bothered)

3. There are two options for step three. You can either put your cooked tomatoes in a blender and blend them up, or you can push them through a sieve to remove the tomato seeds and the skins. Personally, I go for the blender option as why would I want to waste any of that goodness?!

5. Heat some olive oil in a pan and sweat the onions (basically cook them as you would in a frying pan but this time it's in a saucepan).

5. Add your beetroot to the onions and pour in all of the stock. This time I used vegetable stock.

5. Simmer this for around 10 minutes, you want the beetroot to be tender.

6. Add your tomato puree from either the blender or what you have put through the seive. Give it all a good ol' mix.

7. Blend the whole lot up! Our blender isn't big enough for the whole lot so I blend half, pour it into bowls and then blend the other half.

8. You can store your soup for 3-5 days in the fridge but if you won't finish it in that time, it is suitable for freezing too.

I love saving my soup for warm, tasty lunches when I am at work. They keep me toasty when the office is cold and they're also so, so full of vitamins and goodness that they are a healthy lunch that is really going to fuel my body with what it needs. Just microwave for three minutes to re-heat it, or can be enjoyed cold too.

I can't wait to try this recipe with my rainbow beets that I have planted at the plot directly and also sown in trays at home. I am so looking forward to experimenting with the different colours to make different coloured beetroot soup and also comparing their flavours. 

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