Spinach Mushroom Walnut Soup
The ultimate comfort food, apt for the evening you want something light yet tasty. Works wonders as an appetizer too, thanks to its creamy, smooth texture! Have trouble including more greens in your diet? Try this soup recipe, and trust me – you’ll want to repeat this often.
I’ve admitted this several times on this blog – I love soups. They’re often dismissed as trivial and simple, but there’s a lot of effort and understanding required on one’s part to get the right balance in terms of taste and texture. If made using the right ingredients, soups can be delicious as well as healthy – that’s the dream package, isn’t it! The recipes are often simple and easy to follow, which adds to their appeal. Try my Vegetable Lentil Stew in Coconut Milk or Tomato Soup With Basil Oil if you love soups and stews like I do.
Personally, I often resort to soups on days preceded by a lot of indulgence/ when I have a weak appetite/ when I’m sick and want a simple, quick meal-fix. Why I don’t choose readymade soup-mixes – these sachets are loaded with artificial flavorings, harmful ingredients like MSG, corn syrup, fillers, preservatives and tons of sodium (which doesn’t really help anyone but the manufacturers through extended shelf life).
This soup is an amalgamation of some of my favorite ingredients in the kitchen – spinach (You read that right – I LOVE leafy vegetables 😀 ), mushrooms and walnuts as the surprise element. Not to forget the ever-so-divine garlic. Loads of it.
From a nutritional point of view, the same rules apply as I keep preaching in all my posts – Avoid sieving/ straining the soup to avoid loss of precious fiber content – just blend the ingredients well and you won’t see the need to sieve. Also, spinach is best added in the end to avoid loss of its vitamin A content, which is heat sensitive.
Want to increase the protein content? Add some ricotta/ fried cottage cheese cubes/ crack in an egg towards the end.
Looking for other recipes featuring spinach? Do try my Spinach Banana Pineapple Smoothie and Spinach Whole-Wheat Pasta in Avocado Mushroom Sauce recipes!
RECIPE: SPINACH MUSHROOM WALNUT SOUP
Serves 4
Preparation Time: 20 minutes
INGREDIENTS
- 2 cups spinach, washed
- 1 cup button mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
- 7-8 walnuts, chopped
- 1 onion, finely sliced
- 6-7 garlic pods, minced
- ½ tablespoon ginger, grated
- 2 cloves
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 cardamom
- 1 small stick of cinnamon
- 1 tsp freshly ground pepper
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp butter (optional)
- Sugar, small pinch
- Salt, to taste
INSTRUCTIONS
Heat 3 cups of water in a vessel and add a pinch of sugar to the same (sugar helps retain the green color of spinach). Now turn of the heat and blanch spinach leaves in it for 5-10 minutes. Drain the water and set spinach aside in a colander.
Heat ½ tbsp oil in a shallow pan. Stir fry the mushrooms until they sweat additional water content. Add chopped walnuts, fry for a minute and set aside.
In another saucepan/ crockpot/ pressure cooker fry cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, bay leaves, garlic, onions, grated ginger until the raw smell disappears. Turn the flame off and allow to cool.
Blend the onion mixture, blanched spinach, half of fried mushrooms until uniform texture is achieved. You may add some water to adjust the texture to a soup-like consistency.
Add butter/ remaining oil to the saucepan. Transfer the blended soup into it and allow the soup to simmer. You may add water at this stage as well.
Add the remaining half of mushrooms and walnuts over the soup in serving bowls.
Devour while piping hot!
I’d love to hear how this recipe turned out for you, if you tried it. Do post a pic on Instagram and tag #fitfoodiediary in the picture!
NUTRITION INFORMATION (without addition of butter/ cheese/ eggs) (per serving)*
| Energy | 92 calories |
| Protein | 3.3 g |
| Fat | 7.2 g |
| Carbohydrates | 3.4 g |
| Of which, Fiber | 2 g |
*Recipe is for 4 servings; all values in grams.
