Chipotle Sweet Potato Soup

It’s been a little gloomy lately in Atlanta, so I thought it might be time to actually make something autumnal. And frankly, my diet lately has not gotten much healthier than those pork chops I made last week, so soup is probably a good choice. Unfortunately, I can’t take credit for this recipe – I very, very slightly modified a recipe from the Homesick Texan. This soup is fantastic, though, and extremely easy. The toughest part is cutting up all the vegetables.

After cutting up celery, carrots and onions to make a mirepoix and the sweet potatoes that will go in later, the hard part is over. To ensure that the soup wasn’t too healthy, I added some heavy cream to make it a little richer and cut down on the spice from the chipotle peppers. There were two chipotles in this recipe which turned out to be a little hot for some people, so if you’re sensitive to spicy foods you may want to cut it down to one or no peppers. Or add more cream and sour cream at the end – there’s no way you can go wrong with that.

Ingredients

1 carrot

1 rib celery

1 small white onion

2 medium sweet potatoes

2 chipotle peppers en adobo

4 cloves garlic

4 cups chicken stock

1/4 or 1/3 cup heavy whipping cream

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1 tablespoon olive oil

Sour cream

Process

Peel sweet potatoes and carrot, then finely dice all the vegetables. In a large soup pot over medium high heat, add the olive oil and vegetables. Add a teaspoon or so of salt and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10-15 minutes until all vegetables are softened. Add garlic and cook for another minute.
Add chicken stock, diced sweet potatoes, chipotles and spices. Bring soup to a boil and reduce heat to low. Allow soup to simmer for 20-30 minutes until sweet potatoes are tender.
Using an immersion blender (or a regular blender, blending the soup in batches) process the soup until it’s smooth. Add cream, salt and pepper to taste. Serve with a dollop of sour cream.