Creamy delicata squash soup (but vegan and low in fat and calories!)

This is a creamy squash soup that doesn't actually have any cream in it! And it's so delicious, I don't think you'll miss it!

One trick to the recipe is my vegan cream substitute . It starts with a roux made of olive oil and all-purpose flour which unflavored, unsweetened almond milk is added. It gets nice and thick and is what gives this soup a velvety mouth feel even though it doesn't have cream.

The other is the vegetable broth, described below.

Makes two 8 oz. servings. Multiply as necessary.

1 delicata squash 1 small onion, chopped 1 clove of garlic, minced 8 oz. vegetable stock 4 oz. vegan cream replacement 1 tbsp. olive oil salt pepper

Preheat the oven to 325°F.

This is a delicata squash, which is small, thin-skined, and pretty sweet.

Halve the squash lengthwise and remove the seeds.

Place the squash cut-side down in a glass baking pan. Add 1/8" of water to the pan, cover with foil, and bake for 35-40 minutes until tender. Let cool.

In a saucepan over medium heat, add the olive oil. Add the onion and cook for a couple minutes. Add the garlic and cook until the onion is softened and translucent, being careful to not burn the onion or garlic.

Scrape the squash into the saucepan.

For the stock I use More than Gourmet Veggie Stock gold. It's made of real vegetables, no fillers, and is low in sodium. Do not attempt to use vegetable bouillon cubes which pretty much just taste like salt! You could use a packaged vegetable broth (the Pacific brand is pretty good), but I like More than Gourmet because it comes as a concentrate that lasts for months in the refrigerator so you don't end up throwing out all of those partial containers of vegetable (chicken, mushroom, etc.) broths. I use a 1:20 ratio so 0.4 oz. (by weight) of concentrate for 8 oz. of hot water.

Add the stock and cream substitute. Cook for about 25 minutes, uncovered, stirring occasionally.

Purée the soup in a food processor or blender. My first attempt using the stick blender did not succeed in fully puréeing the onions so I switched to the food processor, which worked perfectly.

Season with salt and pepper and serve.

Each 8 oz. serving is a very respectable 197 calories. It's so good, however, you might want to eat a giant 16 oz. bowl of it, which is still a reasonable 393 calories.

This recipe is vegan, and therefore also vegetarian and dairy-free.

It does contain gluten and tree nuts, though it can easily be modified.

The original recipe I based this on did have butter and heavy cream in it and I'm sure it was delicious as well. It was also extremely high in fat and calories. The heavy cream version is 331 calories for 8 oz. but if you add in the calories for a salad or a sandwich, then you're talking quite a few calories for a lunch. And a lot of saturated fat.