recipe: spicy tomato and beetroot soup

Just the quickest of posts tonight for this spicy tomato and beetroot soup, which has already featured on our Instagram but needs an airing on here. As the cold nights draw nearer we all need something warm slipped inside us, and frankly, this soup does the job perfectly.

I shan’t keep you with my usual 1000 words of hooey, but I will slip in a note of caution for you (and if you’re sensitive, do skip forward to the recipe pictures, I beg you) – please remember that you’ve had beetroot the day after you demolish this soup. I tell you this only as someone with a tendency towards the dramatic. Paul doesn’t like beetroot, it reminds him of kissing his mother, so I consumed four bowls of this soup in one day a couple of weeks ago.

That wouldn’t ordinarily be a problem – I’m a big lad and can wear the extra calories like one might wear a winter muff – however I clean forgot about my intake of beetroot the day after when I’d dashed home especially to see a friend off to the coast. That dealt with, I took a quick look (and bugger off, everyone does this) (your own I mean, I don’t fancy a bus trip being put on to come look at mine) and was left aghast by the fact I was clearly shedding blood at an alarming rate.

Naturally, I was beside myself, and that’s coming from someone who is only ever two brief shocks away from hysteria.

I called Paul at work to explain that I would probably be dead on the floor by the time he got back and that he wasn’t to take another lover for at least five years after my death. He calmed me down in that patient, complaisant manner of his and then downgraded my self-diagnosed terminal illness to simply overindulgence of beetroot. It was a rollercoaster few moments, I can tell you, and I’ll ask that you exercise appropriate caution with this tomato and beetroot soup.

tomato and beetroot soup

It’s hard to make tomato and beetroot soup look sexy, but honestly, this is gorgeous!

tomato and beetroot soup

We served this with a lump of beetroot bread from Morrisons. Yes, it does rather look like a diseased knuckle. But…

spicy tomato and beetroot soup

Prep

Cook

Total

Yield 4 bowls

If you're not a fan of beetroot, I still recommend giving this a go: it doesn't taste very...beetrooty! Also, if you are really fussed about spending syns you could swap out the Philadelphia for a bit of horseradish - but only a teaspoon otherwise you really will be in trouble on the thunderbox.

We used a Tefal Easy Soup for this - but you can use a pan just as easily! We love it because you chuck everything in and press a button and away it goes.

Ingredients

  • 400g chopped cooked beetroot
  • 60g of chopped white onion
  • 400ml of chilli and tomato passata
  • one garlic clove, minced
  • 450ml of beef stock
  • 50g of Philadelphia Lightest

Instructions

  • chuck everything in a pan bar the Philadelphia and cook for about twenty minutes
  • blend and serve with lovely bread

I mean it's that easy.

Notes

Recipe

  • swap Philadelphia for horseradish if you want a more 'sour' soup
  • cooked beetroot is different from pickled beetroot mind you - you'll find cooked beetroot in the fresh vegetables part of the supermarket, but vacuum packed
  • you could use the leftover beetroot juice to make beetroot pickled eggs

Books

  • OUR BRAND NEW COOKBOOK IS COMING OUT SOON! You thought the last one was good? It was, but this sequel is even better - it'll be coming out just in time for the new year! Preorder yours here! 
  • our first slimming cookbook can be ordered online now – full of 100+ slimming recipes, and bloody amazing, with over 3000 5* reviews – even if we do say so ourselves: click here to order
  • our new diet planner is out now and utterly brilliant – you can order it here – thank you to everyone so far for the positive feedbacks

Tools

Courses soup

Cuisine soup man

There you go! Enjoy! Want some more soup ideas?

J