Gingered Carrot and Spiced Foxnuts (Makhana)soup- vegan, gluten free.
The weather is slowly warming up, but the evenings are still perfect for soups. The convenience of being one pot dishes that can hide the presence of lots of veggies, grains, beans makes me a big soup fan especially at dinner time often. I love the timeless combination of ginger and carrots especially in a soup and normally I do not prefer to add anything that would overpower that balance between carrot and ginger until this recipe happened.
Makhana/ Fox nuts are seeds of water lily plant that are collected in a laborious process from the bottom of ponds and then carefully cleaned, popped, polished before commercially packed. Makhana is widely grown in Indian states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Jammu Kashmir. Nutrition wise, foxnuts are rich sources of fiber, calcium, potassium. 100g foxnuts contain about 14 g fiber, 9 g protein and almost no fat. They are widely used for weight loss.
This soup combines the crunchy dry roasted foxnuts to add more body, fiber content to the soup and the spiced foxnuts on the top are the most addictive crunchy part of this soup. Forget croutons for good, and just switch to spiced fox nuts to add to any soups, because they rock in terms of texture, crunch and nutrition.
If you have foxnuts in your pantry, all you need is 20 min from start to finish to get the soup into a serving bowl. Foxnuts are usually sold in Indian stores widely , under the name Makhana. Amazon customers can find the product online https://www.amazon.com/Rani-Phool-Makhana-Popped-Uncooked/dp/B012T35AE6/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=fox+nuts&qid=1616733379&sr=8-2.
Gingered Carrot and Spiced Fox nuts soup
Equipment
- Blender
Ingredients
- 2 cups shredded or chopped carrots
- 1 stalk celery chopped
- 1/4 cup chopped red onion
- 1 tbsp ginger grated
- 1/2 cup chopped bell peppers of your choice
- 1 small tomato sliced optional, adds more color and tartness
- 2 cups dry roasted fox nuts
- 12-15 mint leaves
- 1 small green chili sliced can use one jalapeno
- 20 oz vegetable broth
- salt to taste
- 1/2 Tbsp black pepper
Spiced Fox nuts to garnish- strongly recommended
- 1 cup fox nuts
- 1 tsp red chili powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cumin powder
- 1 tsp corainder powder
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp dry parsley
- 1/2 tsp dry oregano optional
- 1 tsp corn starch
- 2 Tbsp water
- 1 spray avocado oil optional
Instructions
- Take a heavy bottom pan, and dry roast the fox nuts that you will be using in the soup. You do not need oil for this. Set them aside.
- In a soup pot, once hot on medium heat, add 2 tbsp water. Then add ginger, green chilies, onions. Let then saute for 2 min. Then add the carrots, peppers, celery.
- Saute them till the raw carrots appear slightly cooked. It will take about 5-6 min. Add mint leaves at this stage.
- Then add the fox nuts (makhana) that were dry roasted already to the soup pot. Mix well. Add about 1 cup water or vegetable broth. Give it a minute to mix.
- The take the soup pot contents to blender and blitz into a smooth paste.
- Now add the thick creamy soup base from blender back into the soup pot. Add rest of the vegetable broth and stir well.
- Let it simmer for 15 min. Adjust the salt, pepper at this stage.
Spiced fox nuts for Garnish
- Take all the spice powders mentioned above in a wide bowl. Add corn starch. Then add water to make a thick paste.Now add the fox nuts into this spice paste. Mix till all fox nuts are coated to at least 40% on surface with the spice mix.Let them rest for 10 min. Take a wide skillet. Add a spray of avocado oil . Then add the marinated fox nuts to the pan. Dry roast on low-medium heat. Once they are crispy, add the foxnuts on the top of the soup, in place of croutons and enjoy.You can even air fry and skip the oil use, but fox nuts turn brown easily so be very careful to avoid burning and use shortest time possible.
- Pro tip- Make these spiced fox nuts in double the quantity and enjoy them as a crunchy snack. Store them in air tight container for 3-4 days on the counter.