Recipe for SOUP with SPINACH | Hara Shorba | Palak soup

‘Hara’ means Green and ‘shorba’ means soup in Hindi. As this recipe for soup with spinach also includes few more greeny ingredients, it got its name as ‘Hara shorba’.

You might Have wondered does Spinach (Palak) goes well in a bowl of soup, especially if you are someone who has been hating them as an Indian side! But, I bet you, you will love this recipe, once you try it because you won’t even smell the rawness of greens.

Now, it even gets easy for you to make your fussy little eater have their greens. No wonder they will surely come back with a clean bowl.

I got inspired by this recipe through a local magazine cookbook snippet and made it to my terms of comfort nevertheless to say its one among the soups; we often make in our home. You can skip some of the spices I used here in the recipe. But, I highly recommend you to add them if you can, as they add a unique flavour, and make this spinach soup more Indian.

What makes this Healthy Spinach soup interesting?

Spinach is one of the most super nutritious food. It didn’t impress me much in my childhood rather than being a part of my most-watched favourite tv show popoyee.

But Believe me, Time recipe and ingredients can change everything, friend. The interesting part of this soup is, it’s aroma from mint and different spices, then the creaminess from potato.

Spinach soup Benefits

Spinach is low in carbohydrates making it perfect for keto diets. Because of high fibre content, it also helps in shedding kilos.

• Vitamins : Thiamine, B- carotene, vitamin K, Vitamin B
• Minerals : Iron, Magnesium, Calcium, potassium, copper

1.Spinach soup during Pregnancy

Pregnancy is an essential part of women’s lives, from building an immune system to keeping the worst hypertensions at low, vitamins, and minerals help to support the body.

Also, Iron in spinach helps to meet the body’s iron requirements. Folic acid and vitamin B helps to build baby nervous system, and calcium helps in maintaining the blood pressure levels. For more details on this, you can check here.

2.Weightloss and digestion

In diet and slimming busy world, where people frequently search for simple cooking ideas, this recipe for soup with spinach is perfect for making a fulfilling bowl rich in dietary fibre.

This creamy spinach soup can be served as a mid-day meal or as a breakfast/dinner.

3.Perfect for detox

The green colour of spinach indicates its richness in chlorophyll and has antioxidant properties. It further absorbs toxins and purifies blood, making it a perfect natural detox. It also helps as an anti-cancer agent.

How to make Cream of spinach soup vegan?

This recipe is free from any kinds of milk and still makes spinach soup creamy and rich because of the inclusion of potatoes in cooking.

Yet, the only ingredient I added to give it an extra Indian touch is Butter to saute at the beginning. To make this soup completely vegan, use vegetable oil or any nut oil in this recipe.

Recipe for soup with Spinach and Potatoes

With or without mint

Sometimes when I feel like having this bowl of comfort during peak winters, I’m unwillingly forced to nil the use of fresh mint, as we don’t get mint in winters at our place. But, it is still flavoured the best.

If that’s your case too, you are free to add dried mint at the end, for the flavour, or you can add the fresh mint if it is available at your place. But, I recommend you to add them if you have it handy to get all the goodness and divine flavours.

now, let’s get into the recipe.

Method

• First things first, Shell the green peas, wash all the ingredient and keep it aside.
• Cube potatoes, and onions roughly.
• Then, Slice the palak, and get them ready with the spices that go into the recipe.
• Heat a deep bottomed pan, add cubes of butter or any vegetable oil based on your preference. If you are adding butter for this recipe, avoid burning them.
• Saute onions and potatoes till onions turn slightly translucent for a few minutes.
• Now, add peas, green chilly, ginger pieces, vegetable stock, cumin and coriander powder, cinnamon, cook for 8 mins.
• Followed by, spinach, mint and coriander and cook for three more mins.
• Switch off the stove and let it come to room temperature. Now, blend the cooked ingredients after removing pieces of ginger, chilly and cinnamon.
• Skip this step of separating ginger and chilly if you prefer a spicy soup. But, I recommend removing them if you are planning to feed your baby or toddlers with this spinach soup.
• Heat the Blended mixture again by adding crushed shah jeera (caraway), salt and pepper till tiny bubbles are visible.
• Top it with a cream of your choice, or have it as it is without any cream.

Tips

• While buying always go for spinach that is dark green and not a bunch with wilted or bruised.
• I recommend not to wash your spinach greens before storing, as the moisture helps in decay.
• Washing the greens before chopping off the stem is preferred as it helps in restoring the nutrients than washing Spinach after chopping the stems.
• Always try to use Fresh Spinach in soups rather than refrigerated one.
• You can also use frozen peas instead of fresh peas.
• Suppose you are using dried peas. Soak them for 8 hours before using it in this recipe.
• I added fresh cream for photography purpose, but it gives a different dimension to the dish. You can replace dairy cream with coconut cream or just skip adding cream to the soup.
• If you like cinnamon flavoured soups, you can add them while blending. Alternatively, 1/2 tsp of cinnamon powder can also be added to flavour the soup.
• Cooking spinach more than 3 minutes results in a soup that is dark green.

Spinach soup – 2 ways

you can adopt two ways in blending either to add textures to your soup or a smooth and creamy one.

• Coarsely blending all the ingredients will add textures to your soup.
• Another way to achieve this is, by removing spinach from the blending ingredients and add them again while heating the mixture. In this process, spinach leaves will be whole and long.
• You could also enjoy this soup without having long spinach leaves in your soup by sauteing the spinach by chopping and adding it while heating the blended ingredients. Is that something you will enjoy?

I have both teams at my house. So, I have come up with such solutions too.

• Make a whole creamy spinach soup separately by following all the instructions.
• Separate a bowl for baby.
• For spicy heads: add those chilly, ginger into the blender, and mix them with a blended soup which is at low flame above the stovetop.
• texture with spinach: Saute some chopped spinach leaves in oil and add them as a garnish to the creamy soup before serving.

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