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Tomato Chickpea Soup
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5 from 2 votes

Tomato Chickpea Soup

A vegan soup loosely inspired by the North African soup, harira, that feeds your body and soul.
Prep Time10 minutes
Cook Time20 minutes
Total Time30 minutes
Course: Soup
Cuisine: Gluten-Free, Mediterranean, Vegan, Vegetarian
Servings: 12 persons
Author: Belgian Foodie

Ingredients

  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • 450 g onion
  • 3 celery stalks
  • 2 carrots
  • 1 red bell pepper
  • 2 potato small
  • 1 garlic large
  • 2 tsp turmeric ground
  • 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper ground (see notes)
  • 2 tsp coriander seeds ground
  • 1 tsp cinnamon ground
  • 800 g tomato whole canned or equivalent fresh
  • 2500 ml vegetable broth (see notes)
  • 450 g chickpeas (garbanzo beans)
  • 1 zucchini large
  • salt and pepper
  • 4 tbsp lime juice (2 limes)
  • coriander - cilantro (cilantro) chopped (see notes)
  • 3 tbsp hot sauce (optional) (see notes)

Instructions

  • Chop the onions, celery, carrots, potatoes and red peppers into small pieces.
  • Pour the olive oil in a large casserole over a medium heat. When the oil's hot, add the onions and celery. Continue to cook the onions and celery for a few minutes until the onions become translucent.
  • Add the chopped carrots, potatoes and red bell pepper as well as the spices and continue to cook about 5 minutes longer stirring regularly. In the last minute add the minced garlic clove.
  • Add the tomatoes, zucchini and vegetable broth. Continue to cook until the vegetables are almost tender.
  • Mix in the chickpeas, (hot sauce), salt and pepper and cook a few minutes. Add the lime juice and adjust flavors. Turn off the heat.
  • Add chopped fresh coriander (cilantro) on top before serving.

Notes

Depending on how spicy you like your soup, you can:
  • add more cayenne or replace it with some chili flakes or chopped chili pepper.  Be careful however not to substitute 1:1 as chili flakes and chili peppers give more heat than ground cayenne pepper.  Chili pepper should be added early enough so it gives full flavor to the soup.
  • adjust the amount of salsa that you use, if you do.  There are so many kinds of hot sauce ranging from mild to very hot.  For my soup, I used some leftover red enchilada sauce so the quantity mentioned above is for this kind of mild spicy sauce.  The red enchilada sauce rounded out the flavors really well.  If you want to be more traditional, try finding some harissa (a North African red chili pepper paste).  You will need to reduce the quantity used or else the hot sauce will overpower the flavor.  You want to enhance, not overpowre, the flavor.
If you replace the vegetable broth with vegetable bouillon, add the bouillon cubes at the same time as the spices before adding the same amount of water.
In this recipe, I used lime juice and coriander (which was really tasty!).  You could also opt for lemon juice instead of the lime.  If you do use lemon, you might add some chopped parsley and mint on top of the soup when serving.

Nutrition

Nutrition Facts
Tomato Chickpea Soup
Amount Per Serving
Calories 134 Calories from Fat 45
% Daily Value*
Fat 5g8%
Saturated Fat 1g6%
Polyunsaturated Fat 1g
Monounsaturated Fat 3g
Sodium 682mg30%
Potassium 514mg15%
Carbohydrates 21g7%
Fiber 5g21%
Sugar 7g8%
Protein 4g8%
Vitamin A 0IU0%
Vitamin C 0mg0%
Calcium 0mg0%
Iron 0mg0%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.