Spanish vegetable soup: easy, quick, healthy, and incredibly delicious! An easy to make Spanish sopa de verduras with various vegetables.
Spanish Soup
Simplicity at its best: this Spanish vegetable soup is everything you could wish for in a veggie soup. Different sorts of veggies that you can change according to the season, some vegetable broth and a few spices.
Yet the sopa de verduras is full of flavor, comforting, and perfectly satisfying. I love it in spring, summer, autumn, or winter. I change the veggies with the season, use whatever I happen to have in the fridge, I make it with fresh or frozen vegetables or a mixture of the two.
One of my favorite soups together with the Vegetable Meatball Soup, the Romanian Semolina Dumpling Soup or the Bone Broth Vegetable Soup with Beans.
Vegetables
Today's recipe for Spanish soups is made with:
- Leeks
- Red bell peppers
- Carrots
- White cabbage
- Zucchini
For a spring version, try adding or replacing some of the veggies with:
- Asparagus
- Artichokes
- Green beans
- Peas
- Spinach
For a autumn version, try;
- Squash or pumpkin
- Sweet potatoes
- Mushrooms
- Tomatoes
For a winter version, try:
- Kale
- Brussels sprouts
- Parsnips
- Savoy cabbage
Of course, you can combine any of these veggies at any time of the year.
What can you add?
- A can of chickpeas (add toward the end)
- A can of beans (add toward the end)
- Some cooked rice (at the end)
- Some chopped ham (cook it with the onions in the beginning)
How to make?
- Chop all the vegetables (1).
- Cook the onions and the garlic for a couple of minutes (2).
- Add the paprika and stir shortly (3).
- Add all the chopped veggies and stir well to coat with the spices (4).
- Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring a few times (5).
- Add the broth. Cook for 10-15 minutes until the veggies are cooked to your liking. Add salt, pepper, and parsley. (6).
Cooking time:
- Traditional soups tend to overcook the vegetables, it is the same with all the Romanian vegetable soups my grandma used to cook and it is the same with many other traditional soups I have cooked over the years. I don't mind that, I think the overcooking is part of the recipe, it makes the soups comforting and satisfying.
- However, many people don't like that, I don't like overcooked veggies other than in a soup either.
- So, you decide how long you cook the vegetables: 10 minutes will have them tender, but still with a bite.
- After 15-20 minutes they will be really soft. Check and stop when they are to your liking.
More Spanish recipes?
Spanish Meatballs in Tomato Sauce - Albondigas Recipe
Chicken and Chorizo Stew - Spanish Stew
Spanish Vegetable Soup (Sopa de verduras)
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 medium onion
- 3 garlic cloves
- 1 leek about 150 g/ 5.3 oz
- 1 large red bell pepper about 100 g/ 3.5 oz
- 3 smallish carrots about 100 g/ 3.5 oz
- ¼ white cabbage about 375 g/ 13 oz
- 1 teaspoon sweet paprika powder
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika powder See note
- 1,2 liter/ 40 fl.oz/ 5 cups vegetable broth
- fine sea salt and black pepper
- small bunch of parsley
Instructions
- Finely chop the onion and the garlic. Set aside. Clean and chop the leeks, pepper, carrots, and white cabbage. Set aside.
- Heat the oil in a large soup pot. Add the onion and the garlic and cook gently for about 2 minutes, stirring, until very slightly colored.
- Add the paprika powder and stir for about 30 seconds.
- Add the chopped veggies and stir well to coat with the paprika, turn the heat down and cook gently for 10 minutes, stirring from time to time.
- Add the vegetable broth, cover, and simmer for 10-15 minutes or until the vegetables are done to your liking. Adjust the taste with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with chopped parsley.
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