Slow Cooker Sweet Potato Soup

Finally.  After six weeks of cooking so many dinners in the slow cooker, I finally felt ready to experiment and create a recipe intuitively.  My favorite part about this sweet potato soup is that this recipe is just a starting point.  You can certainly serve it without playing around and adding any additional flavors, but sometimes you just want to express yourself. Right?

I love a simple recipe that gives you a versatile dish you can easily tailor to your occasion, the time of year, the company, or what’s in your fridge and pantry today.  And for families with young children, this soup makes a healthy serving for little ones, and then you can spice it up in so many different ways!  If you do play around to make it your way, please come back and leave a comment aboutwhat worked for you!

Slow Cooker Sweet Potato Soup – Your Way (Makes at least 3 quarts):

3 pounds sweet potatoes with the skin on, chopped in 1-inch cubes
1 cup butternut squash, chopped in 1-inch cubes
1 small yellow onion, roughly chopped
2 cloves of garlic, smashed
1 tablespoon fresh grated ginger
1 teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder
6 cups of vegetable stock
Combine all ingredients in your slow cooker and cook on low setting for 8 hours.  Puree with immersion blender right in the slow cooker pot.  Serve as is or make it your way!

Playing Around:

• You could replace the Chinese five-spice blend with another flavor – maybe cinnamon or chili powder – some people even like taco seasoning with sweet potatoes.
• Try chicken stock instead of vegetable stock – especially if you’ve roasted a whole chicken in your crock-pot and made the wonderful overnight stock!

• Try adding carrots or apples, or both, in addition to, or in place of, the butternut squash.  Really, any root vegetable would work well here.
• Try adding some orange zest at the beginning of the cook time, and then add more zest and the juice of your zested orange to the finished soup.  A big drop of maple syrup would be so good with this variation.
• Try adding coconut milk or perhaps some more freshly grated ginger when you are ready to puree the soup.
• Try it with 2 tablespoons of melted butter and up to 1/2 cup of fresh heavy cream added before you serve.  A dollop of creme fraiche, Greek yogurt, or sour cream might be popular for this palate, too.
• Try adding a can of rinsed white beans before you puree the soup.  If you want to add the beans for additional protein, you may also want to add more broth (or water) to thin the soup.
• Try adding chunks of from tofu before you puree it.  This is actually a popular healthy “hack” for soup recipes that call for cream; because the tofu is tasteless, adding it to a blended soup will thicken the vegetable base and yield a smooth consistency while also making the soup more filling.  I’ve done this successfully with butternut squash soup and tomato soup.
• You might even enjoy crumbled bacon over the top.