In light of St. Patrick’s day, I bring you something GREEN! Use this soup to cure your hangovers this Sunday after a night of drunken festivities. This soup does not look appetizing, but I promise you that it is super tasty and PACKED with healthiness. Kale is just amazing for you in every way, I think I read somewhere that it reduces the risk of cancer. CANCER? Jeebus. Spinach is just tasty, and it’s topped off with these surprisingly tasty nutritional yeast flakes. These things have an odd, cheesy flavour to them, despite being perfectly vegan. And as you all know, I’m going on a quinoa spree right now because I discovered that quinoa is SO MUCH CHEAPER at the Organic Herb & Spice Food Shop than it is at the local grocery store. And it’s so much easier to cook than rice. =/
Quinoa is pretty easy to cook if you learn the basics by doing some reading. If you guys want me to write a post about how to get fluffy quinoa all the time, every time, just gimme a shout and I’ll do a post on quinoa (different kinds of quinoa too!).
So yes. The important thing about this soup is not to cook the spinach and kale for too long. If anything, you’re just barely cooking them so that they wilt down and then you blitz em in your food processor. When you blanch the spinach and kale right, it’ll be this beautiful, bright green. That’s when it’s at its peak deliciousness and healthiness (aside from raw). Kale takes slightly longer to cook than spinach, so put the kale in first, then the spinach.
Adapted from Cinnamon Girl (Reeni)’s Green Monster Soup
Spinach and Kale Monster Soup
Ingredients
- 2/3 cups uncooked quinoa, rinsed and drained
- 1 cup + 4 cups vegetable broth
- 2 medium sized onions, diced
- 5 gloves garlic, minced
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp onion powder
- 1 tsp curry powder (man I love this stuff)
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp chili flakes
- 1 bunch kale (about 8 cups of the leaves, stalks discarded)
- 2 handfuls of baby spinach (I'd say about 3-4 cups)
- 1 lemon, juiced
- Optional: nutritional yeast flakes for garnish
Instructions
- 1. In a pot, cook quinoa with 1 cup vegetable broth over medium low heat (I had it on 4) for about 25 minutes, covered. Don't peek! Once cooked, remove lid and fluff with fork. Set aside.
- 2. Cook onions for about 3 minutes in olive oil over medium heat. Add garlic and stir until the onions are translucent and garlic is fragrant.
- 3. Add 4 cups vegetable broth and stir occasionally until you reach a boil.
- 4. Add kale and flatten down leaves until they start to wilt (about 2 minutes)
- 5. Quickly add spinach and stir up the kale so spinach is in the water. (about 1 minute)
- 6. Remove from heat.
- 7. Add cooked quinoa and blend (with either immersion blender or in an actual blender) until smooth. Add lemon juice and stir.
- 8. Garnish with nutritional flakes and eat!
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Ana says
Googled Green Monster Soup and this came up.. Thanks.
I will make this tomorrow :)
Carolyn says
How can I keep this for later use? Altho, I love kale it will take me a long time to eat this much soup.
Lisa Le says
You can try freezing it if you’d like :) This soup is a half batch (compared to the video I made) so it’s only about 4 servings.
Gaby says
Thank you Lisa! This soup is amazing, and thanks so much for all you shared during your cooking demo at the Veg Food Fest! Can’t wait to get all the ingredients and prep myself!!!!
Good vibes, Gaby ?
Lisa Le says
Thank you for coming out to the demo!! Hope you like it :)
Lucy says
This was really good! I was skeptical at first, but I had some wilted kale to use up. I’m glad I tried it.
Teresa L says
I made this last night and it was super tasty! I’ll have to make a double batch next time.
My Fiance saw it and said “that’s scary looking” and I said “Yeah, it’s called green monster soup.”
He loved it, had two bowls one after the other.