It’s finally autumn, and in our household that means it’s soup season! We always look forward to the cooler weather, when we can tuck into big bowls of warm and filling soups stuffed with all kinds of vegetables and other ingredients. Sometimes our soups are just us throwing whatever we have lying around our kitchen into a broth, but we also like looking out for new and interesting vegetarian recipes. To that end, we recently tried out this recipe from the New York Times, which used a new technique to make this soup rich and more flavorful without relying on meat. Here’s how we put our own spin on this meal.
To make this, you’ll need:
- 3 15-ounce cans of chickpeas
- A lemon
- Olive oil
- Garlic
- An onion
- Oregano
- Red pepper flakes
- 4 Massel 7’s Chicken-style bouillon cubes
- A small bunch of collard greens
- Parsley
- A 7-ounce block of feta cheese
- A 12-ounce package of cherry tomatoes
First, take all of your chickpeas and drain them, then lay them on some paper towels and pat them very dry. Set a soup pot over medium-high heat and add in a tablespoon of olive oil, then half the chickpeas, plus some salt and pepper.
Cook for about 10 minutes, until the chickpeas are pretty crispy. Slice up 4 garlic cloves while you’re waiting, then add them to the pot along with another tablespoon of olive oil and cook for 2 more minutes. Scoop the chickpeas and garlic onto a plate lined with paper towels to drain. Season with a little more salt and pepper, then zest your lemon and add half of the zest to the chickpeas as well.
Now dice up your onion and another 4 garlic cloves, roughly chop your collard leaves, pluck off a large handful of oregano, and dissolve your bouillon cubes into 4 cups of boiling water. In the same pot you used earlier, warm 2 more tablespoons of olive oil over medium-high heat. Place in the onion and cook for 5 minutes, then add in your garlic, oregano, and a sprinkling of red pepper flakes. Stir these ingredients around, then place the rest of your chickpeas into the pot, plus the collards and your broth. Cover the pot, turn the heat down to medium-low, and let everything simmer for 25 minutes.
While all this is cooking, slice all your cherry tomatoes in half and crumble your feta. Once the greens are well softened, stir in the feta, the tomatoes, and the rest of your lemon zest, plus squeeze in the juice from half of the lemon.
Mix everything together well, then dish up individual bowls of soup. Top with the fried chickpeas from earlier, plus some parsley leaves and some more red pepper flakes.
Adding cheese directly to a pot of soup was something new for us – we might not have thought to throw some feta directly into the broth, but it mixes in well and doesn’t curdle, since feta is a hard cheese. The feta adds a nice amount of flavor to the soup as well, so much so that you don’t really need any extra salt. Frying up some chickpeas to go on top was also a nice addition to the soup, and these two ingredients pair well with some tomatoes, chickpeas, herbs, and well-cooked greens. We really enjoyed this new variety of vegetarian soup, and we know it’ll be a good addition to your roster of meatless cold weather meals.