Creamy Acorn Squash and Red Pepper Soup

Creamy Acorn Squash and Red Pepper Soup

Highlights:

• Does my diet have to be 100% raw vegan in order to be healthy?
• How to incorporate both raw and cooked vegan foods into your diet
• The nutritional powerhouse of acorn squash
• Are all raw foods cold?
• How do I stay raw vegan in winter?
• How a blender can replace cooking

This Creamy Acorn Squash and Red Pepper vegan soup can be made completely or partially raw depending on your unique preferences. Please note: Product links in my posts are sometimes affiliate links through my Amazon store or Blendtec blenders, for example. If you click a product link and make a purchase, you are helping me run this website because I might get a small commission. This small commission helps pay the costs associated with providing this online raw food website resource for everyone and helps me help you. So, thank you! And please share my website with your friends and family! The more people I can reach, the better. We need this information in our struggling world now more than ever.

Let’s talk about the raw versus cooked food lifestyle for a moment.

Some people will tell you that cooked food is poison, and that’s just not true. Cooking can reduce some nutrients, especially heat-sensitive ones like vitamin C, but if your entire diet is plant-based and mostly raw, you should be getting plenty of those nutrients when your diet is taken as a whole.

I am all about providing you with flexibility so that you can adapt raw vegan recipes to fit into your real life. Fact? Most long-term raw foodists incorporate some low-fat healthy vegan meals into their diets including foods like steamed broccoli, asparagus, cauliflower, low-fat soups, veggie stews, and more. Shhhh, don’t tell them I told you!

If your diet is 85% raw vegan and 15% lightly cooked plants, you are doing just fine! It’s so important to find a balance that works for you. I would rather see people incorporate a little bit of healthy cooked vegan food into their raw food diets than fall off the bandwagon entirely and abandon raw foods, thinking the lifestyle is too difficult or otherwise unsustainable.

Cost does factor in when you’re on a budget or feeding a family!

Some self-appointed raw food “gurus” don’t like to talk about cost. Well, I’m talking about it. I’m a mom. I’m busy. I’m practical. I LIKE REALITY.

I don’t live in a fantasy land of rainbow fruit waterfalls and hippie-dippie chants about abundance and spirituality. Not everyone can afford to eat all that fresh fruit, and that is OK. There are other sources of healthy plant-based calories that you can fall back on if enough fruit isn’t always available or viable for you.

I’m here to meet you exactly where you are, and help you make vegan living something you’ll stick with for the rest of your life.

The reality is that not everyone can afford to be 100% raw vegan 365 days of the year. The good news is that’s perfectly fine! If a lightly steamed butternut squash is the worst thing in your diet, you are doing GREAT in life. Always keep a healthy perspective on your diet. Health is not just food. It includes our emotional state, too.

This is a DOGMA-FREE ZONE.

A raw vegan diet should not be about dogma and rigid rules that make people feel inferior or guilty when broken. Raw foods should always be an INCLUSIVE lifestyle that is fun and realistic for everyone in all walks of life and from all income levels. Don’t ever feel otherwise, and don’t ever beat yourself up if you eat a little cooked food now and then.

Make sure you reach out to me and subscribe to my emails for extra support. Shoot me an email and introduce yourself once you’ve signed up. You’ve got a friend and supporter in me, and I will never make you feel inferior for not being perfect, or for not being 100% raw every day of your life.

Ok, rant over! Let’s talk about this easy-to-make, deliciously hearty and nutritious hot soup.

One of the most common questions I get about a raw vegan diet is something like this:

“Raw food sounds healthy, but what if I want to eat something warm? I’m scared of eating raw during winter!”

People tend to fear that when the temperatures drop, a raw food diet will leave them with nothing but cold food options. The great news is that nothing could be further from the truth!

This recipe for raw vegan Creamy Acorn Squash and Red Pepper Soup will show you how you can easily create rich, warm comfort soups during the chillier months of the year. Raw vegan soups are a fantastic way to incorporate nutrient-dense whole plant foods into your diet with very little fuss and plenty of big, bold, delicious flavors.

This quick and simple plant-based meal is perfect for 1-2 people and you can make it either 100% raw, or you can bake or steam the acorn squash first and then blend it. I suggest you try this soup both ways and experiment with what you like best.

Super fast & easy hot meals on a raw vegan diet

You can enjoy hot soups on a raw food diet anytime you like, and preparing them couldn’t be easier. Your Blendtec blender is your magical tool for turning raw foods into hot foods with ease! All you have to do is run the blender long enough to warm up the soup. Place your hand on the side of your blender container and feel it; you’ll notice it heats up the longer you blend your ingredients.

The magic of this blending technique is that while the soup becomes hot, it remains raw, allowing you to reap the full benefits of its nutritional content. That said, if raw acorn squash is too scary for you as a beginner to the raw foods lifestyle, that is OK! You can easily make this a raw food hybrid recipe, meaning some ingredients are cooked and some are raw.

Blending cooked and raw to make raw vegan fusion cuisine!

If you want the acorn squash to be cooked prior to blending into a soup, place it on a cookie sheet or in a baking pan and bake it at 350 degrees until softened, around 30 minutes. You can test its softness by carefully inserting a fork or knife into it. Once it’s soft, remove it from the oven and allow it to cool off before carefully removing the peel and scooping out the seeds with a spoon. As an alternative to baking it, you could also slice off the skin, scoop out the seeds, cut into chunks, place the raw chunks into a steamer, then steam until soft.

It is totally up to you!

Acorn Squash is a superfood in its own right

Acorn squash is not only delicious raw or cooked, but it also packs a nutritional punch. Did you know that just one cup of acorn squash contains almost 30% of your daily vitamin C requirement? Vitamin C is an important antioxidant that helps boost the body’s immunity and can help protect against heart disease and cancer.

Acorn squash is also a low-cost ingredient that is easy to find in most supermarkets. Plus, it’s just irresistible with a creamy sweet taste that combines well with almost any flavor profile.

In this recipe, acorn squash is blended with delicate sweet red Italian peppers, jalapeno, sprouted almonds and more for a decadently smooth soup you can enjoy on its own, as a side dish, or even as an amuse-bouche (bite-sized hors d’œuvre) as pictured in these delightful serving spoons.

Have fun in the kitchen! Eat plants. Be happy. Be healthy. And know that you are fully loved and supported by me.

Enjoy the recipe!

Yours in delicious heath,