What soup can I use instead of pumpkin soup?
By Anne18
@Anne18 (11029)
12 responses
@wilsongoddard (7291)
• United States
23 Nov 12
Butternut squash soup should work in its stead. However, I would lean toward using pureed fresh pumpkin or squash in the recipe (diluted with either water or milk as needed) in the recipe. It would give the recipe a richer flavor, and it would be a bit healthier.
5 people like this
@Hatley (163776)
• Garden Grove, California
23 Nov 12
hi Anne fresh bu tternut squash or even ripe hubbard sq uash would make delicious
soup and is very close to tasting like pumpkin and I actually like it
better.Trader Joes sells butternut squash soup and its really so good too.
1 person likes this
@owlwings (43910)
• Cambridge, England
23 Nov 12
We don't have Trader Joe's in the UK (more's the pity!). They do have some very good things there!
@owlwings (43910)
• Cambridge, England
23 Nov 12
I see that most of the responses come from the US where pumpkin soup is far easier to find than it is in the UK. What recipes are you looking at which require pumpkin soup?
Pumpkin soup is sweetish and possibly lightly flavoured with cinnamon, cloves &c. If the flavour is what is required, try carrot or parsnip and add a very small amount of cinnamon, clove and nutmeg. If it is mainly the colour, then a smooth carrot soup or a little tomato soup might be the answer.
I have seen cans of pumpkin puree in Tesco (presumably for ex-pat Americans wanting to make pumpkin pie). I think you might have to try Waitrose/Ocado for pumpkin soup, though.
Butternut squash and sweet potato are very close to pumpkin in colour and flavour (you would be hard put to tell the difference between them all when roasted in chunks).
@owlwings (43910)
• Cambridge, England
23 Nov 12
Thinking about it, Carrot and Coriander soup is probably the closest you will get to pumpkin soup in the UK. If you were to add some puréed chunks of fresh melon (from one of those snack packs) you would get that indefinable 'melony'/'fruity' flavour that pumpkin has.
@drannhh (15219)
• United States
29 Nov 12
Hard yellow squash is very much like pumpkin. I always save my halloween pumpkin to cook up for pumpkin pies, so I don't use the tins. Today I made split pea soup. The store called the peas "red lentils" but I cooked some yellow split peas in with them. Last time I used red split peas and they tasted the same to me, but then I mixed in lots of celery and onion, and a little bit of red sweet pepper and a small tomato, black pepper, and a ham bone, all of which gave it lots of extra flavor.
Once I had a very delicious soup in a restaurant. It was made from red and yellow peppers. I have experimented but not yet duplicated that one.
@writersedge (22563)
• United States
26 Nov 12
Squash soup. That would be the closest. What do you need the pumpkin soup for? I may have other ideas if you can't find squash soup depending on what you need it for?
@celticeagle (166911)
• Boise, Idaho
23 Nov 12
I would think that squash would be about the closest. It same color and close in flavor too. Good luck to you!
@owlwings (43910)
• Cambridge, England
23 Nov 12
England is rather behind on squashes. We have had marrows for years, of course (including contests for the largest marrow) until the Italians - or was it the French? - taught us to cut them young and call them 'courgettes' ('zucchini', to you Americans).
We tend to admire marrows for their size and nothing else. They are one of the most tasteless and watery vegetables it is possible to imagine, though my mother used to stuff them with minced beef and rice. The only other recipes possible with the full grown kind are marrow and ginger jam (remarkably good, as I remember) and 'marrow rum' (fill the de-seeded blimp with brown sugar, hang it in an old nylon stocking in the shed until it ferments and then drain off the liquid and bottle).
Pumpkins have been generally available in the shops (for carving - nobody actually eats them!) around Halloween for maybe twenty or thirty years and butternut squash has only been seen in most supermarkets in the last five years.
I have only noticed canned pumpkin purée on the shelves for the first time this year (probably because we are close to an American air base and live in a city with a high multinational population).
2 people like this
@celticeagle (166911)
• Boise, Idaho
24 Nov 12
Acorn and Butternut squash are probably my favorites for taste and texture. I can't handle some because the make me gage but these seem to be fine. Maybe I have just gotten used to them. I am not sure what this 'marrow' veg is that you speak of. I hope that some day I can try some of the more popular foods from the UK.
@Fishmomma (11377)
• United States
23 Nov 12
I believe you have some great answers already and can see living in the United States like several of the posters sure makes cooking easy for us. We have so many places that we can get produce including my back yard with my year round growing season. Its November and I picked tomatoes yesterday. Good luck and hope it has worked whatever you decided to solve the recipe.
@BarBaraPrz (47308)
• St. Catharines, Ontario
24 Nov 12
And if you can't find squash soup either, how about carrot soup?
@savypat (20216)
• United States
24 Nov 12
Butternut squash can be used in place of pumpkin, just skin, seed, cut in large cubes and cook in microwave until soft, then put in blender with chicken broth and season to taste. Use as needed.
@dorannmwin (36392)
• United States
26 Nov 12
One thing that you might be able to try would be to get some canned pumpkin puree and combine that with milk to make a soup of your own without a lot of effort. It would be creamier when used in a recipe, but I think that it would probably taste pretty good.
If you don't want to try that, then another thing that you could try would be to use squash soup. If you decide to do that, look for a variety of squash that has an orangeish color close to that of a pumpkin and the taste wouldn't be all that different.
