This easy Moroccan-spiced chickpea, sweet potato, and kale soup makes good use of seasonal ingredients and is pretty inexpensive to make. It’s an autumn and winter staple for us, served as pictured with rice or with vegan naan.
It’s made mostly with pantry staples, like cooked or canned chickpeas, canned tomatoes, and sweet potato. I used fresh kale from the garden here, but frozen is just as good.
The trick to take this recipe over the top is to add raisins and pomegranate to the mix – the raisins add a little chewy sweetness, and the pomegranate gives it a tart pop. These, combined with the savoury spices, make for an interesting and moreish soup.
For some more pantry staple soups, try my chickpea soup, winter favourite lentil cabbage soup with pasta, or this easy creamy lentil sweet potato soup.
Ingredients
Ingredient Notes and Substitutions
- Chickpeas: this can be canned or cooked, but if using canned, make sure to drain and rinse very well before adding.
- Canned tomatoes: crushed tomatoes won’t work here. Use diced or whole, breaking them up with the spoon after cooking.
- Spices: fresh ginger is key here, don’t substitute ground. Otherwise change up the spices based on your preference.
- Greens: use spinach, chard, or rucola (rocket) in place of kale if that’s what you have.
- Vegetable broth: substitute water if you don’t have broth and just season properly.
- Sweet potato: substitute carrot, pumpkin, or winter squash in equal quantities.
Recipe Notes
This only needs to be cooked until the sweet potato is fork-soft, about half an hour from start to finish. I find that sometimes the sweet potatoes I buy take much longer to cook (two potatoes, from the same shop at the same time, will have a vastly different cooking time) so sometimes it can take longer if it’s a dud potato.
To use frozen greens, add them as instructed in the recipe card, but leave the pot on the residual heat from the burner as they’ll need a little more heat to thaw. You can choose to cook the frozen greens for a couple of minutes instead if you’d like to serve the soup more quickly.
How to Store
Storage: the soup will keep for 3-4 days in a sealed container in the refrigerator.
Freezing: transfer cooled soup to an airtight container and freeze for up to three months. Thaw in the refrigerator before reheating as usual.
Expert Tips
- Season to taste: check the soup for salt and season as needed before serving. The amount listed in the recipe card is a starting point.
- Only peel if needed: many sweet potatoes will have a thin enough skin that they don’t need to be peeled, and a good scrub is enough. The skin is full of nutrients and peeling vegetables contributes to unnecessary food waste.
More Sweet Potato Recipes
Vegetarian Stuffed Sweet Potatoes
Black Bean Sweet Potato Chili
Sweet Potato Latkes
Sweet Potato Flatbread (no yeast)
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Moroccan Chickpea, Sweet Potato, and Kale Soup
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 1 smal red onion diced
- 1 medium sweet potato diced
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 1 thumb ginger minced
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon sea salt to taste
- ½ teaspoon pepper
- 400 ml canned whole or diced tomatoes
- 400 ml vegetable broth
- 200 grams cooked chickpeas or canned, rinsed well
- 60 grams raisins
- 70 grams kale chopped, with tough stems removed
- Juice 1/2 lemon
- ¼ pomegranate seeds, to serve
- Cooked brown rice to serve
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion, and sauté for a couple of minutes or until softened. Add the sweet potato and cook for another minute or two, then stir in the garlic, ginger, and spices.1 teaspoon olive oil, 1 smal red onion, 1 medium sweet potato, 3 cloves garlic, 1 thumb ginger, 1 teaspoon cumin, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon sea salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- Add the tomatoes, followed by the vegetable broth, chickpeas, and raisins. Bring the stew to a low boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the sweet potato is soft.400 ml canned whole or diced tomatoes, 400 ml vegetable broth, 200 grams cooked chickpeas, 60 grams raisins
- Stir in the kale, and remove the stew from the heat. Add the lemon juice, taste, and add seasoning as necessary. Serve with brown rice and pomegranate.70 grams kale, Juice 1/2 lemon, 1/4 pomegranate, Cooked brown rice
* For American cup measurements, please click the pink link text above the ingredient list that says ‘American’.
Nutrition
Nutrition is provided as a courtesy and is an estimate. If this information is important to you, please have it verified independently.
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