A thick and creamy marrow soup with gentle spices and punchy flavours. Perfect to batch cook for the freezer when you find yourself with a glut of over-sized courgettes!
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🍴 Why you will love this recipe
This deliciously creamy soup is packed with flavour and mildly spiced. You would never guess it was made from a huge marrow!
Creamy coconut milk and protein-packed cannellini beans add a rich and silky texture to the soup. It makes a lovely, filling lunch with crusty bread, or a hearty home-grown supper for friends.
The soup freezes beautifully, so why not make a big batch whilst you have too many marrows, and stock up the freezer for the winter months?
🥒 Marrow or courgette?
Marrows are from the same family as courgettes, squash and cucumbers. There are different varieties, but they are effectively the same as courgettes, just left on the plant to grow much bigger.
Courgette varieties have been bred to produce more, smaller fruits whereas specific marrow varieties, (like 'Tiger Cross' and 'Badger Cross' are bred to produce fewer, bigger marrows.
The good news is, whatever size or variety of marrow or courgette you have to hand, this soup recipe is just as delicious!
📝 What you need
Ingredients
Marrow or large courgette As above, use whatever you have to hand - you will need 1kg of flesh. If it has a very thick, tough skin you might prefer to remove it, (or pass your finished soup through a sieve). And similarly, if the inside is very stringy with large seeds, just scoop it out and discard.
Cannellini beans These give the soup a great protein boost and add a rich creaminess. You can use any type of white beans - butter beans or haricot beans are great alternatives.
Coconut milk Use either full-fat or light as you prefer - you need coconut milk from a tin, rather than a carton.
Garlic and ginger If you're in a hurry, jars of ready-chopped ginger and garlic or pastes are an excellent time-saver.
Equipment
A stick blender is the easiest way to blitz your marrow soup to a smooth and silky purée. No pouring into a blender, just stick it in the pan and blitz. Mine is by Dualit and has served me well for many years, but any good quality stick blender will do the job well.
👩🏽🍳 How to make your marrow soup
For a full, printable recipe with ingredients and detailed instructions, scroll to the bottom of this page👇🏼.
Gently fry onion, garlic and ginger until softened. Chop the marrow into small cubes and add to the pan along with the curry powder. Cook for 10-15 minutes until liquid has been released from the marrow and cooked away.
Add cannellini beans and cubed potato, then the coconut milk and vegetable stock. Simmer for 10 minutes until the potato is cooked through.
Add the lemon juice, then blitz to a silky smooth purée - this might take a few minutes, keep going! Taste and adjust seasoning then serve.
🔪 Top Tips & FAQs
Blitz, blitz and blitz again! The difference between a nice soup and a knock-your-socks-off soup is a really silky smooth texture. The coconut milk, beans and potato will all really help you with this, but make sure you really blitz it well - at least 2-3 minutes with a hand blender.
Taste, adjust and taste again The level of spice, seasoning and lemony-ness are all entirely up to you. Make sure you keep tasting and adjusting as you go. Remember that if you are freezing the soup some of the flavours will become a little muted, so adjust accordingly when you defrost.
Absolutely! I like to freeze it in individual portions (old margarine tubs or takeaway containers are perfect for a single portion), then just defrost in a saucepan or microwave as you need.
No - as long as you have 1kg of flesh it can be from any size of courgette or different varieties of squash.
That depends on what sort of curry powder you use - choose mild, medium or hot as you prefer. Or if you don't want any heat at all, garam masala will give you all the flavours without being at all spicy.
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🍽 If you liked that...
.... you might also enjoy these vegan recipes from The Veg Space:
📖 Recipe
Marrow Soup
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoon olive or rapeseed oil
- 1 large onion
- 1 teaspoon garlic purée or 1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed
- 2 teaspoon ginger purée or 2cm fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
- 1 kg marrow or large courgettes
- 3 teaspoon mild curry powder
- 400 g tinned cannellini beans or other white beans
- 1 large potato
- 400 ml vegetable stock
- 400 ml coconut milk tinned
- 1 lemon juice only
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a large saucepan - as large as possible. Peel and finely chop the onion and fry gently for 2-3 minutes until starting to soften.
- Add the garlic and ginger and continue to cook gently for a further 2-3 minutes.
- Meanwhile, trim the ends from the marrow or courgette. If the skin is fairly tough you may want to cut it off, but it is edible and this usually isn't necessary. If the centre is stringy with fairly large seeds, scoop this out and just use the flesh in the soup.
- Chop the marrow into chunks about 1cm square and add them to the saucepan along with the curry powder. Season well with salt and black pepper, and leave to cook over a medium heat for 10-15 minutes or until the marrow has released its liquid and this has cooked off.
- Peel the potato and chop it into cubes. Drain and rinse the cannellini beans. Add the potato, beans, coconut milk and vegetable stock to the saucepan and bring to the boil.
- Reduce to a gently simmer and cook for 10 minutes until the potato is tender.
- Squeeze in the lemon juice then blitz to a smooth purée. Keep going for a minute or two - you want the soup to be velvety smooth.
- Taste and adjust seasoning as required then serve.
ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION
Video
Notes
- Use any variety of courgette, marrow or squash for this recipe - 1kg of flesh from any of these will taste delicious.
- If your marrow has very tough, thick skin, you might prefer to remove it or pass the finished soup through a sieve.
- If your marrow has stringy insides with large seeds, scoop these out and just use the firmer flesh in this soup.
- You can use butter beans or haricot beans in place of the cannellini beans if you prefer.
- Use mild, medium or hot curry powder to your own taste, or garam masala if you prefer no heat at all.
Nutrition
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Vicki says
Very impressed with this recipe. Despite being in a very hot spell in Southern NZ and a red meat farmer, this recipe is a keeper. Had a small amount tonight as it’s too hot for soup so will freeze and await cooler weather. A friend talks about her marrow soup and I pictured a thin tasteless brew but this was the complete opposite.
Kate Ford says
That's great to hear, thanks Vicki x
Lesley says
I made this with a giant marrow that I’d nearly thrown away several times for want of something to do with it, and this turned out to be the nicest soup I’ve made this winter. Thank you for the recipe.
Kate Ford says
That's great to hear, thanks Lesley!
Helen Iles says
Really delicious and a great way to use those overgrown courgettes. Thankyou.
Kate Ford says
Thanks Helen, glad to hear it.
Adele Irwin says
Perfect recipe for using up my oversized courgettes! absolutely delicious! simple to make but wonderful flavours. Another great recipe which is sure to become a regular meal for me!
Kate Ford says
Great to hear! Thanks Adele x
desicart says
Thank you! It was also very quick and easy to make.
Aimee Mars says
I am having a moment with coconut milk-based soups right now and this looks incredible! I've been eating them for lunch so I can't wait to try this one.
sonia says
Soup full of flavors, truly exquisite !
Natalie says
That soup looks fantastic. Creamy and packed with delicious flavors. I can't wait to give it a try. Thanks! I'm adding this to my menu.
Tavo says
Delicious! I use courgettes for my soup, the combination of flavors really work!
Jessica says
You don't have to be vegan to love this recipe! So much flavor...a new favorite soup recipe!