This Pumpkin Soup is lightly spiced and totally delicious, with no cream added! Roasted pumpkin adds deep flavor to this soup, perfect for fall nights and holiday meals.
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Why Make This Recipe
- So delicious: Roasted garlic, chili powder, coconut milk, and a splash of lime juice make this easy pumpkin soup so tasty, and lighter than you’d think.
- No cream required!: This spiced pumpkin soup is super creamy with no cream and totally dairy-free. Healthy, low-calorie, and vegan too!
- Great for make-ahead: Want to serve this for a holiday meal? This soup gets better after several hours and even the next day. Perfect for making ahead of time, then reheating when you’re ready to serve!
- No peeling!: This pumpkin is roasted, so you don’t have to struggle peeling and cubing hard pumpkin.
🥗 Ingredients
- Pumpkin: Choose a small “sugar pie” pumpkin or “pumpkin pie” pumpkin for this soup. The texture is not as stringy as larger pumpkins. Replace with butternut squash if you don’t have pumpkin, just know that it may take longer to roast.
- Vegetable Broth: I like to use a low-sodium or no-sodium broth so that I have control over the salt level of the soup. If you have a regular vegetable broth, you won’t need to add as much salt.
- Yellow Onion: Feel free to replace this with a white onion or Vidalia onion. Even a red onion will work in a pinch!
- Garlic: If you don’t have garlic cloves, add ½ teaspoon garlic powder when you add the chili powder to the soup.
- Coconut Milk: Reduced-fat is my preference here, but you could use a full-fat version. If the soup becomes too thick with the full-fat version, add a little more vegetable broth or water to the soup. Also, you can leave this out entirely and just add more vegetable stock if you prefer.
- Ancho Chili Powder: I love the warmth and light spiciness of the ancho chili powder, but feel free to use your favorite chili powder instead. You could also replace with smoked paprika for a slightly different flavor.
- Lime Juice: Use lime juice squeezed from fresh limes, if possible—it is always tastier than the prepackaged versions. Try replacing with lemon juice or a little white wine vinegar or sherry vinegar. Or, add in ½ of a chopped granny smith apple. A little bit of acid really helps punch up the flavor!
🥣 Step-by-Step Instructions
Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Halve a small sugar pie pumpkin, and scrape out seeds and extra pulp.
If you’d like to use the toasted pumpkin seeds as a garnish, rinse the seeds and let dry on a paper towel or clean kitchen towel. Drizzle pumpkin halves with 1 tablespoon olive oil, and put one unpeeled garlic clove into each cavity.
Place into a large baking dish, and carefully flip over the pumpkin halves so that they are skin-side up.
Roast pumpkin for 30 minutes, or until you can pierce it easily with a sharp knife. Remove from oven and let cool slightly.
Meanwhile, peel ½ yellow onion and slice into thin half moons. Then heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat, and add onion. Sauté for 3-5 minutes until the onion softens and starts to brown.
When pumpkin is cool enough to handle, scoop pumpkin flesh out of its skin and add to the saucepan with the onion. Peel garlic cloves and add to the pot as well.
Pour in 2 cups vegetable broth and ½ cup coconut milk. Add 1 teaspoon ancho chili powder and 1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt, and bring to a simmer.
Simmer for 10 minutes. Use an immersion blender to blend soup until smooth.
Taste and add 2 teaspoons lime juice. Taste again, and add additional lime juice and/or additional salt or freshly ground pepper if needed.
This spicy pumpkin soup without cream is delicious garnished with toasted pumpkin seeds!
To roast pumpkin seeds, preheat oven to 300 degrees. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper and add dried pumpkin seeds. Toss with 1 tablespoon of oil and salt to taste. Bake for 30-40 minutes, stirring halfway through, until seeds are lightly toasted.
🧐 Recipe FAQs for Pumpkin Soup without Cream
Yes! This is one of the big advantages of a dairy-free pumpkin soup. Soups that contain cream, milk, or yogurt don’t freeze well. But this soup freezes perfectly!
Make sure it has cooled fully before putting in a freezer-safe, airtight container. Then freeze for up to two months. Defrost in the refrigerator before reheating and serving.
Pumpkin soup is quite thick even without any cream, depending on how much vegetable stock you add. If you find you have added too much vegetable stock and/or coconut milk, and the soup is too thin, try this trick.
Take out a small amount of the soup and stir it in a small bowl with 1 tablespoon of cornstarch. Then whisk into the rest of the soup. You could also add in some canned pumpkin to give the soup more bulk.
Roasting pumpkin gives this soup great depth of flavor. In addition, peeling and cutting up pumpkins is hard! You can avoid all of that by simply cutting the pumpkin in half and roasting until tender. Then it’s easy to scoop the flesh out of the peel. Homemade pumpkin soup at its best!
👩🍳 Expert Tips
Pumpkins vary in size. Depending on whether you like a thicker or thinner soup, you may want to not add all of the liquid at once. You can always add more vegetable stock or coconut milk if you need to loosen up the soup, but it is a little more difficult to thicken it (see FAQ above).
If you don't have an immersion blender, feel free to use a regular blender or a food processor. Just wait until soup cools a bit before blending—hot soup in a blender is not a good idea!
Once you’ve got the technique for this healthy pumpkin soup down, change it up by adding different spices to the mix. Pumpkin goes well with cumin, coriander, curry paste, smoked paprika, turmeric, cayenne pepper, nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon. Try one of those or a combination of flavors. You can also add in herbs like thyme and rosemary. This turns a simple pumpkin soup into so many delicious variations.
Choosing to use a fresh pumpkin rather than canned pumpkin for soup has many advantages, but my favorite advantage is that you have pumpkin seeds to roast for a topping! Want to try more recipes with fresh pumpkin? These Pumpkin Puff Pastry Pockets make a delicious fall appetizer, packed with pumpkin and caramelized onions.
If you want extra roasted pumpkin seeds, you can toast some store-bought pepitas. Either toast them in a dry skillet until they start to brown and pop, or make my favorite candied pepitas, as shown in this Arugula Salad with Apples and Quinoa. That salad would also make a delicious complement to this soup if you want to make it into a full meal.
Other salads that would go well with this soup are my Kale and Brussels Sprouts Salad with Miso Dressing and my Quinoa Chickpea Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette. End your meal with a seasonal dessert, like these Pumpkin Cookies or this Pumpkin Spice Latte Flan.
Other Delicious Soups
If you love soup as much as I do, you may want to try some of my other delicious soup recipes. This Cauliflower Leek Potato Soup can be made without cream as well, and this French Lentil Soup is vegan. Or try one of these:
Soup season is year-round around here, though if you want more fall vibes, don't miss my Fall recipe archive.
If you try this Pumpkin Soup recipe without cream, I would love to hear from you! Please rate this recipe and leave a comment below—your feedback is invaluable to me.
And please follow along on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook or subscribe to my newsletter. I'd love to inspire you with more delicious, healthy, and seasonal recipes!
📖 Recipe
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Pumpkin Soup without Cream
Ingredients
- 1 Small pumpkin sugar pie or pumpkin pie
- 2 large garlic cloves
- 3 tablespoons olive oil divided
- ½ large yellow onion
- 2 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
- ½ cup reduced fat coconut milk
- 1 teaspoon ancho chili powder
- 1.5 teaspoons kosher salt
- 2-3 teaspoons lime juice
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Halve pumpkin, and scrape out seeds and extra pulp.
- Drizzle pumpkin halves with 1 tablespoon olive oil, and put one unpeeled garlic clove into each cavity.
- Place into a large baking dish, and carefully flip over the pumpkin halves so that they are skin-side up.
- Roast pumpkin for 30 minutes, or until you can pierce it easily with a sharp knife.
- Remove from oven and let cool slightly.
- Meanwhile, peel onion and slice into thin half moons.
- Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat, and add onion.
- Sauté for 3-5 minutes until the onion softens and starts to brown.
- When pumpkin is cool enough to handle, scoop pumpkin flesh out of its skin and add to the saucepan with the onion.
- Peel garlic cloves and add to the pot as well.
- Pour in vegetable broth and coconut milk.
- Add chili powder and salt, and bring to a simmer.
- Simmer for 10 minutes.
- Use an immersion blender to blend soup until smooth.
- Taste and add 2 teaspoons lime juice.
- Taste again, and add additional lime juice and/or additional salt if needed.
Notes
Nutrition
Instagram Users: Now that you've made this roasted pumpkin soup recipe, tag me @vanillabeancuisine or #vanillabeancuisine because I'd love to see your results!
More About Molly
Cooking healthy(ish) meals with seasonal ingredients is my passion. Trained as a French pastry chef, I spent over 10 years as a personal chef. Here you'll find well-tested recipes that you and your family will love!
Matej says
I just had to cook another batch of this lovely soup, my wife literally asked for it again. Great recipe Molly, looks like we found a new family favorite 🙂
Chef Molly says
So glad you enjoyed it. It's a favorite here too!
MacKenzie says
My family and I enjoyed this for dinner tonight. It was perfect with the Cooler weather.
Ksenia says
Made this for lunch today and it was perfect - and the best part, it was creamy without upsetting my stomach!
Kris says
This was absolutely divine! I especially loved the touch of ancho. 🙂 Will make again!
Chef Molly says
so glad you enjoyed it! I love that little pop of chili powder heat too!
Shelby says
This pumpkin soup comes out so creamy but I love that little twist of lime!