Gordon Ramsay’s butternut squash soup is spiced, warming and thick with red lentils, made with 1kg of squash, coconut cream, cumin, ginger, chilli and curry leaves, blended smooth and ready in about 30 minutes. It’s a proper meal in a bowl, not a light starter.
This is his Spiced Squash and Lentil Soup from Quick and Delicious, and it’s nothing like the plain roasted butternut squash soups you see everywhere else. Ramsay writes: “Soup is the ultimate fast food, and this hearty meal-in-a-bowl is a great example. I usually make a double batch and freeze it for an even quicker meal down the line.”
The technique that sets this apart is blending the garlic, ginger and chillies into a paste before they hit the pan. It means the aromatics break down completely into the soup instead of leaving chunks. Combined with the red lentils, which dissolve as they cook and naturally thicken the liquid, you get a soup that’s creamy and rich without any actual cream in the base.
Gordon Ramsay Butternut Squash Soup
Course: Soup, Dinner4
10
minutes20
minutes420
kcal30
minutesEasy
Spiced butternut squash and red lentil soup from Gordon Ramsay’s Quick and Delicious. Butternut squash simmered with a garlic, ginger and chilli paste, cumin, curry powder and red lentils, finished with coconut cream and a fried curry leaf garnish. Serves 4 in about 30 minutes.
Ingredients
- For the Soup:
1 tbsp light olive oil
40g (1½ oz) butter
1 onion, peeled and diced
1 tsp cumin seeds
4 garlic cloves, peeled
5cm (2 in) piece of fresh root ginger, peeled
2 red chillies, deseeded for a milder hit
1 tsp mild curry powder
1kg (2.2 lb) butternut squash, peeled, deseeded and cut into 1cm cubes
1.2 litres (5 cups) chicken or vegetable stock
250g (9 oz) red lentils
250ml (1 cup) coconut cream
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- For the Garnish:
2 tbsp light olive oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
Large handful of fresh curry leaves
½ tsp mild curry powder
1 red chilli, deseeded and finely sliced
Directions
- Start the base: Heat the oil and butter in a large saucepan over a medium heat. When the butter has melted, add the onion and cumin seeds and cook for 2 to 3 minutes.
- Make the paste: Meanwhile, place the garlic, ginger and chillies in a small food processor and blend to a paste. Add this to the pan along with the curry powder and cook for another 2 to 3 minutes.
- Add the squash: Peel the butternut squash, remove the seeds and cut the flesh into 1cm cubes. Add to the pan with the stock. Increase the heat and bring to the boil.
- Cook the lentils: Add the red lentils and cook for 10 minutes.
- Add coconut cream: Whisk the coconut cream in a small bowl until smooth. Reserve 6 tablespoons for the garnish and add the rest to the pan. Cook over a high heat until the squash is soft and the lentils are cooked through.
- Make the garnish: While the soup cooks, heat the oil for the garnish in a small frying pan. When hot, add the cumin seeds, curry leaves and curry powder. Stir well, then remove the pan from the heat.
- Blend and serve: Using a stick blender, blend the soup until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Ladle into bowls, drizzle over the reserved coconut cream and the curry oil. Sprinkle with sliced red chilli.
FAQs
Why does Ramsay add red lentils to a squash soup?
Red lentils dissolve as they cook, which naturally thickens the soup without needing cream or potato. After 10 minutes of boiling they break down completely and give the soup a rich, velvety body that pure squash on its own doesn’t have.
They also add protein, which turns this from a light starter into a proper meal. Ramsay calls it “a hearty meal-in-a-bowl” and the lentils are the reason it fills you up. If you have leftover squash, his butternut squash risotto uses the same ingredient in a completely different way.
Why blend the garlic, ginger and chillies into a paste?
Processing them together before they go in the pan means every spoonful of soup tastes evenly spiced. If you just chop them by hand, you’ll get random hits of raw ginger or chilli in some bites and nothing in others.
The paste also breaks down the fibres in the ginger so it cooks out faster. The whole soup only takes 30 minutes, so there isn’t time for chunky aromatics to mellow. The paste dissolves into the base within 2 to 3 minutes.
What are curry leaves and where do you find them in the UK?
Fresh curry leaves are small, shiny green leaves that smell like nothing else when they hit hot oil. They’re in the fresh herb section at Tesco, usually near the coriander and lemongrass. Asian supermarkets sell them in bigger bags for less.
They’re the garnish here, not the base, so they fry in oil with cumin seeds and curry powder for about 30 seconds. That hot spiced oil gets drizzled over the finished soup. It adds a fragrant, savoury layer on top that you smell before you even taste it.
Why coconut cream instead of double cream?
Coconut cream does two jobs. In the soup it adds richness without the heaviness of dairy cream, and it pairs naturally with the cumin, ginger and curry powder. Double cream would fight those spices instead of working with them.
The reserved 6 tablespoons get drizzled over each bowl at the end, giving you a cool contrast against the hot spiced soup. The same coconut and cumin combination works beautifully in his Malaysian chicken curry.
Can you freeze this soup?
Yes, and Ramsay specifically says to. He writes: “I usually make a double batch and freeze it for an even quicker meal down the line.” The lentils and squash freeze well because they’re already blended smooth, so the texture doesn’t change when reheated.
Cool it completely, portion into containers and freeze for up to three months. The garnish needs to be made fresh when you reheat because the curry leaves lose their fragrance once frozen.
