Vegan Jamaican Red Peas Soup, a vegan take on the popular Jamaican soup, kidney beans and root vegetables in a delicious spiced broth with dumplings.
Ingredients of Note
Scotch Bonnet, is a spicey chilli variety that’s used extensively in Caribbean and West African cooking. In Red Peas Soup, it’s used whole so the flavour is added without much heat. If you like a hot soup consider cutting the chilli in half before adding it to the sauce but be weary as Scotch bonnets can be very hot.
Allspice Berries, are the dried berry of a Pimenta tree. Like most spices, it’s better to use allspice in its unground state. However, if you can’t find allspice berries you can substitute it for ½ teaspoon of ground allspice. Depending on where you are in the world these can sometimes be called Jamaican pepper or pimento.
Serving Vegan Red Peas Soup
This delicious warming soup is perfect for a cold winter’s day. The mix of kidney beans, root vegetables and dumplings makes the soup hearty and filling that’s enough to be a light meal on its own. Leftovers kept in the fridge re-heat well on the stove
Vegan Red Peas Soup
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 2 medium onions diced
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 2 medium carrots diced
- 2 medium potatoes diced
- 1 large sweet potato diced
- 6 sprigs of thyme
- ½ teaspoon smoked paprika
- ½ teaspoon turmeric
- ½ teaspoon sweet paprika
- ½ teaspoon celery salt or celery seeds
- ½ teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
- 8 allspice berries
- 1 Scotch bonnet
- 2 litres vegetable stock
- 400 ml tin coconut milk
- 2 tins kidney beans 400g tins
Dumplings
- 130 g all-purpose flour
- 80 ml water
- 1 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Once hot add the diced onion, minced garlic and diced carrots with a good pinch of salt. Sauté until the onions are soft and translucent, around 10 minutes.
- Add the diced potatoes, sweet potatoes and sprigs of thyme. Continue to sauté until the potatoes are just beginning to turn soft, around 6 minutes.
- Add the smoked paprika, turmeric, sweet paprika, celery salt, cracked black pepper and the whole allspice berries. Mix everything together to coat the vegetables in the spices and continue to cook for 1 minute.
- Add the vegetable stock to the pan with the whole Scotch bonnet. Bring to a boil and reduce the heat to a gentle simmer.
- While the soup is coming to a boil make the dumplings.
- Combine the flour and salt in a mixing bowl. Add the water and mix thoroughly to create a sticky yet manageable dough. Knead on a floured surface for a few minutes then divide into your desired sizes, we made 30 dumplings.
- Roll each dumpling in your hands to make a sausage shape, don't make them too thin.
- Once they are all made, place all the dumplings into your soup until cooked through, around 10 minutes.
- Drain and rinse the kidney beans and add them to the soup along with the coconut milk. Cook for a further 5 minutes to heat the kidney beans though.
- Taste and adjust the seasoning. The amount of salt needed will depend on the amount of salt in the vegetable stock. We added a further ½ teaspoon of salt at this stage.
- Remove the Scotch bonnet, allspice berries and sprigs of thyme before serving your Jamaican Red Peas Soup.
Great soup! Very similiar to the Haitian Joumou soup.