Ready for the most gorgeous hot pink show-stopping beetroot soup? If you have a pound of raw beets on hand, this is the perfect healthy soup recipe for you. It’s absolutely delicious and the best plant-based, dairy-free, gluten-free, vegan soup with beets, potatoes, onions, garlic, and ginger you’ll ever try!
Nothing beats a beet for earthiness and vibrant color. This superb beetroot soup is no exception. Imbued with warm spices and a terrific texture, this recipe from the cookbook East: 120 Vegan and Vegetarian Recipes from Bangalore to Beijing by Meera Sodha is sure to become a family favorite.
The ingredients in this beet soup tend to be either in the ‘love it’ or ‘leave it’ category. Well, this one is for the beet lovers out there (me, me, me!), and it may even win over some skeptics! Although this reddish root vegetable has a particular taste that is sometimes unpopular, this recipe rises above it with a bit of zing and zest.
Part of what makes this particular soup so superb is the selection of simple but potent spices. On a wintery day, the combination of these ingredients will make you feel so wonderfully warm.
Did you know that beets began in ancient Babylon times, along with Greeks and Romans? At that time, the leaves and stalks were used for culinary purposes while the root was employed as medicine. By the 1500s, modern beets (the types that we are familiar with now) were popularized in both Germany and Italy.
What makes these bulbous roots so beneficial to your health? There are many health benefits of beets you can look forward to when you make a soup with beets in it:
‘Turnip the beet’ in more of your recipes for extra nutrition!
Let’s face it, beets are messy AF. An innocent attempt to make some beet salad, Russian borscht, beetroot rice, beet salad, or any other beet recipe, ends up making your cutting board and kitchen look like a crime scene.
The easiest way to shred beets while minimizing the mess is using your handy food processor.
You know that metal disc attachment with little shredding blades that comes with almost every food processor? Many people (myself included for many years) toss this attachment in the back of a drawer and never look at it again. Well, time to find that magical disc, pull it out, and put it to use!
Wash beets and slice the ends off using a sharp knife. If desired, peel the skin with a vegetable peeler. But feel free to skip this step—the peels are just fine to eat and will ultimately be blended in this recip! Skipping the peeling step will reduce the messiness big time.
Using a sharp Chef’s knife, slice the beet into large chunks just small enough to fit into your food processor feed chute.
Pull out your food processor. Remove the chopping blade and attach the metal shredding disc. If you aren’t sure how to do this, a quick YouTube tutorial will help! With the shredding blade attached, place the plastic top securely on the food processor.
Push the beet chunks down into the plastic feed tube and press the pulse button (or simply turn the food processor on). Add more beets into the chute and continue to push them down until the food processor bowl is full. If needed, empty the shredded beets into another bowl and continue until all your beets have been shredded. The process will be very fast!
Once the shredded beets are in a bowl, wash everything promptly to prevent any stains. Voila! Beets shredded.
Place any leftover soup into a sealed container. It can easily be stored in the refrigerator for a few days. To reheat, pour into a saucepan and let come to your desired temperature over medium-low heat. Stir frequently.
If the soup is too thick, just add a little bit of vegetable broth to thin it out. If you don’t think you’ll use the soup within 3 days, pour the leftovers into an ice cube tray and freeze. When frozen, throw the soup cubes into a freezer-safe bag. They should last for at least a month.
If you’re ready to slurp up more divine vegan soups, we’ve got many for you to try! Here are the best vegan soup recipes from all around the web, and here are a few of our all-time favorites:
Meera Sodha is a food writer, chef, and author of three fantastic Asian cookbooks. Her first book, Made in India, was a Top 10 bestseller and her second book, Fresh India, won the Observer Food Monthly Best New Cookbook Award in 2017. This recipe for the most divine vegan soup with beets comes from her most recent book: East: 120 Vegan and Vegetarian Recipes from Bangalore to Beijing.
When she’s not working on her amazing recipes, she also contributes to The Guardian with her ‘New Vegan’ column. Meera was given The Guild of Food Writers Cookery Writing Award in 2018 and also named Fortnum & Mason’s Cookery Writer of the Year for her work at The Guardian.
Sodha cooks, writes, and lives in London with her husband and daughter.
We want to thank our amazing recipe testers Taylor Gillespie, J.J. Steele, and Kathleen Walters for helping us perfect this recipe!
This recipe for a delicious vegan soup with beets was reprinted with permission from the East: 120 Vegan and Vegetarian Recipes from Bangalore to Beijing cookbook by Meera Sodha (Flatiron Books, October 2020). Photo credit: David Loftus. Please note that this article contains affiliate links that help support our work at World of Vegan!
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My soup is not very pink, more like a dark red. What do you suggest I add to make it more pink.
Hi Jackiejo, if your soup is a dark red it could be from using too many beets which concentrate the color. If serving with vegan yogurt, swirling that into it like in the image can help achieve a more pink color. I hope you enjoyed it! 🙂
Yummy looks so good!
So pretty and full of goddies!
Okay, I am officially obsessed with all pink foods, and this soup did not disappoint! For real, I add Pitaya or dragonfruit powder to oatmeal, cereal, even milk to get the pink effect, and am having so much fun cooking with beets now too. EAT THE RAINBOW!
What a gorgeous soup, and tasty to boot!
This beet soup looks incredible! That color is amazing!
Even though I’m not a huge fan of beets or ginger, I still found this soup to be really tasty. Definitely worth a try!
So beautiful and tasty!
Just made this! It was absolutely fantastic. Thank you!
I’m so glad you loved it, Jenny!!