How to make sweet potato, chickpea and Swiss chard soup

If getting five a day, let alone 10 a day, feels like something for the too-hard pile then vegetable soup is your new best friend. It’s the perfect way to get lots of vegetables into your daily diet and a nice way to clear out the vegetable drawer while you’re at it.

I always start with the basics: gently sweating onion, then garlic, carrots and finally celery. After that, I layer in more flavours – the star attractions. I like to include something hard like butternut squash, pumpkin or sweet potato then add cooked pulses such as borlotti beans, cannellini beans or chick peas.

Finish with your quickest cooking ingredient – some kind of green such as kale, cavolo nero or Swiss chard.

You can use tinned pulses, but cooking your own doesn’t take too long and can be done the day before. You also have the added benefit of the cooking liquid which you can use instead of vegetable stock.

Season judiciously – for this recipe, a generous squeeze of lemon balances out the sweetness of the sweet potato.

Add more liquid if you like a thinner soup or keep it to a minimum for something thicker and more sturdy, remembering that you can always add more later.

A generous drizzle of olive oil is always a good idea and a sprinkling of parmesan cheese, if you like, or skip it to keep it vegan. Any leftovers can be frozen to enjoy on a cold and rainy day.

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Serves 3-4

1 red onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 carrot, diced
1 stalk of celery, diced
1 sweet potato (about 150g), peeled & diced
400g cooked chickpeas
200g Swiss chard
2 tbsp olive oil
500-750ml chickpea cooking liquid or vegetable stock
Lemon juice
Salt
Grated parmesan cheese (optional) 
Extra virgin olive oil, to drizzle

Heat the olive oil in a pot with a lid. Add the diced onion, a generous sprinkle of salt and stir to coat in the fat. Cover with the lid and cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally until the onions are soft but not brown. Add the garlic, stir and cook for a minute or two before adding the chopped carrots. Cover and cook until beginning to soften slightly, then add the celery. Cook for a few minutes then add the sweet potato.

Stir, cover and leave to cook for several minutes, before adding about 400ml of the liquid and the cooked chickpeas. Simmer until the sweet potato is tender.

While the soup is cooking, prep the Swiss chard. Slice off the stems. If they’re particularly wide, slice them in half lengthways and then chop. If they’re thinner, you don’t need to bother.

Take the leaves and roll them up into a cigar shape then slice thinly. Add the stems to the soup first and allow to cook for a few minutes until they’ve softened but still hold their shape. Add the chopped Swiss chard leaves and cook only for a minute or two along with a generous squeeze of lemon juice, more salt if needed and additional liquid if it’s too thick. Ladle into bowls with a generous drizzle of olive oil and sprinkle of cheese, if using.

@juliapleonard