This roasted pumpkin soup is perfect for fall! With a hint of chili, lime and coconut, it's flavorful and unique. Naturally gluten-free & vegan too!

One of the things I've been loving lately is digging through the archives of the site and finding recipes from my first year or two of blogging that need a little update. Since there are now over 700 recipes on the site (!!), I tend to forget the ones that were shared in the early years.

When I find them, it not only shows me how much I've grown in the photography department but also how my style of cooking has changed. I'm much more confident with my flavors. I rely less on premade flour mixes and canned ingredients. And now that I'm mostly plant-based, I've found new ways to make things feel like they're full of dairy, when in reality they're totally vegan.

And that's exactly what we're doing today!

How to make Roasted Pumpkin Soup

This roasted pumpkin soup is a perfect example. The original recipe called for canned pumpkin and sauteed onions, but since we're in the midst of fall and approaching Thanksgiving, sugar pumpkins are plentiful in the grocery store!

So rather than scoop out pre-cooked pumpkin puree, we're roasting a pumpkin from scratch, along with an onion and some carrots. It adds tons of flavor, doesn't add that much work and turns a good recipe into a GREAT recipe!

The best part of all? Everything is blended up in a blender so clean up is a dream.

The Best Blender for Soups

When you're making a vegan creamy soup, the real trick is your blender. In order to get that velvety smooth texture, you really need one that has the power to break everything down. I love my Blendtec, but I also recently invested in a Vitamix and I gotta say, for soup, the Vitamix has the edge.

You're seeing the Blendtec in these photos because I made this at my parent's house, and they both work really, really well, I just prefer the texture from the Vitamix.

Do you need a high powered blender? My short answer is yes. BUT if you don't have one or you aren't ready to invest, you can probably use a regular blender but will need to puree the soup in batches. It will take longer and you likely won't get it quite as smooth, but it should still work.

A Perfect Vegan Creamy Soup

Now the trick to making vegan soups taste creamy is to use a full-fat non-dairy milk. You can either use coconut milk (which we're doing here) OR you can use cashew cream (like we did in this vegan white quinoa chili). Coconut milk will give you that coconut flavor, whereas cashew cream is pretty flavorless and is therefore a bit more flexible.

I wanted to give this roasted pumpkin soup a coconut-y flavor, so I opted for that, but you could totally make do with cashew cream. I'd say add about 1 1/2 – 2 cups of cream to replace the coconut milk.

And if you don't have any of those full-fat options, you can use an unsweetened plant-milk as well it just won't have quite as much flavor!

Roasted Pumpkin vs. Canned Pumpkin

And finally, let's talk about the pumpkin itself!

I wanted to make sure this soup was really robust in flavor which is why I personally opted for roasting an entire pumpkin. If you've never roasted pumpkin before, it's super simple. You just cut the pumpkin in half, scoop out the seeds, place it on a baking sheet and roast it for about 50 – 60 minutes.

And the beauty of doing that is that you can also just toss your carrots and onion on the pan and roast those right alongside the pumpkin!

If you don't have access to fresh pumpkin, you can certainly use canned. I would recommend using an entire can (maybe 1.5) and just sauteeing the other veggies. It will still taste good, you just won't get that underlying roasted flavor you'd get from the fresh option.

Either way, this roasted pumpkin soup is amazing! It's creamy, it's hearty, it's cozy and it's perfect for fall. It's also great for those of you pumpkin lovers who need a little break from the sweet ????

More Creamy Vegan Soups to try: