Sooooup! Swap + Pumpkin Black Bean Beer Cheese Soup Recipe (+ FOUR more soup recipes!)

I know how annoying it is to scroll forever to get to a recipe, so I’ll go ahead and post the main recipe first at the top, then I’ll tell you all about my annual Soup Swap afterwards, plus give you a few more favorite recipes I’ve made to swap over the years!

This recipe that I wrote was adapted from this tweet that I bookmarked back in 2022. I don’t know the person, but I saw that prompt asking for soup recipes and read through all the replies, copying the ones I wanted to try into my recipe notes:

So I tried it out in January, took notes, and wrote my version all out as this recipe:

Pumpkin Black Bean Beer Cheese Soup

Makes about 5 large servings.
Contains: cheese, gluten. Could substitute vegan cheese to make vegan (use a kind that melts well and has some sharpness, ideally.)

Ingredients
2 TBSP olive oil, divided
1 fake sausage (the large Field Roast Smoked Apple Sage works well; this is optional or use whatever meaty element you like)
½ tsp liquid smoke
1 green onion, finely chopped
4 TBSP flour
1 can of pumpkin
1 TBSP diced chipotle peppers
1 can of black beans, drained
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 can of beer (I use Simpler Times lager)
4 cups broth or water + Better than Bouillon of choice (for this, I use approx 1 tsp BTB paste per 2 cups water, added directly to pot after adding water)
4–5 oz shredded cheese (cheddar or blend)

Instructions
Heat 1 TBSP olive oil over med-high in pot, add sausage, turn down to medium and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring often, until it’s lightly browned.
Add liquid smoke, green onion, a little salt and pepper, and cook while stirring another couple of minutes.
Add another TBSP of olive oil, then whisk in flour 1 TBSP at a time.
Add pumpkin, then chipotles, stir all together over heat.
Add beans and all spices, stir together, then stir in beer. Scrape bottom of pot at this point to deglaze anything that’s stuck.
Add broth (or substitute), stir everything, then bring to a boil. Turn heat down to simmer for 15–20 minutes.
Taste and add seasoning if needed.
Turn off heat and stir in shredded cheese.
Serve!
Eating with good bread for dipping is recommended!
Or I bet pretzels would go well.
It freezes surprisingly well! (But if you worry about the cheese freezing, you could freeze before adding cheese, then add cheese after reheating.)

A few more notes: That’s the sausage I used for this, I like it a lot! I think the soup would work well without the meaty element. The first time I made it, I used a bit of Ikea’s pea-protein based fake ground meat (which is no longer on their website so maybe they stopped making it, sadly) cooked with meatless pork flavor powder (from an Asian market) and fennel seeds to make it sausage-like. That worked well too!

I added the flour step to thicken the soup more, because I like a thicker soup, and I think it worked, but feel free to skip that step! You can definitely use regular onion if you like, as the original recipe tweet said, I just prefer green onion and I think it works well here.

That’s my soup all jarred up for my Soup Swap! I doubled the recipe to make about 10 servings, bringing 7 to the swap and keeping a few for myself (mostly because I had 7 empty jars).

My knit night group started having annual soup swaps, every year around February usually, almost 10 years ago! Our first one (pictured above) was January 2016, and we’ve done it every year except 2020 (because we were late to plan it that year, put it off till March, and then you know what happened) and I believe 2022 as well—in 2021 we swapped outside and it was a bit less fun, so I think we skipped 2022 and then got back into it last year.

We evolved over the years from plastic containers to glass mason jars, which work quite well for single servings of frozen soup! We each make around 6–8 servings of our soup, put some kind of labels on them (with allergens), freeze them beforehand, and bring them to the swap in coolers.

We hang out, knit, eat lunch (soup, of course!), and then it’s swapping time! Someone counts swap participants, puts pieces of paper with numbers in a bowl and we draw numbers for our swapping order. This year I drew #1! Then we go around and say what our soup is and what it contains, so we can start planning out our top choices.

Then it’s swap time! We go around in number order, each picking one soup, around and around, until we have the number of soups that we brought. I brought 7 this year so I chose 7. If you bring 8 or more you risk getting multiple of the same soup or leaving with your own soup, since most people bring 6–7. The more participants, the more soups you won’t get, so as our swap has gotten bigger strategy has gotten more important (choosing the ones you think will be more popular first) and we have to just accept that we’re not gonna get all our top choices. (This year I missed out on 2 or 3 that sounded amazing!)

That’s how it works! We’ve gotten the process pretty perfected over the years. I recommend organizing a Soup Swap with your soup-loving friends!!

And now, some of my favorite soups I’ve made over the years! Last year I made a pretty great corn chowder, using this recipe from Monson Made This and modifying it… here’s my version of the recipe:

Sweet Potato Poblano Corn Chowder

Ingredients
4 TBSP olive oil or vegan butter
1 medium-sized onion, diced (I used a shallot)
1 red bell pepper, seeded & diced
3 poblano peppers, seeded & diced
Optional jalapeño and/or serrano pepper(s) for spice (I used 1 jalapeño and 1 serrano)
1 large or 2 smaller carrots, diced
3–4 garlic cloves, minced
½–¾ cup flour (depending on how much you want to thicken it) (I used chickpea flour)
8 cups vegan chicken broth (or other veggie broth—I used vegan chicken bouillon cubes)
¼–½ cup nutritional yeast
Black pepper to taste
Salt to taste (approx 2–3 tsp)
Optional more spices (I used 1 tsp each aleppo pepper, smoked paprika, mushroom umami)
2–4 sweet potatoes (depending on how large they are), peeled and cut into ¼ inch cubes
3 ears of corn kernels removed, cobs reserved (I used 6 of the frozen half-ears, plus a bit more frozen sweet corn)
1–1 ½ cup full-fat coconut milk
3–4 green onions, thinly sliced
fresh parsley or cilantro for garnish (optional)

Instructions
In a large stock pot or Dutch oven, combine the oil, onion, peppers, carrots, and garlic. Sauté on medium heat for about 5 minutes until the veggies begin to soften and sweat, but not brown.
Stir in the flour and cook for another 2 minutes.
Add stock, nutritional yeast, sweet potato, and reserved corn cobs. Taste for seasoning and add salt, pepper, and other spices to taste.
Bring the soup to a gentle boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cook uncovered for about 10–15 minutes, or until the sweet potatoes are just cooked through.
Remove the corn cobs. Using an immersion blender (or carefully remove 4 cups of the soup and blend it completely), blend the soup until it gets a bit ruddy in color, but there are still large bits of pepper and sweet potato remaining.
Add corn kernels and coconut milk. Continue to simmer for another 5–10 minutes.
Stir in green onion and taste for seasoning.
Serve warm, with optional herb garnish. (Could also add spinach, kale, or cabbage, etc, to bulk it up and add some green!)

Back in 2019 I made a Sweet Potato & Farro Curry Soup which was a slightly modified version of this from Cookie and Kate. It was amazing and I made it a few times since but kinda forgot about it and really need to make it again for myself! Pretty easy, too!

Sweet Potato & Farro Curry Soup

Ingredients
2 TBSP extra-virgin olive oil
1 yellow onion, chopped (small or large, depending how much onion you like) (my double batch used 1 large onion)
1 red bell pepper, chopped (I used 5 little Sweet Baby Bell Peppers for every 1 regular bell pepper)
1 pound sweet potatoes (2 small to medium or 1 large), peeled and diced (about 3 cups)
¼ tsp salt, more to taste
2 TBSP Thai red curry paste
1 cup uncooked farro, rinsed
4 cups (32 oz) vegetable broth
1 can (1½ cups) coconut milk (see note below)
½ cup water
1 can (15 oz) chickpeas, rinsed and drained, or 1 ½ cups cooked chickpeas
½ bunch of kale (4 oz), chopped (about 3 cups) (mine was made with baby kale, less than this, around this much total for the double batch)
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper, to taste (optional, if you like it extra spicy) (I skipped this so everyone can add their own spice to eat as they like)

Instructions
In a large soup pot, heat the oil over medium heat until shimmering. Stir in the onion, bell pepper, sweet potato and salt. Sauté for five minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onion starts to soften.
Add the curry paste and stir until the vegetables are coated and the curry is fragrant, about 1 minute.
Add the farro. Add the coconut milk, vegetable broth, and water, and stir to combine.
Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for 25 minutes. (Note: if you’re using Trader Joe’s brand farro, it’s partially cooked already, so it only needs about 10–15 minutes here.)
Test the farro for doneness—if it’s tender and cooked through, add the chickpeas and kale. Stir to combine, cook for 5 more minutes, or until the kale is cooked to your liking.
Taste, and season with more salt as needed. Stir in the optional cayenne pepper.
Ladle the soup into bowls and serve. Leftovers keep well, covered and refrigerated, for about 4 days. The soup freezes well, too.

Notes
I used Trader Joe’s Reduced Fat Coconut Milk; use non-reduced-fat for a thicker soup. For a thicker curry, less soup-like, to eat with naan or rice, skip the ½ cup water and use more sweet potato, smashing some of it after cooking, to thicken. Original recipe had no coconut milk, only 2 cups water instead.
Original recipe goes in to detail about using different grains instead of farro.
The red curry paste I use happens to be vegan (no fish or shrimp content) but many (most?) are not, so be sure to read labels if that’s a concern!

The very first year I made a Vegan Peanut Stew from this recipe on Budget Bytes and it was amazing. It’s one I remade again for another soup swap year because everyone loved it, and I’ve made a few more times for myself. I hadn’t made it in years and then about a month ago I remembered it and made it again—it’s so easy and delicious!! A great lunch (I froze servings with rice in the same container so it was a ready-to-go lunch, perfect for bringing to the office), will definitely make it more regularly!! Even though I use the recipe pretty exactly from the website, I’m going to put it here because nowadays you never know when sites will stop existing and that link above will become broken.

Vegan Peanut Stew

Ingredients
1 TBSP vegetable oil
4 cloves garlic
1 inch fresh ginger
1 medium sweet potato
1 medium onion
1 tsp cumin
¼ tsp crushed red pepper
6 oz can tomato paste
½ cup chunky peanut butter
6 cups vegetable broth
½ bunch or 2–3 cups chopped collard greens (or kale or mustard greens—I usually use kale)
cilantro
rice for serving

Instructions
Peel and grate the ginger using a small holed cheese grater. Mince the garlic. Sauté the ginger and garlic in vegetable oil over medium heat for 1–2 minutes, or until the garlic becomes soft and fragrant.
Dice the onion, add it to the pot, and continue to sauté. Dice the sweet potato (½ inch cubes), add it to the pot, and continue to sauté a few minutes more, or until the onion is soft and the sweet potato takes on a darker, slightly translucent appearance. Season with cumin and red pepper flakes.
Add the tomato paste and peanut butter, and stir until everything is evenly mixed.
Add the vegetable broth and stir to dissolve the thick tomato paste-peanut butter mixture. Place a lid on the pot and turn the heat up to high.
While the soup is coming up to a boil, prepare the greens. Rinse the greens well, then use a sharp knife to remove each stem (cut along the side of each stem). Stack the leaves, then cut them into thin strips. Add the collard strips to the soup pot.
Once the soup reaches a boil, turn the heat down to low and allow it to simmer without a lid for about 15 minutes, or until the sweet potatoes are very soft. Once soft, smash about half of the sweet potatoes with the back of a wooden spoon to help thicken the soup. Taste the soup and add salt if needed.
Serve the stew hot with a few cilantro leaves if desired. You may also add some rice, and add some spice if you want! I usually add brown rice.

The second swap year I made Four Corners Lentil Soup from My New Roots, which is one of my favorite lentil soups I’ve ever made, definitely recommend if you like a lentil soup! Again, this recipe is straight from that website, but already the webpage has a broken image so who knows how much longer that link will work.

Four Corners Lentil Soup


Ingredients

1 cup red lentils, picked over and rinsed very well

1 large onion, or a couple leeks, chopped (I used shallots)

5 cloves garlic, minced

1 TBSP minced ginger root

1 TBSP Ground cumin

¼ tsp cayenne pepper
(I also added a small amount of Turmeric)

1 15 oz can of tomatoes (some of mine were fire roasted); or 4 large, fresh tomatoes, chopped

4 cups stock (I used vegetable broth)

salt to taste

1 un-waxed, organic lemon

Instructions

Heat oil in a medium pot and sauté onions, garlic and ginger for 5 minutes until soft. Add a pinch of salt.

Add spices and stir for another minute or so, until fragrant.

Add tomatoes, 3 slices of lemon and rinsed lentils, then add vegetable stock. Stir well.

Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer for about 30 minutes, or until the lentils are soft. Squeeze in the rest of the lemon juice.

Serve hot with some cilantro, green onions or parsley on top with a slice of lemon.

Happy soup-making, and please share your favorite (vegetarian) soup recipes in the comments if you have any!! I’m always looking for new ones to try!