With chipotle, apples, ginger and lime, this savory spicy Sweet Potato Soup recipe is a healthy and hearty Fall dinner entree. Serve along side a green salad for a super healthy meal.
This recipe was first published in February, 2015 and updated November, 2020
About This Soup and Why It Works
When the weather turns chilly, this is one of the first soup recipes I turn to, to celebrate Fall.
The prep for this soup is easy and the reward a complex set of flavors that will wow your dinner crowd.
This spicy sweet potato soup is a one pot meal that the whole family will love. Paired with a simple green salad and some bread, it’s the perfect light dinner.
Sweet potatoes are super healthy, packed with nutrients, antioxidants and fiber. Making them a wise choice for health. Adding adobo sauce from a can of chipotle peppers, adds spicy smoky fun and excitement to the overall flavor.
The ease of this sweet potato soup recipe is just an added bonus to the flavor that comes along for the ride. Onions, celery, Granny Smith apples are just the beginning of the lineup.
In the end you have a combination of sweet, savory, spicy and creamy. Sounds perfect, doesn’t it?
Ingredients for Spicy Sweet Potato Soup
- Chicken Broth: Is the only liquid used to make this soup which makes this a non-dairy sweet potato soup.
- Onions and Celery: Onions and celery are sauteed in oil and butter for the foundation to build flavor. Sweet onions or yellow onions are used for this soup.
- Oil and Butter: Why use both? Butter brings that buttery flavor, while vegetable oil, with its higher heat index will keep the butter from burning, allowing you to saute the onions and celery to their desired tenderness.
- Ginger and Garlic: Ginger has a great flavor profile to compliment sweet potato and would soup be soup without garlic?
- Granny Smith Apples: A crisp hard apple with a sharp flavor offsets the sweetness of the sweet potato.
- Chipotle Sauce: Using the sauce that surrounds those chipotle peppers in adobo brings a welcome just right spicy heat and smoky flavor.
- Lime Juice: Acidic lime juice balances and brightens flavors.
Ingredient Swaps
- Chicken Broth: Substitute Vegetable Broth to make this a vegetarian sweet potato soup.
- Granny Smith Apples: You can substitute any crisp tart apple for the Granny Smith Apples. Pink Lady Apples, Braeburn, McIntosh, or Jonathan apples are a good choice. Avoid sweet apples like Gala, or Golden Delicious. With the sweetness from the sweet potato, a sweet apple will make the soup overly sweet.
- Chipotle Sauce: Don’t have a can of Chipotle Peppers en Adobo? Use 1 Tablespoon of Tomato Paste and 1 teaspoon of hot smoked paprika.
- Lime Juice: Out of limes? Add 1 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar instead. It will serve the same purpose to balance and brighten the flavor.
- Sweet Potatoes: You can substitute Butternut Squash for the Sweet Potatoes. The soup won’t be quite as sweet but still incredible with flavor.
- Sour Cream: This soup is shown garnished with sour cream. You can switch out the sour cream with non-fat Greek yogurt for a healthier option.
How To Make Spicy Sweet Potato Soup
Step 1 Step 2
- Step 1: Add butter and olive oil to a Dutch oven. When butter starts to bubble, add the celery and onion and cook until tender, about 5 – 6 minutes.
- Step 2: Add chopped apples, garlic, and ginger. Cook until fragrant, about 2 minutes.
Step 3Step 4
- Step 3: Add the stock, water and sweet potatoes to the pot. Increase the heat to high and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and simmer soup until the vegetables are tender, 25 – 30 minutes.
- Step 4: Using an immersion blender, puree the soup until smooth.
- Serve and garnish with cilantro, pepita seeds and sour cream.
FAQ’s and Tips
I pick around the ginger bin for the smallest piece I can find because it usually goes bad in the fridge before I can use it all. Freeze it! Put it in a plastic bag and freeze it and when you need a little, just pull it out and zest it using a microplane. You don’t even need to peel it. No more wrestling with mincing that fibrous chunk of ginger.
You really don’t need to spend time scraping the leaves from the stalks. Just chop it together with the leaves. Unlike other leafy herbs, the stalks of cilantro are not bitter. You can use it all.
Absolutely. The soup won’t be quite as sweet, but the flavor will still be outstanding. Pro tip: Add carrot to butternut squash soup for color.
Yes, but be careful with the hot liquid. Only fill the canister of the blender half full. Place the lid on top, slightly ajar, holding the lid with your hand. Blend in batches.
Drizzle don’t drop. Use a squeeze bottle to drizzle cream, yogurt or sour cream over any soup. Thin yogurt or sour cream with milk. Don’t just plop a dollop in the center of the soup. A drizzle is much prettier don’t you think? To make the simple design in the photography, just take a toothpick and drag through the strip of sour cream.
Chipotle Sweet Potato Soup Recipe with Apple
Just serve this with a simple tossed salad and some crusty bread. A perfect Fall meal.
I hope you give this spicy Sweet Potato Soup recipe a try. And if you do, please come back and let me know how you liked it and give the recipe a star rating.
And please scroll down and leave a message about your experience with the recipe. Your feedback is valuable to me for developing future recipes. And if you have a favorite Sweet Potato Soup recipe, let me know, I’d love to give it a try.
Relates Recipes
- Curried Butternut Squash Soup with Sausage
- Fire Roasted Creamy Tomato Soup
- Cheesy Potato Soup Recipe (Potage Creme de Fromage)
And if you love soup recipes as much as we do, don’t miss my Soup Category, you’ll find lots of great recipes, along with the most popular on my site for Anthony Bourdain’s New Mexico Style Chili.
Spicy Sweet Potato Soup Recipe with Apples
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon Vegetable oil
- 1 tablespoon Butter
- 1 1/2 cups Yellow onion chopped
- 2 ribs Celery cut crosswise into thin slices
- 2 Granny Smith apples cores removed and cut into 1 inch dice
- 1 large clove garlic peeled and thin sliced
- 1 teaspoon Fresh ginger grated
- 1 tablespoon Adobo sauce from canned chipotles with adobo or more depending on taste and heat level
- salt and pepper to taste
- 4 cups Chicken or vegetable broth
- 1 cup Water
- 1 1/2 pounds Sweet potatoes peeled and cut into 1 inch dice
- 1 tablespoon Lime juice fresh squeezed
- 2 tablespoons Toasted Pepita Seeds
- Cilantro leaves and Greek Yogurt or Sour Cream for garnish
Instructions
- Place a large Dutch oven over medium heat. Once hot, add the oil and butter and heat until the butter melts.
- Add the onion and celery and cook until tender and translucent, about 6 minutes.
- Add the apples, garlic, ginger and chipotle sauce. Season with salt and pepper and cook until fragrant, about 2 minutes.
- Add the stock, water and sweet potatoes to the pot. Increase the heat to high and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and simmer soup until the vegetables are tender, 25 – 30 minutes.
- Using an immersion blender, puree the soup until smooth. Add the lime juice, taste and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.
- Divide soup among bowls, garnish with pumpkin seeds and cilantro leaves and serve.
Notes
Nutrition
Spicy Sweet Potato Soup with Apples and Chipotle …It’s what’s for Dinner.
Why Trust These Recipes? Lea Ann Brown has lived, worked and played in Colorado for 45 years. She has immersed herself in the Colorado Culinary space, is a Culinary School Graduate and publishes her Colorado food Blog, Cooking On The Ranch.
the perfect soup for cool fall weather. Love the combination of ingredients with the spicy chipotle. I love adding apple to fall squashes.
Hi MJ, always good to hear from you. I really like the flavors in this soup, and the best part – hubby raved too. 🙂
What an interesting collection of ingredients. I can’t even imagine what it taste like so I guess I’ll have to try it.
Some great ideas in there, like the carrot for color. What a fun what to spend a long lunch…and tax deductible too! 😉
You got that right …. actually I’m in love with my expense account. Hey our other reps spend it on the golf course, mine is in the kitchen. :0
Sweet potatoes and chipotles are so good together. What a great soup and fun class!
Really useful post! I learned some new things — never thought to freeze ginger. And I’ve always pulled the leaves off cilantro before mincing. But no more! I really need that glove — love my mandoline, but it scares me to death! Good read — thanks.
Eh hem… Im a Realtor client and I wanna do this! 😉 Looks delicious! I love soup! Any soup!
I like sweet potatoes but have never had it as the primary ingredient in a soup…it sounds great.
Thanks Karen. Always good to hear from you.
Sweet Potato, apple and chiptole what a stunning combination of flavors. Love it! I really enjoy cooking classes, There is nothing that makes me happier than being up close and personal with my food. Thanks for sharing with us.
Velva
Thanks Velva. This soup was surprisingly good. I’m so glad I went to that class.
What a treat to go to a Sur la Table class, I took two last year and would really enjoy another one. Maybe we could get some food bloggers to meet up at one sometime soon? This soup recipe is exactly what I needed tonight– I have some sweet potatoes ready to be used. Last time I made a sweet potato and pear soup which is good but chipotle sounds so much better! Can’t wait to try it.
I think that would be a great time Holly!
Woow, what a fun and great experience this is… I want that fridge too 🙂 may be the whole kitchen. Avery elegant dish and an awesome presentation.
That kitchen was amazing, and I just thought I had a lot of kitchen gadgets. 🙂
I took one of their classes a few years ago and had a blast! Thanks for reminding me how much fun it was, I need to book another one…
I really enjoyed it and have signed up for another this month. Thai at home. yay.
Loved your post, Lea Ann! The food looked amazing and I got so many tips: from how to cut the orange, to drying the salmon and freezing the ginger. Now all I have to do is remember everything! Thank you for sharing.
Thanks Kate. I really enjoyed the class.
Wonderful of you to share all that info! I do use a glove with my mandolin and rinse it and hang it to dry on the bag dryer in a humorous gesture. I like segmenting the Orange over a bowl for salad dressing. The ginger and sour cream tips will always be used. And I love this soup recipe! Loved this post!!
And you’ve been keeping that little glove tip from me all these years??? I just used mine for the first time today and can’t wait to hang it in that humorous gesture. Thanks for that tip! 🙂
what fun, a cooking class … Mexican and healthy. somehow those two words shouldn’t go together. Guess I’ll be throwing out my lard used for tamales!!!!
Have made a similar soup with sweet potato and chorizo – would love the smoky base…
Have a great Super Sunday!
I’m not afraid of Lard. I don’t’ use it all that often and it’s great for flavor. And our teacher pointed out to everyone to not be afraid of butter. It’s those natural fats. I love love love your chorizo idea. I’ll add it next time.
what fun
So much good information here Lea Ann. I’ve never seen an orange segmented in that manner and the glove is a great idea for the mandolin. I always thought that if you used non-stick cookware that you shouldn’t heat the pan dry. Hmm, lots of new stuff here and all very useful. Love the kick of chipotle in your sweet potato soup. Sometimes it’s a little too sweet for me, but the chipotle will certainly cure that.
Sam
She was using a non-stick brand called Scan Pan. Not a teflon product at all. I’ll have to ask about that next class Sam. The chipotle was most certainly a great flavor for this soup. We loved it.
I need that glove! What a great experience,
I’ve got that glove and plan on using it today. I’m making that Jicima salad. 🙂
Healthy Mexican is a fun class. My daughter and I are enrolled in a macaron class and are looking so forward to it. This soup looks great.
I saw that Macaroon class, looks like fun. I need to take a basic “flour” class before I venture that far. 😉