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Sweet Potato and Corn Chowder

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September is one of my favorite months of the year. It’s still warm enough in the day to wear flip flops, but the evenings are just cool enough to get me excited about soup season! This Sweet Potato and Corn Chowder is one of our family’s absolute favorite “early fall” soups. It’s quick to pull together and uses up lots of tasty goodies from the transitioning farmers markets.

 

Autumn Sweet Potato and Corn Chowder

Serves four to six as a main course

 

For the chowder:

 

For the seasoning paste:

 

Instructions (60 minutes total, 20 minutes active):

 

Prepare your produce: Peel and cut 4 cups of sweet potatoes into 1-inch chunks. Set aside. Remove corn kernels from cobs. DO NOT DISCARD COBS. Set aside. Thinly slice 2 leeks, whites and light green parts only. Mince three cloves garlic. Leeks and garlic may be stored together. Coarsely chop 1 T. of fresh thyme, leaves and tender stems only.

 

Prepare your seasoning paste: Except for the apple cider vinegar, measure and combine all ingredients listed under “for the seasoning paste.” When well combined, add 2 T. apple cider vinegar to the other seasonings, stirring to create a paste. Set aside.

 

Start your soup: Heat a large soup pot over medium heat for about five minutes. When hot, use kitchen shears to cut ¼ pound of nitrate-free bacon into ¼-inch strips directly into the hot pot. Brown bacon for about 5 minutes, until crisp. Use a slotted spoon to remove bacon to a paper towel-lined plate. Add prepared leeks and garlic to the bacon drippings. Saute for about 5 minutes. Add sweet potatoes and saute 2-3 minutes more. Add your seasoning paste and stir continuously for one minute more, being mindful not to let the spices burn. Add one quart filtered water and the corn cobs to the pot. Cover with a tight fitting lid and let simmer over medium heat for 25-30 minutes, until potatoes are tender and can be pierced easily with a fork.

 

Puree your chowder base: When potatoes are tender, remove pot from heat. Remove corn cobs and discard. Use an immersion blender to puree soup until smooth. (If you don’t have an immersion blender, you can pour hot soup into a regular blender, blend it like a smoothie and then return pureed soup to pot.)

 

Finishing your soup: When soup is smooth, return it back to the burner set on medium. Add corn kernels and fresh thyme to pot. Simmer for an additional 10 minutes. When 10 minutes have passed, turn off heat and stir in ½ c. of real sour cream and ¾ of the bacon. Ladle hot soup into bowls and garnish each bowl with a bit of the remaining bacon, an additional dollop of sour cream and a fresh thyme sprig, if desired. Serve and enjoy!

 

Notes: One of the best things about this soup is that it is so nutrient-dense that we often just enjoy it as a one-pot meal for dinner. If entertaining guests, this soup can easily be paired with a simple green salad and crusty bread. While packed with flavor, the spice blend is mild enough for even small children to enjoy and is a great way to introduce them to new and enticing flavors. This sweet potato and corn chowder is naturally gluten-free and nut-free. Vegetarians simply can omit the bacon and saute the leeks and garlic in 2 T. of real butter or extra virgin olive oil. If fresh corn is unavailable, substitute 2 cups of frozen corn kernels and add an additional teaspoon of organic cane sugar to the seasoning blend.

 

The Health Benefits of Sweet Potatoes

If you’ve not yet added this terrific tuber to your veggie rotation, it is time to give them a try. Research suggests that carotenoids, the nutrients that give sweet potatoes their deep orange hue, have many natural medicinal properties. Many experts even rank sweet potatoes as one of the top 10 superfoods! Regularly consuming sweet potatoes, as well as other orange winter squash, can help the body naturally lower blood pressure, prevent macular degeneration, fight inflammation, and even can slow the visible signs of aging. Carotenoids are a fat-soluble nutrient, so be sure you always add a little healthy fat when you consume them. In this soup, the bit of bacon drippings that the sweet potatoes are sauteed in actually make this meal more nutrient dense than if the bacon were left out. If that doesn’t make this a winning fall dinner for both the health nut and the foodie, I don’t know what does!

 

Shawnee mom Katie Newell is a former junk food junkie turned certified nutrition coach. She is also a culinary instructor, cookbook author and mama to two sweet girls, ages 8 and 9. You can check her out at HealthnutFoodie.com.

 

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