Herbed Vegetable Quinoa Soup with Swiss Chard

I’m not going to lie, I need to lose some weight. My love for food and sweets has caught up with me. I think I eat a pretty healthy diet, I just eat too much of it. As for the sweets, I just love baking. I think I love the process of baking even more than the eating. But then it’s really hard to resist consuming all these sweets lying around the kitchen. So my solution isn’t drastic by any means. It’s pretty simple: stop baking and cut back on everything else.

Salad always come to mind when trying to lose weight. While I love salads, I can’t eat just salad for lunch. It doesn’t fill me up. Plus, it’s not very warm and comforting on a January afternoon. Now soup, on the other hand, is filling and warm. It’s also low in calories and high in veggies, like salad. I decided to try making my own nutritious soup that would satisfy me and be low in calories.

I wanted to incorporate a very nutritious leafy green that I usually overlook: Swiss Chard. It is one of the healthiest veggies out there and you can read all about it here. It has antioxidants, vitamins, calcium, and fiber. Because it is acidic, it is recommended that it be boiled before eating to release the acid and make it less bitter. I found rainbow Swiss chard on my latest trip to the store. Isn’t it beautiful? You know anything that colorful has to be highly nutritious (unfortunately, it’s not recommended eating the colored stems). So for the rest of the soup, I just added my favorite veggies and that wonderful protein-filled quinoa. Some dried herbs and a sprinkle of goat cheese before serving really make this soup delicious.

Note: This makes a lot of soup, about 6 to 8 servings, so you can freeze it in individual containers to have a bowl of soup whenever desired.

Herbed Vegetable Quinoa Soup with Swiss Chard
(This is not a low-FODMAP recipe)

Ingredients

1 ½ Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
½ large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups sliced carrots
2 cups sliced celery
8 oz. mushrooms, sliced
2 tsp. dried basil
1 tsp. dried, crushed rosemary
½ tsp. dried thyme
½ tsp. fresh ground black pepper
64 oz. (8 cups) vegetable broth
½ cup quinoa, rinsed
4 cups chopped Swiss chard leaves
crumbled goat cheese (optional)

Directions

1. Heat oil over medium heat in a large pot or Dutch oven. Add onion, garlic, carrots, celery, mushrooms, herbs and pepper and sauté until onions and mushrooms are tender, about 10 minutes.
2. Add broth and quinoa, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 15  minutes, or until quinoa and carrots are tender.
3. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to a boil, add Swiss chard and boil for 3 minutes, or until tender. Drain. Stir chard into soup.
4. Serve with crumble goat cheese on top.