Nine years ago, when I started my in home cooking Personal Chef Service, I also started doing Thanksgiving prep for one of my dearest college friends. Her family loves my roasted pumpkin soup, and requests it year after year after year. The original recipe is delicious, but labor intensive.

Roasted pumpkin soup

1 medium pumpkin, about 4 pounds
1 T butter
2 slices bacon, diced
1 large yellow onion, chopped
6 c chicken stock
½ c heavy cream, plus 1 c, for garnish
¼ c orange juice
large pinch freshly grated nutmeg
salt and freshly ground black pepper
whole leaves flat-leaf parsley, as a garnish
1 T chipotle pepper in adobo sauce

Preheat the oven to 375°. Halve the pumpkin from top to bottom and place it, cut side down, on an oiled baking sheet. Bake until the pumpkin can be easily skewered, 45-60 minutes. Cool for about 20 minutes. With a spoon, remove the seeds and discard. Scrape the pulp and reserve. Discard the skin. Melt butter in a soup pot over medium heat. Add the bacon and onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are soft and the bacon is just turning golden, about 7 minutes. Add the pumpkin and stock and simmer until the pumpkin falls apart, about 30 minutes. Let cool for about 20 minutes. In batches, puree the soup in a blender on high speed, 3 minutes per batch, until very smooth. Strain through a fine mesh into a clean soup pot and add the cream, orange juice and nutmeg. Season, to taste, with salt and pepper. If the soup is too thick, correct the consistency with additional water or stock. Chop 1 tablespoon chipotle pepper. Whip 1 cup cream to soft peak. Stir peppers into cream. Ladle the hot soup into bowls. Spoon dollop of chipotle cream into soup.



As my business grew, more people wanted Roasted pumpkin soup that I could start in their crockpots the day or two before Thanksgiving. Now, every year for Thanksgiving I make vats of roasted pumpkin soup with chipotle cream (one year I made eleven!), so I needed a modified recipe, I didn’t have time for cooking bacon from raw, cutting and cooking pumpkins, pureéing soup, and whipping cream (not to mention, fresh whipped cream doesn’t keep well for a day or two). Enter new recipe ... liquid smoke simulates smoky taste of bacon, canned pumpkin pureé and onion powder eliminate the need for roasting actual pumpkin and pureéing end product, and mascarpone cream is a nice substitute for the whipping cream, and also the tanginess of the mascarpone balances the sweet pumpkin soup nicely.

Slow cooker roasted pumpkin soup with chipotle cream

1 lg can pumpkin pureé
6 c chicken stock (or vegetable stock, for vegetarian soup)
½ t liquid smoke
%frac14; t onion powder
¼ t salt
1/8 t pepper
¼ c orange juice
1/8 t nutmeg, freshly grated
1 small tub mascarpone cream
1 T adobo sauce, from chipotles with adobo sauce

Place pumpkin, stock, liquid smoke, onion powder, salt, pepper, and orange juice in the slow cooker on low for 6 hours. Combine mascarpone and adobo sauce, store in refrigerator until ready to serve. When ready to serve, ladel soup into bowls, grate nutmeg over soup, and top with a dollop of mascarpone-chipotle cream.
Enjoy!