One pot, protein packed vegetarian West African Peanut Soup – mashed sweet potatoes, collard greens in a slightly spicy peanut stew that’s both comforting and nutritious! | Gluten Free + Vegan + Sugar Free
Peanut butter & tomatoes: not exactly two foods you’d normally think to pair together but hear me out because this soup is next level.
It’s everything you want out of a meal:
✔️Healthy
✔️Easy
✔️Comforting
✔️Delicious
Not to mention it uses fairly basic pantry essentials with very little clean up involved because it’s all made in one pot!
There are many different versions of West African peanut soup that you can find – this one takes inspiration from a few of my favourites. While there are many different variations to make the basics are almost certainly the same:
- onion, ginger and garlic base
- tomato and peanut butter paste
- sweet potatoes help thicken
- some sort of leafy green vegetable added at the end
Let’s get to it!
How to Make: One Pot African Peanut Soup
The key here is to layer your flavours in stages.
Like most great recipes – start out by sautéing your chopped onion, garlic and ginger in a little bit of oil. Give those base ingredients time to soften and deepen in flavour.
After a few minutes add in your spices: cumin, red chili flakes and salt followed by the sweet potatoes, tomato paste and peanut butter before finally adding the vegetable stock. Stir it all up until the peanut butter/tomato mixture dissolves fully into the vegetable stock.
Turn up the heat, cover and let cook about 15-20 minutes until the sweet potato is soft and tender. When the sweet potato has softened enough use the back of a wooden spoon to start mashing up about half of the sweet potato. This will help thick and add a little more body to your stew.
Finally, add in the collard greens and boil uncovered an additional five minutes and that’s basically it. Taste and season with more salt as needed. If you want a soup with more of a kick feel free to add more chili flakes in as well.
Top with a fresh cilantro and serve with a side of rice or quinoa to really bulk it out for an even heartier meal.
This soup is kind of the perfect winter meal when you’re wanting to eat something healthy and nutritious so you don’t regret all your life decisions later but you really just want to cozy up with some good old fashioned comfort food.
Enjoy!
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One Pot African Peanut Soup
One pot, protein packed vegetarian West African Peanut Soup - mashed sweet potatoes, collard greens in a slightly spicy peanut stew that's both comforting and nutritious! | Gluten Free + Vegan + Sugar Free
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoons coconut oil, avocado oil or any neutral taste cooking oil
- 1 medium onion
- 4 cloves | about 2 tablespoons garlic
- 2 inch chunk | about 2 tablespoons ginger
- 2 teaspoons cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon red chili flakes
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 pound sweet potatoes, peeled & cut into 1/2 inch cubes
- 1/2 cup tomato paste
- 1/2 cup no sugar added peanut butter, smooth or chunky
- 5 cups low sodium vegetable stock
- 1 bunch | about 2-3 cups collard greens, ribs removed and chopped into bite sized pieces*
- fresh cilantro
Instructions
- In a large cooking pot warm the oil on a medium heat. Once warm, add the chopped onion, ginger and garlic and sauté for about 5 minutes.
- Stir in the cumin, chili flakes and salt and cook 1 minute. Add the sweet potatoes, tomato paste and peanut butter. Finally, add in the vegetable stock. Mix until the stock dissolves the tomato paste and peanut mixture.
- Turn the heat up, cover the pot and bring to a boil. Once boiled remove lid and reduce the heat to a simmer. Let simmer about 15 minutes or until the sweet potatoes are soft and tender. Use the back of wooden spoon to mash up about half the potatoes to thicken the soup.
- Add the collard greens, turn up the heat and boil uncovered for 5 minutes. Taste and season with more salt if needed. Serve with a side of rice, top with fresh cilantro and chopped peanuts if desired and enjoy!
Notes
*lactino/dino kale can be used in place of the collard greens
You can add chicken or chickpeas for additional protein.
Carole says
Very good. Not too hot but has some heat to it. Used spinach instead of collard greens which I had on hand. I topped with chopped peanuts.
Sarah Nevins says
Thanks so much, Carole! I’m so glad to hear you enjoyed it – thanks for coming back and leaving a review!
Justyna says
I’ve been obsessed with savoury peanut butter dishes lately. Thanks for the recipe!
Sarah Nevins says
Agreed! I’m all for a dish with a peanut butter sauce! Hope you love it 🙂
Leigh Fellner Harris says
Just incredible. I added a bit of chicken to the mix just because I had it around. The ultimate comfort food, the way thom ka gai (chicken coconut soup) is. I can see this over rice, too!
Sarah Nevins says
I’m so glad you enjoyed it! Thanks Leigh!
Ashley says
Could you replace the tomato paste with canned pumpkin? Tomato gives me super heartburn 🙁
Sarah says
Hi Ashely! You can certainly try it! I haven’t tried that out myself so I can’t say how it will affect the taste, but if you don’t normally eat tomatoes I don’t think you’ll be missing anything
Punam - Indian Recipes says
Never prepared this type of recipe with peanut ever, thus tried it at home. Its fa-bilious.
Sarah says
So glad you liked it! Thanks so much for coming back to let me know what you thought!