When the cooler season arrives, autumn soups become an irresistible comfort food: creamy, nutritious, and perfect for warming up with something wholesome. Among the many seasonal recipes, the soup with buckwheat, chickpeas, and pumpkin is one of the simplest and tastiest.
The combination of chickpeas and pumpkin – already tried in other delicious recipes like the pumpkin cream with chickpeas or the rice with pumpkin, chickpeas, and bacon – proves to be a winning one: soft and enveloping flavors that perfectly tell the story of autumn cuisine made of rustic and characterful ingredients.
Buckwheat, naturally gluten-free, is also perfect for celiacs, who instead cannot consume cereals often present in this type of soups, such as barley, spelt, or wheat. You just need to boil it separately and add it at the end of cooking, as in the recipe of the bean soup with buckwheat.
Among the autumn starters most comforting and genuine, this soup with buckwheat, chickpeas, and pumpkin brings all the aroma and color of the season to the table, ideal for those looking for a healthy, complete, and naturally gluten-free dish!
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- Difficulty: Very Easy
- Cost: Very Cheap
- Preparation time: 15 Minutes
- Portions: 4 People
- Cooking methods: Stove
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Autumn, Winter
- Energy 295.23 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 43.54 (g) of which sugars 4.43 (g)
- Proteins 10.57 (g)
- Fat 10.02 (g) of which saturated 1.31 (g)of which unsaturated 0.66 (g)
- Fibers 7.93 (g)
- Sodium 472.44 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 355 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients for the Soup with Buckwheat, Chickpeas, and Pumpkin
Although buckwheat is naturally gluten-free, you may find the label “may contain traces of gluten,” possibly due to processing in the same facility as wheat, barley, etc. In such cases, it’s enough to inspect the grains one by one, eliminate any cereals other than buckwheat, and rinse thoroughly under running water.
- 14 oz pumpkin
- 4.2 oz buckwheat
- 10 cooked chickpeas
- 1 clove garlic
- 3 cups vegetable broth (approximately)
- 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1 pinch salt
- to taste pepper
- 1 sprig rosemary
Tools
- 2 Pots
- 1 Cutting Board
- 1 Knife
- 1 Sieve
- 1 Immersion Blender
How to Prepare the Soup with Buckwheat, Chickpeas, and Pumpkin
To prepare the soup with buckwheat, chickpeas, and pumpkin, start by removing the peel and seeds from the pumpkin. You should get about 14 oz of pulp. Then cut it into cubes of about 1.5 cm (0.6 inches) per side (1). Put the oil and peeled garlic in a pot (2).
Lightly sauté it, then add the pumpkin and already cooked chickpeas (3). Season with salt and pepper and let it flavor for about a minute. Then pour in the hot vegetable broth (4), cover with a lid, and let it cook over low heat for about 15 minutes. The amount of vegetable broth depends on how soupy you want the soup to be; you can also add only 400-500 ml (about 1.7-2.1 cups) at the start and keep some more on the heat to add as needed.
In the meantime, boil the buckwheat in plenty of lightly salted water for the time indicated on the package (depending on whether the buckwheat is whole or hulled, the times vary by 5-7 minutes). When it’s ready, strain it and set aside (5). When the pumpkin is cooked and starts to break apart (6), remove the garlic.
With an immersion blender, lightly blend the soup so that it becomes creamier (7). You can take a portion and blend it in the blender glass or use the blender directly in the pot, but in this case, be careful not to blend it completely. You need to achieve a creamy mixture with visible pieces of pumpkin and whole chickpeas (8).
At this point, add the cooked buckwheat (9) and continue to cook the soup for 2-3 minutes over low heat, stirring often, until it reaches the desired thickness (10). If it seems too thick, you can add a little more hot broth.
Turn off the heat and finish with some chopped rosemary. Serve the soup with buckwheat, chickpeas, and pumpkin garnished with a drizzle of raw oil and a grind of pepper.
Storage
You can store the soup in the refrigerator, closed in a glass jar, for a couple of days.
Tips and Variations
For this recipe, I used common pumpkin, but if you have varieties with a more pronounced flavor – like Delica, Hokkaido – the soup will be even tastier and creamier.
For an even more autumnal flavor, try adding 5 or 6 crumbled boiled chestnuts!
