At the last minute, I needed to stay home and make dinner – so while scrounging through my staple supplies of groceries, I found 3 simple ingredients to whip up a quick-boil Chinese soup with noodles. I say quick-boil because this soup took me about 10 minutes to prep and then boiled on medium-high heat for about 30 minutes. On top of that, we ended up eating all the contents as sides, which saved me even more time! It pays to have extras in the fridge sometimes!
What’s involved?
Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 30 mins
Total time: 40 mins
Serves: 6 bowls
Ingredients
1 tablespoon of dried shredded conpoys (can use whole ones as well)
Traditional Chinese Name: 三色椒素湯 (sān sè jiāo sù tāng)
Introduction:
I was inspired to make this soup from my mother-in-law, who used the tri-coloured peppers with pork in one of her soups. You don’t immediately associate these peppers to taste good in soups, but with the right combination of ingredients, it’s actually pretty tasty and extremely healthy! I went for a vegetarian soup to keep it clean and simple and used chestnuts to enhance the soup flavour (instead of meat). My husband is normally not a fan of my “natural & bland” soups, but he thought this was a hit and went back for thirds. To have the kids drink more, I made Japanese noodles and used the soup as the soup base and they drank/ate it all – fabulous!
Amount serves: 8 large bowls
What Ingredients are required?
10 fresh chestnuts, peeled 1 red bell pepper, halved 1 large white onion, halved 1 yellow bell pepper, halved 1 green bell pepper, halved 3 large fresh corn, quartered 3 fresh tomatoes, halved
3 L of water
How do I prepare it?
In a separate pot (not your soup pot), boil the chestnuts for 5 minutes
Remove from heat and immediately peel the chestnuts (both the outer skin and the inner skin)
Boil your soup water
Prepare your vegetables
When the water boils, add all the ingredients together
Boil on medium for 1.5 hours (or use a thermal pot for at least 1.5 hours)
Any benefits?
This soup contains no fat
All natural ingredients serves as a hearty meal
Bell peppers are an excellent source of carotenoids, Vitamin C, A, B6 and E
This soup is packed with antioxidants, which help in staying youthful!
All the ingredients of this soup are readily available and easy to find
Any precautions?
Bell peppers’ benefits can be reduced when it’s been exposed to high heat (and breaks down)
