This creamy, sweet and spicy Sweet Potato Chipotle Soup was a perfect fit with my Mexican theme. The crunch of the apple corn salad gave it both textural and visual intrigue. Mike and Rebekah served an amazing applejack ginger beer cocktail with it and all in all, this course was an easy success. The Sweet Potato Chipotle Soup also stayed on the soup rotation in our house because it’s healthy as well as flavorful.

This recipe serves 6-8, but I tripled it for Thanksgiving. It scales well.

2 tablespoons oil
2 cups sweet yellow onion; large dice
2 cups fennel; large dice
2 cups celery; large dice
2 garlic cloves, smashed
1 bayleaf
1-inch piece fresh ginger; sliced
2 Granny smith apples—peeled, seeded and coarsely chopped
2 pounds sweet potatoes; peeled and sliced or roasted and scooped out
1 cup white wine
1 quart vegetable stock
2 cups water
1 cup apple cider
1-2 small canned chipotles in adobo sauce
Salt

1 pink lady apple; cut into ¼ inch cubes
fire roasted frozen corn
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 teaspoon lime zest
salt

In a medium soup pot, heat 2 tablespoons of the oil until shimmering. Add the onion, celery, fennel, garlic, bayleaf and ginger and cook over low heat, stirring, until softened, about 7 minutes. Add the apples and the white wine and cook until the wine evaporates. Add the sweet potatoes and cook for 5 minutes. Add the stock, cider and water and bring to a boil. Cover partially and simmer over low heat until the fruit and vegetables are very tender (45 minutes). Stir in the chipotle (don’t bother to seed or dice since you’re puréeing anyway. Remove the bayleaf. Purée the soup until smooth. Season with salt. Make the corn apple salad. When serving, spoon 1-2 tablespoons onto the soup.Notes: I made it with roasted sweet potatoes once and big chunks of raw the other and didn’t notice a huge difference, so if you hate peeling- I’d roast first then scoop. I puréed with my immersion blender so I wasn’t that particular about cutting things small- big chunks of everything worked really well.