3 Moringa Soup Recipes: Chicken Ginger, Red Lentil, Coconut Squash
Three moringa soups from a grower's kitchen: a Filipino-style chicken and ginger broth with fresh leaves, a red lentil soup with powder, and a coconut squash soup.
Moringa soup is the oldest way people have eaten this plant, and still the best way to eat a lot of it. In the Philippines, where the tree is called malunggay, a chicken and ginger broth finished with a handful of fresh leaves is weeknight food. In South India, the leaves and pods go into lentil sambar. The pattern is the same everywhere moringa grows: build a savory base, then add the leaf at the very end so it stays bright and tender. I grow moringa at the nursery in Weeki Wachee, and once the fall evenings cool off these three soups are what the harvest turns into. One uses fresh leaves, one uses powder, and one works with either.
The one rule: leaf goes in last
Fresh moringa leaflets cook in about two minutes. Simmer them for twenty and they turn olive-drab and soft. Moringa powder is even more sensitive because the leaf has already been dried gently; a long boil dulls both its color and its flavor. So in every recipe below the moringa goes in after the heat is off, or in the last minute of cooking, and it is stirred in rather than boiled. That one habit separates a soup that looks like spring from one that looks like pond water.
If you have a tree, use fresh leaflets in the first two soups. The fresh-leaf guide covers stripping and washing. If you do not, powder works in all three, and the ratio chart gives amounts for other dishes.
1. Chicken and ginger moringa broth (tinola-style)
A clean, restorative broth that is mostly about ginger and the green flavor of the leaf. This is the soup I make when someone in the house is under the weather and wants something light, and it is the recipe I hand to anyone who asks what to do with fresh moringa.
- 1 tablespoon neutral oil
- 1 medium onion, sliced
- 4 cloves garlic, smashed
- A 3-inch piece of ginger, peeled and cut into thin coins
- 2 pounds bone-in chicken thighs, or a mix of thighs and drumsticks
- 8 cups water or light chicken stock
- 2 tablespoons fish sauce (or 1 tablespoon salt)
- 1 green papaya or chayote, peeled, seeded, and cut into chunks (a couple of zucchini work too)
- 3 to 4 cups loosely packed fresh moringa leaflets, stripped from the stems (or 2 teaspoons moringa powder)
- Black pepper, lime or calamansi to serve
Warm the oil in a big pot over medium heat and cook the onion, garlic, and ginger until soft and fragrant, five minutes or so. Add the chicken and turn it in the aromatics for a couple of minutes. Pour in the water and fish sauce, bring to a boil, then lower to a gentle simmer, skim, and cook until the chicken is tender, about thirty-five minutes. Add the papaya or chayote and simmer ten more minutes until just tender.
Turn off the heat. Stir in the moringa leaflets, put the lid on, and wait two minutes. They wilt in the residual heat and stay bright green. Season with pepper and more fish sauce if it needs it, and serve with rice and a wedge of lime. If using powder, whisk it into a ladle of the hot broth first, then stir that back into the pot.
2. Red lentil and moringa soup
The pantry soup. It needs nothing fresh at all, takes half an hour, and takes moringa powder better than any other dish I know, because red lentils are mild and the spices carry the green.
- 2 tablespoons olive oil or ghee
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2 carrots, chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tablespoon grated ginger
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin, 1 teaspoon ground coriander, 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
- 1 1/2 cups red lentils, rinsed
- 6 cups water or vegetable stock
- 1 can (14 oz) diced tomatoes
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 2 teaspoons moringa powder (or 2 cups fresh leaflets)
- Juice of 1 lemon
- To serve: yogurt, chili flakes, chopped cilantro
Cook the onion and carrot in the oil until soft. Add the garlic, ginger, and spices and stir for a minute until fragrant. Add the lentils, water, tomatoes, and salt. Bring to a boil, then simmer, partly covered, for twenty to twenty-five minutes until the lentils have collapsed. Blend it partly with a stick blender if you like it smooth, or leave it rustic.
Off the heat, whisk the moringa powder into a ladle of the hot soup until there are no lumps, then stir that back in with the lemon juice. Taste for salt. Serve with a spoon of yogurt and some chili. Fresh leaflets, if you have them, go in for the last two minutes of simmering instead.
This soup is better the next day and freezes well. The moringa color fades a little on reheating but the flavor holds.
3. Coconut, squash, and moringa soup
The rich one. Butternut and coconut milk are sweet and mellow, and moringa gives them an earthy edge that keeps the soup from being cloying. Works with fresh leaf or powder.
- 1 tablespoon coconut oil
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, 1 tablespoon grated ginger
- 1 tablespoon red curry paste (optional but good)
- 1 medium butternut squash, about 2 1/2 pounds, peeled and cubed
- 3 cups vegetable or chicken stock
- 1 can (14 oz) full-fat coconut milk
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon lime juice
- 1 1/2 teaspoons moringa powder, or 2 cups fresh leaflets
- To serve: toasted pumpkin seeds, a swirl of coconut milk, a pinch of extra moringa powder
Soften the onion in the coconut oil, add the garlic, ginger, and curry paste, and cook a minute. Add the squash, stock, most of the coconut milk (save a few spoonfuls for serving), and salt. Simmer twenty minutes until the squash is soft. Blend smooth.
If using fresh leaflets, add them to the pot and blend them in; they will turn the soup a deeper green-gold and the flavor is lovely. If using powder, whisk it in off the heat with the lime juice. Serve with pumpkin seeds, a swirl of the reserved coconut milk, and a light dusting of powder on top, which looks better than it has any right to.
Adapting other soups
Any soup you already make can take moringa with the same rule. A teaspoon of powder per four servings, or a cup or two of fresh leaflets, stirred in off the heat. It suits brothy Asian soups, dals and lentil soups, bean soups, and anything with coconut. It is less at home in cream-based European soups and tomato soup, where the green flavor argues with the base; there, cut the amount in half. A pinch of powder on top of a bowl at the table, like chopped parsley, works on nearly everything.
Fresh leaf: how much is a cup
Fresh moringa leaflets are light and fluffy. A loosely packed cup is a good handful, and it wilts down to a tablespoon or two. Three to four cups sounds like a lot and is the right amount for a big pot of broth; the leaf shrinks and the flavor is mild. A tree pruned every couple of weeks produces exactly this kind of tender leaflet in quantity through the summer and fall, which is the point of the hedge method.
FAQ
When do you add moringa leaves to soup?
At the end. Turn off the heat, stir in the leaflets, cover for two minutes. They cook in the residual heat and stay bright green. Long simmering turns them drab and soft.
Can I use moringa powder in soup?
Yes, and it is one of the best uses for it. Whisk one to two teaspoons into a ladle of hot soup until smooth, then stir it back into the pot off the heat, so it disperses without clumping and does not boil.
How much moringa powder should I put in soup?
About one teaspoon per four servings for a mild green note, up to two teaspoons for a pot of lentil or bean soup. Add it off the heat and taste before adding more.
Does moringa soup taste bitter?
Not when the leaf is tender and added at the end. Fresh moringa tastes green and slightly peppery, like watercress. Bitterness usually means old, tough leaflets, stems left in, or powder that was boiled too long.
Can I freeze moringa soup?
Yes. The lentil and squash soups freeze well for three months. The color fades slightly on reheating but the flavor holds. The chicken broth freezes too; add fresh leaflets after reheating rather than before freezing.
The short version
Build the soup, then add the moringa off the heat: fresh leaflets wilted for two minutes under a lid, or powder whisked into a ladle of broth and stirred back in. A chicken and ginger broth with fresh leaves, a red lentil soup with two teaspoons of powder, and a coconut squash soup with either, and you have used a real quantity of moringa in three dinners without any of them tasting like a health food.
