A vegan style light and hearty legume Gungo peas soup is a copy cat version with yam, callaloo and sweet potatoes for nutritional density

During the summer period soup is probably the last thing on your mind. I know when I'm feeling overly warm the last thing on my mind is to consume something that's hot - are you crazy? My body would feel like a furnace, just thinking about it sends on a hot flush.

Lately I've been looking at a few recipes to add to my website, something that is passable yet uncommon over the summer time which brought me to this Jamaican gungo peas soup.

While I know most of you guys are sipping on smoothies, pimms and chomping on healthy salads.

I thought I might be able to get away with slipping in this Jamaican gungo peas soup - it's tasty, brimming with tropical flavours and filling too!

What are gungo peas?

In case you're not in the know, gungo peas are a localised term for what others may know as pigeon peas. Gungo peas and pigeon peas are legumes so they belong to the same family.

A few weeks ago I created this pigeon pea salad with an irresistible ginger lime dressing. The feedback exceeded my expectations.

My aim is to appeal to everyone's taste buds (at least I try to) and present many variations of Caribbean cuisine which is why I also made this Jamaican Curry Gungo Peas dish.

Adding that vegan twist

Now it must be said that this gungo peas soup dish is a copy cat version. The originally contains a small selection of meat (ham hock, stewing beef and pigs tail).

My family always made this recipe omitting the meat with great results, mom would follow the traditional format only leaving out the meat and supplementing with more veggies just like I did in my Jamaican Pumpkin Soup.

Being the health freak that I am, I couldn't resist applying even more adaptations to make my very own signature style.

For instance, adding vegetable stock to form the foundation, then adding the vegetables and ground provisions to the body of the soup.

What are ground provisions?

In the Caribbean, tubular root vegetables are known as ground provisions or hard food, they usually consist of sweet potato, cassava, dasheen (taro), yam anything that's grown from the ground (the clue is in the name) and used in soups, stews or simply eaten by themselves.

Making Jamaican gungo peas soup

This texture of the soup is a light broth considering there's a few starchy vegetables thrown in - yam and sweet potatoes. You can add more if you wish, just be mindful that starch veggies are dense and this could alter the taste and texture.

I try to keep a subtle balance because the duration of simmering is approximately an hour. As the soup is left to simmer it thickens on it's own, no powdered starch is required.

I also added some fresh callaloo - a leafy green that belong to the spinach family.

Feel Free to add any dumpling if you want to this recipe. Here are a few good choices Cornmeal Dumpling, Boiled Dumpling (plain) and Cassava.

You may even want to add some Green Banana too or instead.

Notes and tips

Most of the ground provisions listed can be purchased with a Caribbean grocery, just ask if you're not sure about what to buy.
Make sure to use brown gungo peas NOT the green ones.
If you can't find callaloo, just use spinach or kale instead.
This soup is suitable for vegans and a gluten free lifestyle
Gungo peas are also known as pigeon peas

Click here to learn how to make your own veggie stock for all your recipes.

Other Caribbean soup recipes to try

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