Biryani Soup Recipe {Unofficial Slimming World}

A super easy and healthy biryani soup recipe cooked in a pan or soup maker and suitable for a Slimming World diet. Uses orzo pasta instead of rice.

After an intense start to the day (I may have pushed myself a little too hard starting Level 2 of the 30 Day Shred exercise program) and really craved a much lighter soup than my Winter warmer Pea & Ham recipe that I posted the other day.  

And while my much loved Fat-Free Indian cookbook was still at hand from making last night's Chicken Jalfrezi, I feast my eyes on yet another I couldn't resist adapting. 

I love this book as there's so many dishes that seem adaptable to a "diet" plan; I use quotations here because I am not a fan of this term as it should be a lifestyle thing.

I'm also a big fan of giving popular dishes a twist when the Morphy Richards Soup Maker is around and if it helps you and I then I'd like to think it's a win-win partnership we have going on.  

So this is my take on a traditional Biryani rice dish, but as a soup;  In an ideal situation, I would have added lean fried chicken but since it meant defrosting, I was out of time and luck and had to go without and focus predominantly on vegetables and some chicken stockpot.  

Do tell me what it's like if you make it with this, won't you?  No doubt I'll be making this again and hopefully, I will plan it better for next time.  If you're a vegetarian or vegan in this case, then all you have to do is swap the chicken stockpot to the ones of your choice.

Recipe - Serves 4

Ingredients

Frylight
1 onion, halved & finely sliced
2 garlic cloves, minced
2.5cm fresh ginger, peeled & grated
¼ teaspoon mild ground chilli for mild
1 red pepper, deseeded & diced
3 tablespoon curry powder
¼ teaspoon garam masala
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon turmeric
2 bay leaves
100g fresh frozen garden peas
4 whole cloves
400g tin of chopped tomatoes
2 chicken stockpots
600ml water
80g dried orzo pasta (usually found in most supermarkets on the pasta and rice aisle).
Side Note: If you're using a pan to simmer your soup, then you could use regular rice instead.  Rice will catch at the bottom of a soup maker, so only use Orzo!

Tip:  Why not swap the peas for a cooked & chopped chicken breast?

Method

1. Spray a large frying pan with frylight and saute the onions, garlic, ginger and peppers until the onions have softened.
2. Add all of the spices, except the cloves for another 2-3 minutes, stirring while it cooks.
3. Stir in the tomatoes and simmer for 2 minutes, making sure you scrape the bottom of the pan to get every bit of flavour infused.
4. Pour in to your soup maker and stir well or large saucepan and add the remaining ingredients.  Note: If you haven't reached the 1600ml line of your machine, you'll need to add a smidgen more until you do.
5.  Set your soup maker to chunky or if using a pan, simmer for 20-25 minutes, making sure the orzo is cooked then serve.

And a huge thanks to all the encouragement and enthusiasm on my Facebook Support Group, I LOVE Slimming Soup; the more the merrier, so come and join if you want too and you could also sign up for my free email subscription for regular recipes on here!

Vegetable Biryani Soup

📖 Recipe