Bonus Blog: The Purple Reign

I am not sure what is going on with my crystallized intelligence at age 56, but lately I have been coming up with some truly righteous soup ideas. I might actually be peaking. This week my brain locked onto one mission and one mission only: figuring out how to properly use purple sweet potatoes in a soup.

Purple sweet potatoes are the new kale. Every health podcast I listen to keeps raving about them like they are the second coming of chia seeds. You hear words like rich in anthocyanins, high in beta carotene, low glycemic index, resistant starch, and loaded with vitamin C, potassium, and fiber. If you have no idea what any of that actually means, you can look it up or just trust me (UWGB Heath & Wellness) that it is all good stuff. And at $4.50/lb, it better be!

So naturally, the only logical move is to turn these purple gems into a full-blown purple soup. Prince, or The Artist Formerly Known as Prince, would absolutely eat this. It looks like a bowl of Purple Rain with extra chucky antioxidants floating around.

Like all of my soups, this one is packed with healthy ingredients, but the lead players are the purple sweet potatoes and the beets. Yes, beets are called red beets, but let us be honest, they are purple. Between the two of them, this soup could probably lower your blood pressure, clean out your gut, and make your Apple Fitness App smile!

The fun part is that you can make this soup your own because there are a ton of purple veggies out there. Purple kale, purple carrots, purple cauliflower, purple potatoes, even purple bell peppers if you get lucky. Basically, if it is purple, toss it in. It feels like a royal order straight from Soup Club headquarters.

Now for the origin story. Surgeon Jenn and I created the first batch of this madness on the west coast. This was a full-on culinary experiment. We were entering new territory here, the first purple soup known to mankind. The first version used three beets and the color was insane, somewhere between magenta and cosmic violet. The flavor, though, was very beet forward. We liked it, but I knew I needed to dial it back for the official version or Kevin wouldn’t touch it!

The updated recipe uses one beet. You still get that incredible color, but the taste is far more balanced. Sweet, earthy, savory, warm, and not dominated by beet. It is everything you want from a purple soup and nothing you do not.

This soup is also ridiculously fun to make. Watching the pot go from normal human colors to a cauldron of glowing purple is deeply satisfying. It feels like Willy Wonka decided to try clean eating for a weekend.

Jenn and I made a whole adventure out of gathering ingredients. We went to four different grocery stores hunting for anything purple. It turned into a full-blown antioxidant scavenger hunt. Picture two adults in the produce section seriously debating whether something is purple enough to qualify. At one point an employee asked if they could help. We told them we were making purple soup and needed purple vegetables. The look on their face was priceless, a mix of confusion and amazement, as if they were thinking, “why didn’t I think of that.”

In the end, the soup was delicious, souper healthy, vibrant, and an absolute blast to make (“absolute blast” making soup? Yep, this is what old people do for fun). This is not a Soup Club meeting soup, so the recipe is on the Partner’s Page. I’ll be bringing in a sample for work people Monday and will report back. I’m thinking it’s not going to pull in the 8.8 score from the last one, but I’ll be adding years to everyone’s lives!

11/17/2025 Update: The stage was set for a very purple day in the office. The pot was full, the color was questionable, and everyone walked in souper stoked for a bowl of Purple Reign. I honestly thought this soup might deliver more health benefits than taste bud benefits, but hey, that is why we let the people decide.

The scoring came in fast, loud, and in some cases way too precise. Tam even took us into the hundredth decimal. I am not sure how I feel about that level of commitment to math, but here we go.

• Adam came in at 9.00 and said, “it was really good.”

• Kevin delivered an 8.80 after debating between 8.70 and 8.80.

• Conlan hit me with an 8.70 and then announced that it was not purple. That hurt a little. I guess he was comparing it to the color of his shoes?

• Andy threw in an 8.50 (estimated based on his smile) and warned me that Justy was going to be mad about the tiny specs of black pepper.

• Chris gave it a 7.00 and said, “I mean it was fine”, which is basically a Midwestern insult.

• Nick tossed an 8.00 at me and said it was way better than the Mountain Dew and Honey Bun he brought in. Not exactly high culinary competition, but I will take it.

• Ian dropped a clean 9.00 with a simple “it was really good.” (same as Adam, not a typo)

• Aubreigh hit me with a 6.00 and admitted “it tasted good but left a spicy aftertaste,” and she is not a spice person. Fair enough.

• Tam followed with an 8.85 and called it a modern gourmet twist on comfort in a bowl. Very classy.

• Marco joined the purple parade with a 9.00 and called it a culinary delight.

• Hunter came in at 9.00 and said it beat his mom’s soup. Sorry to Hunter’s mom.

• Barry (TGMB) gave me an 8.00, which is an estimated score since he is unpredictable, and then declared "I love beets." Not sure if that was praise or confession.

• Felton rolled in with an 8.50 and was disappointed that I did not bring smoked salmon.

The average came out to 8.33, which is a massive win considering this soup was basically an experiment that got out of control.

So taking a huge risk on the purple soup totally paid off. The people got their antioxidants, I got my validation, and everyone liked it, except maybe Aubreigh and probably Chris. Purple Reign has officially earned its crown.

8:47 pm update for my dear daughter. Riley absolutely woofed down a big bowl of purple soup and then announced she was “so full,” which is exactly what every soup maker loves to hear. She followed it up with, “I’ll give it an 8.00, but if you had cabbage for the topper, it’d be a 9.00.” So now I am stuck. What do I even do with that? Do I count the 8.00? Do I take the 9.00 since technically I could go buy cabbage? Should I retroactively pretend I used cabbage? For the sake of my sanity, I am deciding that Riley really meant to say, “I’ll give it an, ahh...8.33.” Done.