Leeks are a spring vegetable.  And, now that they are in season, it’s the perfect time to incorporate them into into your cooking.

If you’ve never cooked with leeks, this roasted potato leek soup is a great, and simple, introductory recipe. The roasted vegetables offer depth of flavor and compensate for the lack of dairy in the soup (potato leek soup usually contains cream).  It’s also gluten-free!

Leeks have a mild onion flavor.  The dark green portion of the stalk, which is too tough to eat, is removed (wash and save it for stock!), using only the light green and white portion. Learning how to clean the leek is important since sand tends to get caught in the stalk.  Therefore, you need to take a few steps to prep the leeks before proceeding with the recipe.

First, remove the dark green portion of the stalk.

Then cut about a 1/4-1/2 inch from the bottom, white portion, of the stalk.

Next, cut the leek lengthwise.

Rinse the leek under cold running water to remove the sand.

Then, put the leeks cut side down and cut the leeks in 1/2 inch slices.

Toss the leeks into a colander, separate the layers and run under cold water to make sure all of  the sand is removed.

Now you are ready to prepare the soup.

Here’s the full recipe:

Roasted Potato Leek Soup

4 leeks, washed and prepared as noted above (1/4-1/2 inch slices)

3 large russet potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1/2 inch dice

1 teaspoon of salt

1/2 teaspoon of dried thyme

1/4 teaspoon of black pepper

3-4 tablespoons of olive oil

6 cups of organic, gluten-free chicken stock or vegetable stock (non-tomato based)

chopped chives for garnish (optional)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Arrange sliced leeks and diced potatoes on a large cookie sheet.  Top with salt, thyme, pepper and olive oil (feel free to add more olive oil if necessary) and mix to coat.  Roast the vegetables for approximately 50 minutes, stirring them frequently.  Once potatoes are tender, remove from oven.  At this point, you might notice a few dark pieces of leek, you can toss those.  Transfer roasted leeks and potatoes to a large stock pot.  Add the six cups of chicken stock and bring to a boil over medium heat.  Remove mixture from the heat.  Blend the soup in two batches in a blender (please note, a Vitamix or other high powered blender, may be too strong for this job — you do not want to over-blend the soup.  It will yield a gummy consistency).

Serve hot or at room temperature.  Top with chives.

Yields two quarts of soup.