Hi guys, I'm Laura Vitale, and on this episode of Laura in the Kitchen I want to show you
my recipe for cream of broccoli soup. Now I've had this soup requested here for so long
and I figured it's time to share it with you. Now my cream of broccoli soup is actually
really quite lean because I'm a big believer in wanting the broccoli to shine I don't want
to cover it with flour and butter and cream so we are going to do a really nice light
version of it, it's my all time favorite and I'm a real snob when it comes to cream of
broccoli soup because I just feel like it can be so like the, the, flavor of broccoli
can be so overpowered by other things so that's why I wanted to share with recipe with you
and it's so easy and simple you need just a handful of ingredients and the first is
some fresh broccoli florets now I like to leave the stem - a little bit of the stem
on because this is really edible not the very end but about an inch and a half or so from
the top of the floret is perfectly edible and you should use that. What I have here
is my magical ingredient which is a medium - well for this recipe it's just a medium
potato that I've peeled and I sliced, you know, diced into you know chopped into big
pieces I've also got some onion, I've got some celery and a few big cloves of garlic.
You'll need some stock of your choice I'm using chicken because that's what I have on
hand you can use vegetable stock that would work great, and you'll need some salt and
pepper a touch of olive oil and some reduced - some reduced fat half and half which I have
in the fridge for now we'll bring it out in a little bit later. So the magical ingredient
here is the potato. The potatoes are going to thicken the soup without us having to make
a rue with butter and flour and add in cream it's going to give you a real nice velvety
texture but with just using a potato. I read about this tip in a, a, vegan cookbook a long
time ago and I thought it was absolutely brilliant, and I started doing that ever since and I
just haven't looked back because it works really well!
In my soup pot I've got a little bit of olive oil in there about a table spoon and a half
of olive oil that's been preheating over about medium heat, and to that I'm going to add
in all my veggies I've got my well, technically not all of them because I'm not adding my
broccoli yet I'm just adding my onion my potato my celery and garlic and I'm going to let
those cook for a few minutes going to season them lightly with some salt and pepper, well
I go heavy on the pepper. And then we're going to do light on the salt and we're just going
to let these cook for about four to five minutes or until they've developed some color and
begin to cook down a bit and you can really smell the aromatics through the kitchen that's
when you know, you're in good your in a really good spot. You can see the veggies have started
to develop some color, which is what I want, adding in my broccoli, look at that now that
looks like a lot of broccoli and it is but it's all going to cook down I'm going to add
in some stock which you guys know for me I've just been using this base. If I can get it
opened, adding a little bit of that in there. And then what I'm going to do I'm just going
to add just a touch more water just to cover up the top of the broccoli, only because apparently
I had more broccoli than I thought. And then all I'm going to do is let this simmer for
about twenty to twenty five minutes or until my broccoli is really nice and tender and
then I will show you the next step. My soup simmered for about twenty minutes I just turned
it off because I'm going to puree this using my immersion blender and you always want to
make sure you turn off the heat before you do that so I'm just going to pop this in and
puree until it's nice and smooth you can do this in a blender if you want to but this
really works just really nice and easy and I'm going to get it all smooth. That's really
lovely and creamy now you can serve this just like this and it would be creamy and delicious
but just to make it a touch creamier I'm going to add some reduced fat half and half it's
just a quarter cup of it and it just makes it a little bit creamier and all I did was
just turn the heat back on just to warm it through one last time with the cream. Smells
phenomenal you can serve it with whatever you prefer on top maybe some shredded cheddar
if you want to some croutons I'm going to serve it just as-is I have adjusted the seasoning
according to my taste I've added a little more salt and pepper but that is perfect for
me. 'm going to serve a little tiny bit for myself, so that you can see how - look at
that I mean really look how creamy this is. I mean if that's not cream of broccoli soup,
I don't know what is! Smells, phenomenal you can really smell the broccoli. That is perfect!
That is as good as cream of broccoli soup is going to get and it's really easy, doesn't
take a long time, it's good for you, it's creamy , it's thick and delicious nice and
rich, but really, really, really good above everything else.
Go to LauraintheKitchen.com to get this recipe I hope you enjoyed spending time with me and
I'll see you next time! Bye Bye!