Cream of Broccoli Soup – A delicious and healthy recipe

Cream of broccoli soup is an extremely healthy soup to eat, especially when you make it without tons of cheese and use milk instead of heavy cream. Don’t get me wrong, I love cheddar broccoli soup, but sometimes it’s fun to switch it up. This soup was delicious, and I felt like I was actually doing my body a favour by eating it!

Cream of broccoli soup - a delicious and healthy recipe, especially when you use milk instead of cream and don't add loads of cheese.

Recipe: Cream of Broccoli Soup

Ingredients

4 tablespoons butter

3 broccoli crowns

1 onion, chopped

1 carrot, chopped

1 stalk of celery, chopped

3 tablespoons flour

4 cups chicken broth

2 cups milk

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

Melt butter in a pot over medium-high heat.

Add onion, carrot, celery, and broccoli and saute until onion is translucent, about 6 minutes.

Add the flour and cook for 1 minute, until the flour reaches a light brownish colour.

Add chicken broth, salt and pepper and bring to boil.

Simmer uncovered until broccoli is tender, about 20 to 30 minutes.

Pour in milk.

With a hand blender, puree the soup.

Serve hot with shredded cheese and or croutons on top

Preparation time: 15 minute(s)

Cooking time: 30 minute(s)

Number of servings (yield): 8

Cream of broccoli soup - a delicious and healthy recipe, especially when you use milk instead of cream and don't add loads of cheese.

My recent discovery is that butter makes soup delicious. You could just as well use a little bit of oil instead of lots of butter to decrease the calories, but butter ends up giving it a really nice flavour.

Cream of broccoli soup - a delicious and healthy recipe, especially when you use milk instead of cream and don't add loads of cheese.

I absolutely love making pureed soups. It is so much easier to chop the vegetables into large chunks rather than to finely chop every little thing.

Cream of broccoli soup - a delicious and healthy recipe, especially when you use milk instead of cream and don't add loads of cheese.

This is after the veggies had been sauteed, after the flour had been added and after the chicken stock had been added:

Cream of broccoli soup - a delicious and healthy recipe, especially when you use milk instead of cream and don't add loads of cheese.

Simmer until the veggies are soft and break apart easily:

Cream of broccoli soup - a delicious and healthy recipe, especially when you use milk instead of cream and don't add loads of cheese.

Use a hand blender to blend it until it’s smooth. I LOVE using my hand blender for pureed soups. It is so much easier to blend everything together than to pour it into blender. If you want a chunkier soup, cook it for 5 extra minutes and use potato masher to mash it all together.

Cream of broccoli soup - a delicious and healthy recipe, especially when you use milk instead of cream and don't add loads of cheese.

Now that Jason is gluten free and dairy free (you can check out his gluten and dairy free broccoli soup recipe here), I had to enjoy the entire pot of soup by myself. Which was great, because I poured it into my single serving corningware bowls, threw them in the fridge, and had a healthy and delicious lunch for each day of the following work week, just ready to throw in the microwave at work.

Cream of broccoli soup - a delicious and healthy recipe, especially when you use milk instead of cream and don't add loads of cheese.

This recipe can be adjusted for whatever your tastes are. If you want to turn it into broccoli cheddar soup, add a small block of shredded cheddar cheese into it. Normally I would add cheddar cheese on top for garnish, but I didn’t have any in the house. Marble cheese does taste good, but it gets really stringy when it melts, so every bite has a long string of cheese from the spoon back to the bowl. I would definitely recommend using cheddar instead.

Cream of broccoli soup - a delicious and healthy recipe, especially when you use milk instead of cream and don't add loads of cheese.

I could pretty much eat soup every day of the week, any season of the year, and be perfectly content. This soup is hearty enough that with a little bit of cheese added on top and a nice, fresh bakery bun, it makes a filling meal. You could also serve it as a starter before your meal, or serve it with a salad or light sandwich.

Source : onelittleproject.com
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