Gluten free broccoli soup recipe with a cashew base

It would appear that our family is going to be trying some healthy eating for a little while. My husband was diagnosed with early rheumatoid arthritis last week (he’s only 36), and according to his research, a lot of the inflammation can be controlled by diet. I have to give him credit, because he has been eating gluten free, dairy free, and sugar free for a week now. (And the swelling has already noticeably gone down in his one bad joint).

While a gluten free, dairy free and sugar free diet is a little too intense for me to follow 100% of the time, it certainly is going to make us rethink all of our family meals and it will get us to try new and healthy things. This gluten free broccoli soup recipe with a cashew base is one that my husband found and wanted to try.

In addition to being gluten free, dairy free and sugar free, there is no chicken broth, barely any salt, and it uses cashews as part of the broth. Here is the “Cream” of Broccoli Soup recipe from The Healthy Happy Wife:

Gluten free broccoli soup recipe with a cashew base

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon oil

1 cup chopped onion

1/2 celeriac root chopped or 2 stalks celery

3 cups chopped broccoli with stems chopped

1/2 cup cashews

3 cups water or half water and half unsweetened almond mik

1 teaspoon parsley

1 teaspoon thyme

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

Directions

Over medium heat with oil, sauté the onion for 5 minutes.

Add broccoli, celery, water, cashews and spices.

Cook for 15-20 minutes until vegetables are tender.

Purée together until very smooth.

Surprisingly, it was really good. I mean, it definitely didn’t taste like regular cream of broccoli soup, but it wasn’t THAT different. I cheated and added cheddar cheese to mine, and that made it taste even better.

We used organic (and probably fresher and stronger) dry thyme leaves, so it did have a very strong herb flavour. I think next time I would add just a few less herbs to it.

The cashews kind of fascinated me. When we blended the soup, you couldn’t even tell they were in there.

All in all, a tasty soup. If you go into it thinking of it as a broccoli soup, rather than a cream of broccoli soup (or worse yet, cream of broccoli cheddar soup) I think you’ll be happy with the results.