Silky Cream Of Broccoli Soup Recipe

When broccoli is made into a soup, oftentimes it's paired with cheese as in the popular Panera menu item. This is fine if you like a lot of dairy in your soup, but not so great if you don't. This cream of broccoli soup, however, is one that recipe developer Michelle McGlinn says " is for lovers of easy, healthy, vegetarian recipes" and characterizes as something for those who "would love broccoli cheddar if it wasn't for the cheese."

One thing McGlinn uses to make her soup stand out is mustard seeds, describing the ingredient as "great flavor pairing for broccoli as it works well with the earthy flavor and brings a little nuttiness." She does say, though, that you need to "make them more palatable by making a quick tadka" and goes on to explain that this is "an infused oil made by toasting spices briefly in fat." Don't worry, it's easier to do than it may sound, and it really helps round out the flavors in this deliciously creamy soup.

To make the soup itself, you'll obviously need broccoli — while McGlinn likes to start with the fresh kind, she does say that you can use frozen if you want to save yourself the work of cutting it up. She does advise, though, that you'll need to boil the broccoli for a few more minutes in this case, explaining that "as it is coming from frozen, it will take a few more minutes to cook."

Other soup ingredients include butter, onions, garlic, flour, vegetable broth, salt, and pepper, while to top the soup you'll need parsley, whipping cream, oil or ghee, and mustard seeds. What, you have no mustard seeds in the pantry? For shame, better run out and get some! Not only will you need them for this soup, but Gordon Ramsay says this spice is a pantry essential and we wouldn't dare incur the dreaded Wrath of Ramsay.

Heat the oil (or ghee) in a pan over medium heat, then add the mustard seeds to the hot oil and toast them until they start to pop. They should look somewhat darker by this point, as well. Remove them from the heat (or from the pan, if you want to use it to cook the soup) and let the mustard oil sit while you make the soup. As McGlinn tells us, "Toasting the seeds allows the flavor to extract and infuse into the oil," but the infusing needs a little time.

Melt the butter in a pan — this can be the same one you cooked the mustard seeds in. Sauté the onions and garlic for about 2 minutes, at which point they should have softened up a bit. Stir the flour into the onions to make a thick, onion-y paste.

Pour the broth into the onions and stir, scraping up all of the browned bits from the bottom. Boil the broth, then add the broccoli and cook it for about 5 minutes. McGlinn cautions that "it is fairly common to end up with a kind of blah-colored soup," but says that this can be avoided if you're careful not to overcook the broccoli. She advises turning off the heat when the broccoli is "tender, but still bright green" if you want a soup that's still verdant.

Let the soup cool, then pour it into the blender and puree it until it is relatively smooth. Alternatively, you can use an immersion blender and puree while the soup is still hot. McGlinn notes, though, that "creamy, untextured soup will require quite a bit of blending," but it's okay to stop while the soup is still lumpy.

Once the soup is as blended as you want it to be, add salt and pepper to taste, then garnish it with the mustard seeds in oil along with parsley, whipping cream, and additional pepper. McGlinn suggests serving the soup with flatbreads or thick, crusty bread and says it "would work fabulously in a bread bowl" as well.