Add to favorites

Plan Z Phase: This is a Z3 (ZReboot) recipe. I designed this broccoli cheese soup for the average cook. It only takes a few minutes to chop the veggies and then put it in the pot and let the magic happen. All you have to do is stir it. How easy is that? It’s also designed so you can use your favorite cheese and each person eating it can vary their cheese. For example, my husband had cheddar in his bowl and I had blue cheese in mine.

Servings: Serves 2 – 4

Ingredients:

• 2-3 cups of chopped broccoli. I use the florets and the top stems but I don’t use the woody longer stem.
• 2 cups of whipping cream
• 1 cup of broth
• ½ cup of chopped onion or 1 tsp of onion powder
• ½ cup of chopped red pepper. This is optional, it gives the soup a bit of color.
• ½ cup of chopped celery. This is also optional.
• 1/3 cup of grated cheese of choice + extra for serving. Cheddar, gruyere, blue cheese, pepper jack would all work.
• 3 Tbl of butter
• 1 Tbl of white flour
• Sea salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

In a medium soup pot melt your butter. Add the flour and stir until it turns light brown. This is called making a roux and will help thicken the soup. It will only take a minute or 2 on medium. Add the onion or onion powder and stir.

Begin to add the cream and the broth. Pour it in one cup at a time and stir so it incorporates the flour. Season with salt and pepper. Put in your broccoli, pepper and celery bits. Stir it all up and cook it on medium until it thickens. About 10 minutes. Keep an eye on it. You want your cream to have little bubbles but you don’t want it to boil over. If you want your soup a little thinner, you can add more chicken broth and/or cream. Your choice. Add 1/3 cup of cheese and stir. I cook it for 10 minutes to get the veggies cooking and then let it sit for 10 minutes. The veggies will be cooked but still have a little crispness to them.

At this point you can decide if you want it to be chunky soup or if you want to blend it. I blend half of mine and leave the other chunky. To do this you need a full-sized blender.  Put in half of the soup and hold the top down securely with a towel. Blending HOT food can be a bit tricky. Turn the blender on LOW. That will be plenty to blend it and you won’t end up with the top trying to pop off.

Pour the blended soup back in with the chunky bits and stir.

To serve I put extra cheese in the bottom of the bowl and pour the soup over the top. This way my cheese gets all melty.

This soup will travel well and will reheat in a microwave easily.

Enjoy!

Cheers,