Creamy Broccoli Soup Recipe (2024)

All that’s needed for a creamy broccoli soup are sautéed onion in butter, lots of broccoli, not a ton of broth/water, and an immersion blender. When it’s soft enough to blend, do so. Cream and more liquid of any kind optional. Broccoli soup should taste like broccoli

An immersion blender is your friend if you like to make soup. They eliminate the messy chore of moving hot liquid to a blender and back.

Too complicated. I sauté onions and garlic in a little olive oil, add the broccoli, one peeled potato (instead of dairy) and vegetable or chicken broth, salt, pepper and paprika, simmer it for 20-30 minutes and use the immersion blender. The best (and easiest) ever!

So interesting that so many feel the need to share their recipes for more traditional cream of broccoli soups. There are several more on the site. This one is clearly different, with subtle and interesting flavors. Plus, it’s loaded with extra protein from the tofu. It’s lovely!

The comments seem to stem around people NOT making this recipe and immersion blenders - lol! I actually made the recipe and would give it a solid B. I used medium firm tofu because the store was out of silken, this required the use of an actual blender so that the soup wasn't chunky and weird looking. Int needs a splash of brightness. I added a splash of sherry vinegar. Also, for depth of flavor a couple tbs of nutritional yeasts. Served with ricotta and homemade croutons.

I agree that immersion blenders are the best for blending hot liquids.I've never seen one that scratches the bottom of the pan. Mine has a cage around the blades so that the blades don't touch the container.

If you aren't vegan, but simply vegetarian + dairy, you can up the flavor of your vege stock with parmesan rinds, and even rinds of other hard cheeses. Just did it on an impulse and was really impressed by the depth of flavor, but still very vegetable forward.

I love this soup recipe!I'm enjoying my second bowl of it right now. It is full of broccolli flavor, but with a plethora of more subtle vegetables as well. I confess that I used white potato rather than sweet (because that's what I had). I love the coconut water for the broth - again, it's subtle and very good. After blending it with my immersion blender, I tossed some goat cheese on my steaming first bowl (again because that's what I had). Totally delcious!

You can peel off the outer layer of the broccoli stems before cooking to eliminate the roughage instead of taking them out altogether.

I don't see where Eric Kim used the word "healthy" in his essay, nor in the recipe itself. At any rate, we have peanut and tree nut allergies in my household, and I wouldn't say that their inclusion alone in many "healthy" recipes discounts that descriptor (the whole nature of a food allergy = the food is benign and even healthy to most, but life-threatening to a minority). I do think it'd be ideal to have a "possible allergen" tag on the ingredient lists of recipes, as they do on food labels.

I use an immersion blender for many things, but to make soup taste a cream soup, I use my blender, always with a folded dish towel pressed on top to keep splatters under control. Carrot soup with an immersion blender is good, but blended it is great, and no one can believe there isn't cream in it.

I was pretty disappointed with this. It’s bland and a bit cloyingly sweet as scripted. I added a lot more garlic and a generous amount of cayenne pepper along with a teaspoon of sherry vinegar, which helped, but I still wouldn’t make it again.

To DawnN, may I humbly suggest a new immersion blender and/or, if possible, tilting your pot slightly when blending in order to reduce contact with the bottom of your pan. I’ve never had that problem!

just made this tonight! easy and satisfying for weeknight. didn’t have garlic powder so subbed in a few finely grated cloves. i left the broccoli stems in but i think next time i’ll keep them out as my immersion blender didn’t quite chop up the fibrous stems as much as i might have liked, but it wasn’t a huge deal. didn’t have ricotta so sprinkled a little feta and that was quite tasty. this one will definitely make it into the rotation. thanks eric!!!

A different recipe for broccoli soup perhaps (there are hundreds, at least)? I've made the one from America's Test Kitchen with success before. Another I've made repeatedly over the years (to date myself) is called Emerald Soup, and hails from the Dinah Shore Show, sometime in the 1980's I believe (it's the basil and oregano that make that one shine). No tofu in either.

Loved this. It’s key to taste the broth for seasoning at the end of step 4 - depending on lots of factors (quality/size of produce, depth of flavor in the coconut water you used) you may get a less flavorful result than you want. I added salt and a teaspoon of veggie bouillon at this stage, and got a great end result. Also - the white-flesh sweet potato is for color. To get the bright white color shown, you don’t want too much orange in the veggie mix - hence only one carrot as well.

This was literally the worst soup I have ever made from home. It takes a lot of work...and for what? It's just a blended broccoli soup. The tofu and sweet potato make it honestly too creamy. And the flavor is just not good. Don't waste your time with this. I dumped the whole pot down the sink. Yuck!

This is very different than the original Craig Claibourne and Pierre Franey recipe in the NYT Cookbook. Does anyone know if that exists on the site?

I thought this recipe was great. I subbed chicken stock for coconut water and added some lemon juice and paprika at the end. I would highly recommend sticking with the recipe on the blender. The immersion blender does not get to the same level of creamy as an actual blender does. It made a huge difference in the consistency.

Came here to say this was great! I added a good bit of lemon and finished with olive oil, but why all the hate? Why not eat a bunch of interesting yet appropriately hidden veggies, and still come out with a perfectly thick, protein-laden, cozy broccoli soup?

Wow! Brilliant thanks! A vegan broccoli soup.

Overall it's a good soup base to experiment with. Next time I will make my own adjustments. It is a surprisingly sweet, not as sweet as butternut squash soup, but sweeter than I expected. I think it needs brightness with some acidity and I may play with some additional spices as well. Over all a great way to get veggies in. I was pleasantly surprised by the creaminess with tofu alone and will definitely be using that in the future.

I love this soup recipe so much that I have made it multiple times over the past two winters! It’s very creamy, considering there’s no dairy, and I love how much vegg is in this dish. Also, this soup is very forgiving if you have a little more vegetables than asked for or if you want to toss in an extra. I’ve added leftover cauliflower split into stems and florets similar to the broccoli.

I served the soup, made per recipe (except plain instead of coconut water), with furikake tomato sandwiches (another NYTimes Recipe). The pairing provided some saltiness to the somewhat bland soup; the sandwich got needed protein from the tofu. The sandwich was based on (homemade) challah and we had a light Alsace Riesling on the side. My 4-star rating depends on having all of the above in play.

I made this because I love Eric Kim’s recipes and loved the nondairy option. But the soup was just OK. I only had an orange sweet potato potato so it looked more orange than green (I would suggest using white potato if you’re looking for the greeness). After a night in the fridge, I added vegetable stock and squeezed lemon. Definitely better.

I made this with chicken stock instead of coconut water and tried packing it into my kids thermos’s for lunch. They brought it back half-eaten. The next day my hubby reheated it with more chicken stock and added some pesto I had left over on top with some croutons and it was amazing! The additional different textures and colors from the croutons and the added Parmesan from the pesto brought it up to five star soup!

this soup is a meal! I sprinkled a pinch of Maldon Sea Salt on each bowl. The Ricotta cheese is not needed. The soup is packed with healthy ingredients and tastes great.

Add white beans for creaminess

I used a regular potato and coconut milk instead of coconut water. also used an immersion blender at the end and it came out great. I will make this again, I will probably try red pepper instead of the tomato and I will put in more spices.

Very flavorless. The coconut water added nothing to the flavor. I added some Miso near the end to try to make it edible.