Cheesy broccoli soup should be comforting, tasty and of course cheesy. But if you are vegan it’s been off the table. Until now.
Thank you Dr. Michael Gregor. We know you would not approve of some of our vegan recipes because they don’t all stick to your no sugar-no oil-no salt mantra. But there are more similarities in the center of our overlapping Venn diagrams than differences. You are plant based as are we. You want to improve the conditions for the animals and our planet, as do we. And although we have not given up the sugar, oil, and salt completely, we are embracing healthier recipes more than ever. And your cheesy broccoli soup is a 100% perfection- without any dairy cheese! It’s amazing!
Vegan cheese is like searching for the holy grail…
However, there have been some improvements since the early days. We like the Follow Your Heart brand for their American Cheese and their Smoked Gouda. And the Violife Parmesan, Cheddar, and the Feta. Another favorite is Miyokos for her soft spreadable herbed cheeses and we do currently like Trader Joe’s Cream Cheese as well.
I like to think about 10 years from now there will be an even bigger abundance to choose from. And we’ll be saying to our newest Hamptons Vegan in the family, Azalea:
“When we were your age there weren’t any vegan cheeses! Can you imagine! Then little by little they created the many we have today.”
A lot has changed for our vegan way of life, thankfully.
The biggest surprise in recreating a cheese flavor is by mixing veggies and other flavors of whole foods together! You don’t have to include faux vegan cheese replicas to have the taste of cheesiness if you don’t want to! Some of our favorite recipes that have a cheesy taste are the Vegilicious Vegan Cheese Sauce and the Perfect Parmesan. You should also try our Quicky Quality Queso Sauce and the Ricotta Replica!
But, Come on, This Chessy Broccoli Soup!
Miraculously, this soup is also not from dairy cheese OR non dairy cheese!! But it tastes so cheesy good you won’t believe it. We were all surprised. We hope you’ll give Dr Gregor’s soup (that we tweaked just a tiny bit), a try. I seriously believe that if you like broccoli cheese soup, the original dairy made way, you will definitely like this one. And oh my goodness it is so much healthier for you!
Everybody needs to try this one!
I’m virtually clinking spoons with you in a cheer to the cheesy goodness!
Cheesy Broccoli Soup
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 rib celery, chopped
- 6 cups broccoli florets, cut into bite size pieces
- 6 cups vegetable broth
- 1 can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
- 3/4 cup raw cashews, soaked in boiling water for 30 minutes then drained
- 1/3 cup nutritional yeast
- 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- 1 teaspoon white miso paste
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon turmeric
Instructions
- Pour boiling water over your raw cashews and set aside to soak for 30 minutes.
- Heat 1/4 cup water in soup pot and add onion and celery. Cook about 5 minutes then add garlic and cook another minute.
- Add 2 cups of the vegetable broth and bring to a boil. Lower heat to a simmer and cook another 5 minutes.
- Transfer soup to a Vitamix blender and process until smooth. Return to soup pot.
- Add the rest of the vegetable broth (4 cups) to the pot and bring it to a boil. Add the broccoli and lower the heat to a simmer. Cook another 4 minutes just to soften the broccoli but still keep it bright green.
- In your high-speed blender, add 2 tablespoons of water, cannellini beans, soaked cashews, nutritional yeast, apple cider vinegar, miso paste, smoked paprika, black pepper, and turmeric. Process until smooth. Scoop out about 2 cups of soup and broccoli from the soup pot and add to the blender. Process again.
- Return blender mixture to soup pot and stir to combine. Heat over low heat for a few minutes then sprinkle on a pinch more paprika before serving.
