Cheddary Broccoli Soup: Yummy Vegan Comfort for Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammie) Sundays

It's been raining most of the weekend with even some bursts of heavy downpours, thunder and lightening today. I'm not complaining because I love the occasional lazy heavy-rain day and it is perfect weather to curl up with a bowl of rich and hearty soup. Cheesy Broccoli comes to mind with its comfort-food vibe, but who needs all that saturated fat and calories?! The Cheddary Broccoli Soup from the new cookbook Isa Does It: Amazingly Easy, Wildly Delicious Vegan Recipes for Every Day of the Week by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, gives the flavor and feel of a cheese-filled soup, but for a fraction of the calories and fat.

Add Isa Does It to your "to-buy" or holiday gift list (under $20 at Amazon right now). It's packed full of Isa's relatively easy vegan recipes that all look pretty darn amazing. I have made vegan 'cheesy' soups before with non-dairy milk and nutritional yeast but Isa's Cheddary Broccoli Soup uses a flavored cashew cream to give the soup its "cheese factor." I am a big cashew cream fan so I knew I had to try this recipe right away. 

The soup is straightforward to make. (If you want the actual recipe measurements shoot me an email and I'll send them to you, or just buy the book--it's worth it!) Onion and garlic is sauteed and them simmered with broccoli florets, chopped carrots, turmeric and vegetable broth until softened. The cashew cream is made by blending soaked cashews, more vegetable broth, mellow white miso and nutritional yeast. Then it is all blended together and seasoned with fresh lemon juice and black pepper. Isa suggests topping it with garnishes like tomatoes, red onion and sprouts but I topped mine with some diced roasted red pepper and a few tiny broccoli florets. 

Notes/Results: This is a very thick and creamy bowl of soup that only tastes decadent. A quick calculation on my nutritional app clocks it at just under 150 calories a serving and 1 gram of saturated fat--can't beat that. It also has a good dose of vitamins A & C and Iron along with other nutrients. Although not cheesy in the gooey-stringy sense, I doubt anyone would guess/question that it was a dairy-free, vegan, healthy dish. I kept the recipe mostly the same but I did use a low-sodium veggie broth, slightly diluted to keep the sodium level down. This was fabulous--warming and comforting served with chunks of sourdough baguette. I will definitely make it again.

It's a quiet post-Thanksgiving weekend in the Souper Sundays kitchen but a few friends are here with dishes to share so let's take a look.

Mireille of Chef Mireille's Global Creations is here with a Creamy Vegetable Soup and says, "Now that the temperatures have started to go down into the 30's here in New York, it's soup season. ...I emptied out my refrigerator and made this comforting soup to keep warm on the cold winter nights. Feel free to adjust the vegetable measurements as desired. I used the quantities of what I had. ... Garnish with crispy fried slices of sweet potato."

Please join me in welcoming Deepika of My Life and Spice to Souper Sundays. Deepika joins us from Philadelphia and tried out her new slow cooker with 15-Bean Vegetarian Stew. She says, "I started with a whole load of trepidation. Read through a bunch of recipes on the net, and then figured that I had to close my eyes and take the plunge...or I'd never try it out. And the result...I am hooked. It's easy to put together, and lovely to come home to a meal ready to eat. There doesn't seem to be a right or wrong way to go about cooking in a slow cooker. This is how I did it." Welcome Deepika!

Tigerfish of Teczcape--An Escape to Food shares this warm Peanut Butter-Sesame Mushrooms and Broccoli Salad and says, "Recently I have been making this warm mushroom salad. Other than mushrooms, this salad is also loaded with cherry tomatoes, cucumbers and broccoli. I don't fancy "cold" food, so since this salad is best served warm, it can stand as a light meal on its own. To make this salad, the key step is to saute the mushrooms and release the deep flavors so that when they are mixed in with the other vegetables, the overall flavor in the salad gets accentuated."

Thanks to everyone who joined in. If you have a soup, salad, or sandwich that you would like to share, just click on the Souper Sundays logo on my side bar for all of the details.

Have a happy, healthy week!