I posted a picture of this soup on Facebook and some of my friends requested the recipe, so here it is. The version in the picture isn't as creamy as usual because my boyfriend ate almost all of my cashew butter without replacing it. It was still good, but it's better with more. To make it less creamy, just half the cashew butter. While I don't particularly care for cashew butter on it's own, it is amazing in soup. I used navy beans and garbanzo beans that day, but you can use whatever white colored beans you have in the house.
I like to try to keep all the ingredients around for this soup (which is almost impossible with my boyfriend in the house, as evidenced by my earlier comment) so I can make it at almost any time - and I make a variation of it every other week or so. It’s also very versatile. You can use fresh or frozen veggies or add whatever other veggies you want to or happen to have around. I’ve added cauliflower, celery, leeks, a small beet (from my own garden!) and garlic in the past.
You can also stretch it by adding more broccoli or other veggies, more vegetable broth, and an extra spoonful or so of cashew butter (or a few more soaked cashews). Without oil or anything bad, it’s so healthy you can feel great about it!
Ingredients:
v 1 Large Yellow Onion
v Water or for sautéing
v 6-8 Carrots
v 4-6 Cups (chopped) Broccoli or 1 Large Bag Frozen Broccoli
v 1/3 Cup Cashew Butter or ½ Cup Cashews, soaked in enough hot water to cover for 30 minutes
v 2 Cans or 4 Cups cooked White Beans (Navy, Cannellini, Garbanzo, Great Northern, etc…)
v 10 Cups of Vegetable broth or 10 Cups of Water with the proper number of Vegetable or “Chik’n” (vegan chicken flavoring) Broth Bouillon Cubes according to the package
v 1 TBSP Mellow White Miso
v ¼ Cup Nutritional Yeast (or to taste)
v The Juice of ½ to 1 Whole Lemon (to taste)
v 1 Small Package of Baby Spinach or other Baby Cooking Greens
Chop your onion into small pieces while heating a large soup pot over medium heat. Once hot, add enough water to cover the bottom (it will pop & fizzle when it’s hot enough) and throw in the onions*. Sauté for a few minutes, stirring and adding extra water as needed so they don’t burn. While the onions are cooking, peel and chop the carrots into small pieces, and add to the pot. Cook for a few minutes more, stirring and adding water as needed. Chop the broccoli into bite sized pieces, and add those to the pot as well. Once the broccoli has been cooked a couple minutes, add nine out of the ten cups vegetable broth (or water for bouillon cubes) to the pot, cover and turn up the heat to bring to a boil.
While waiting for the pot to boil, grab your blender and add the cashew butter (or drained, soaked cashews), white beans and one cup of water. Blend until smooth, adding more water if needed, and add to the pot. (If it seems like a lot at once, do in two batches with ½ cup of water in each. I have a large Ninja blender so it may not be the norm that it all fits.)
Once the soup is boiling, reduce heat and simmer for a few minutes until the carrots are tender. While waiting for the veggies to tender, add the bouillon cubes if using by dipping out a cup or so of liquid and stirring/smushing them until dissolved. Then add to the soup, stirring until combined. Also, cut in half and squeeze the juice out of the lemon, straining out any bits of seed. Add the juice to the pot. Stir in the nutritional yeast**.
Once the vegetables are tender, ladle some of the soup into your blender, concentrating on gathering as many of the chunks as possible, only filling the blender about halfway. Blend that batch until smooth while covering the open top with a folded towel so the heat pressure doesn’t cause it to explode***. Once blended, pour the batch back into the pot. Continue blending small batches until you are satisfied with the creaminess of the soup, about 2/3rds of it blended. Alternatively you can use an immersion blender to cream the soup if you have one.
Once you are satisfied with the creaminess, take the pot off the hot burner and turn off the stovetop. Let it sit for 3-5 or so minutes, then stir in the cooking greens or spinach in handful batches. Once folded in, dip out about a ½ cup of liquid to dissolve the miso in (smushing and stirring it to dissolve it) before adding it back to the pot. (Do not add the miso while the soup is boiling, or you will lose some of the nutritional benefits.) Stir it to combine and ta dah! Warm hearty dinner is served!
*This is called a water sauté. I had no idea what this was until a few months ago. It can be a little hard at first to get used to, but once you do its like why did I ever use oil before? Just make sure to keep an eye on the pot and add more water when it looks a little dry to make sure you don’t burn what you’re sautéing. I usually leave a 2 cup liquid measuring cup next to the stove with some water in it so I can quickly add more water when needed. You can also use coconut water or vegetable broth for a little extra flavor, and just leave the container next to the stove while you cook so it’s handy.
**For those of you who have never heard of nutritional yeast, it is a deactivated yeast that is used as a dietary supplement for vegetarians and vegans because those diets don’t naturally contain B12, and nutritional yeast is often fortified with it. But mostly it’s just freaking delicious! Before I was vegan, my boyfriend would sneak it into different dishes, never giving away until later that nutritional yeast was the reason why the dish was so amazing and creamy or cheesy. It can be found at whole foods and other health food stores, in the bulk bins or the baking/seasoning isle. Red Star is a good brand. For more info, check out this blog post from one of my favorite cookbook authors! http://happyherbivore.com/2012/01/nutritional-yeast/
***The first time I made a creamy soup, I didn’t know this rule and exploded cream of broccoli all over my freshly cleaned kitchen and clean dishes in the dish rack. Apparently this is why most blenders have a plastic grip handle that is removable - to relieve pressure for blending hot things. Just cover the hole the removed piece leaves behind or remove the lid and cover the entire top of the blender with a thickly folded towel, to make sure the soup doesn’t go flying and you don’t burn yourself. Also never fill above half full so you never run into issues.
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