Truly though, it is the best. Creamy, cheesy-like without cheese, velvety and rich, and just all-around delicious. Kind of like a soup that gives you a hug for lunch, when it is, in fact, A SALAD in disguise!
No? Too awkward?
In addition to being creamy and velvety and absolutely gorgeous in texture, it is super nutritious, hence the detox title. Just pause to think of the rainbow of veggies in here: sauteed onions, celery, carrots, potato, and broccoli simmered with a little bit of vegetable broth and almondmilk, pureed to smooth cheesy-like perfection. That is my kind of salad. Soup. Whatever.
Those olive oil pan fried croutons don’t hurt the cause, either. I mean, if your detox doesn’t include fried bread, who are you really?
Detox-ing isn’t really a verb in my life, but I do try to do some clean-eating resets after particularly fun food weekends. Wink wink.
Bjork and I try to generally eat healthy, real foods and not totally overdo it – say, 5 out of 7 days of the week? Which, when I write it out, doesn’t seem like it should be that hard, but it translates to needing food prepped and ready to go which is something that, as a food blogger, I’m strangely not very good at. I’d like to say it’s just because I’m very busy working so hard that I don’t have time to plan and prep for our “normal” healthy food, but I think there’s also that weird phenomenon of I-do-this-for-work-so-I-want-to-go-out-for-dinner kind of thing going on. Pizza tonight? Oh, wait – what about sushi? Crunchy rolls? Please? The point I’m making here: a) I have classy taste in sushi. and b) meal prep can be a challenge for me.
You know what’s really great, though? It’s soup season. ALMOST. We’re sitting right on the edge of it. And soup season, for me, is doable. I can make soup once a week – I enjoy it, actually – and that translates beautifully to “meal prep” for the week because soups are transportable, reheatable, and can easily be made healthy – with good ingredients, spices, whole foods, and lots of vegetables.
You know that feeling when it’s 10am and you have been at work for one hour and you remember that in two hours you get to eat lunch AND YOUR LUNCH IS BOSS?
That is this soup.
In addition to broccoli as the star, obvi, we’ve got a whole lotta Almond Breeze keeping this creamy and smooth for us while also staying dairy free. I am not dairy free, but when I do a healthy eating reset, or my own version of a detox, I like to press pause on dairy for a few days.
Enter: creamy, unsweetened, original nutty almondmilk.
It’s perfect in non-dairy savory dishes like this red pepper pasta and this summer corn chowder that is still the object of my dreams.
A word about a newish ingredient we have on the loose in this soup: nutritional yeast. Have you heard of it?
It’s a deactivated yeast that is sold at health food stores. It looks like flakes. Borderline like fish food. Wait! Mom, don’t hang up.
It is yellow in color and it’s known for having a cheesy, creamy, nutty flavor to it, which makes it the perfect complement to our already-nutty Almond Breeze and also gives us a boost of cheese flavor without needing dairy-cheese. It’s got lots of vitamins and stuff (google) and it is YUM CITY but if you can’t find it, not a big deal. I made this soup at home the other night without nutritional yeast and it was still creamy and luscious and cheesy in the best non-cheesy possible way.
Hey you over there, wearing the cozy sweater even though it’s slightly too warm for that in August – yes, you! I made this one for you. Let’s embrace the soup season!
And this soup in return will love you back with all its veggie, nutritious, almost-cheesy goodness. ❤️