Broccoli Soup with Blue Cheese

Choose a soft blue cheese for this soup, the flavor is mild with just a bit of a bite and the texture very creamy and suitable for soup. The nutrition facts were created at Calorie Count!

Broccoli Soup with Blue Cheese

Ingredients:

2 T olive oil
1 head broccoli, cleaned, stems peeled, and chopped (approximately one pound, you can easily sub in frozen)
1 small onion, chopped
1 zucchini, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 red potatoes, chopped - leave the skin on, just cut off any rootlets
8 cups vegetable stock, low sodium
3 ounces Gorgonzola cheese
salt and pepper to taste, but do go easy on the salt
Optional: slivered almonds as a garnish

Directions:

Put the olive oil in a large pot and heat over medium heat until the oil shimmers. Add the broccoli, onion, zucchini, carrots, and red potatoes. Stir to coat with oil. Cover and cook for about 10 minutes, stirring a couple times. Add the stock, return to a simmer, cover and simmer about half an hour or until the vegetables are thoroughly cooked and super tender.

Using either an immersion blender or a hand held potato smasher slightly blend the ingredients. You don't want a smooth soup, leave enough chunks to make it interesting. A chunky soup will fill you up better than a smooth soup even though the calories remain the same.

Stir in the blue cheese and simmer until it melts (no boiling please, a gentle simmer). Season with pepper, taste. If you need salt add some, but there is a lot of salt in cheese so you should be fine without it. You might try a few dashes of Tabasco sauce instead of salt.

Serve as is or top with slivered almonds.