Winter Soul Food – Creamy Broccoli (and vegetable) Soup with Roasted Chickpeas
It’s winter. It’s time for hot, steaming bowls of soup that nourish, comfort and keep your fluids up. This soup is wonderful. I feel like doing a happy dance when I make it as it is sooo good for you. Broccoli is a super food. Rich in vitamins K and C (think antioxidants) and is full of folate providing potassium and fibre. Great for you on the inside and out, benefiting your bones, your skin and your gut. The soup includes cauliflower which is also rich in antioxidants and fibre. Both broccoli and cauliflower are great as part of a weight loss program and general healthy eating. It also includes peas which I include mainly for colour and they are full of vitamins and minerals and antioxidants as well as fibre and protein. The yoghurt is full of calcium and probiotics, great for bones and your gut and the little sprinkling of chick peas rounds out the flavours. What I love about this soup apart from that it has big ticks for all of the above is that it gets younger members of my family eating vegetables they would prefer not to touch if they were whole. I admit it is not a favourite with my youngest. She generally avoids soup unless it is Greek Avogolemono soup (bless her cotton socks!). Even though it includes broccoli it has quite a subtle taste and none of that distinct broccoli flavour that many people are adverse to. And garlic and onions, need I say more about the health benefits of this lovely, gorgeous coloured soup!
Creamy Broccoli (and vegetable) Soup with Roasted Chick Peas
This soup is everything a soup should be - tasty, comforting and nutritious. What more could you want on a cold winters night.
Ingredients
- 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 2 onions, sliced
- 2 bay leaves, torn
- 2 heads of broccoli, in florets
- 1/4 - 1/2 head of cauliflower, in florets
- 1/2 cup frozen peas
- 7 cups stock, chicken or vegetable
- 1/2 cup Greek Yoghurt
- 400 g chickpeas, canned
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 lemon, juice and zest
- 1 clove garlic
- 2 tbsp smoked paprika
- 1 pinch sea salt
Instructions
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Soften the onion in some olive oil or butter, add garlic and bay leaves until fragrant. Add broccoli, cauliflower and peas and stir until covered in garlic and onion. Add hot stock and bring to the boil on the stove. Let it bubble away until the vegetables are soft and starting to change colour, about 20 minutes. Take the soup off the boil, remove the bay leaves and blend with a stick blender until smooth. Then temper the yoghurt with a spoon of soup and add the yoghurt to the soup pot and stir. Serve garnished with roasted chick peas.
To make the roasted chick peas, roast the drained chickpeas on a lined baking tray for 15 minutes to crisp them up. Allow to cool a little then combine a slug of olive oil, lemon, garlic and paprika in a mixing bowl and add chickpeas. Stir to coat then place them back on the baking tray to roast another 15 minutes.
Recipe Notes
This soup can be made ahead and stored in an airtight container in the fridge for 3 days or frozen (minus yoghurt and chickpeas) for up to three months,
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