Cheesy Broccoli Blender Soup

My approach to blender soup recipes has 3 key features: 1) little to no fresh produce is required, 2) there is no prepping of ingredients, and 3) clean-up is quick and easy. I figure if I'm going to shop, chop, and wash multiple dishes afterward, I may as well just make soup by the traditional route. My blender soup approach does, however, impose a limitation. It limits the maker to canned and frozen produce. So far, I have made recipes with canned items, where the content is already cooked. In this recipe, I'm using frozen broccoli. In order to make frozen broccoli work, you need to run the soup function of your blender multiple time to cook the broccoli. Otherwise, you get a rather unappetizing hot vegetable smoothie. Please do be careful when removing the lid after the second and third cycle, there will be a lot of hot steam. While my quick blender soups are no competition for a soup made on the stovetop with fresh ingredients, they are a low-stress way to get the nutritional goodness of vegetables in your diet on a busy day, and they are tasty nonetheless. Enjoy!
Yield: 6 servings of about 1 cup (230g) each or 4 servings of about 1½ cups (345g) each, totaling about 6 cups (1,380g) ✎
​Macros (per 1 cup serving): 130 calories | 6.5g protein | 9g fat | 4g net carbs ​
​Macros (per 1½ cup serving): 195 calories | 9.5g protein | 13g fat | 6g net carbs
Prep/Cook: 20 minutes
Equipment required: a blender with a soup function
Storage: refrigerated for up to 5 days. Reheat on low to prevent separation.
Ingredients:
  • 2 x 10-ounce bags (568g) broccoli florets ✎
  • 2 cups (480ml) vegetable broth or equivalent in water and bouillon cubes ✎
  • 1 cup (240ml) full-fat coconut milk or low-carb plant-based cooking cream
  • ¼ cup (20g) nutritional yeast flakes
  • 2 tsp onion powder
  • ½ tsp garlic powder
  • ½ tsp Herbes de Provence or Italian seasoning 
  • ¼ tsp crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
  • 2 tsp tamari, soy sauce, or aminos
  • 1 Tbsp (15ml) lemon or lime juice (about ½ small lemon or ½ medium lime)
  • ½ cup (120g) low-carb high-protein yogurt ✎
Directions:
  1. Put the broccoli, broth, and coconut milk in your blender.
  2. Select the soup function on your blender and start. When it's completed the cycle, run it a second time. After this second time, when tasted, it should no longer have a distinct raw vegetable flavor to it. Be careful of steam when removing the lid.
  3. Add the nutritional yeast, spices/herbs, and tamari.
  4. Run the soup cycle again.
  5. Add the lemon/lime juice and yogurt to the blender. Blend briefly to incorporate.
  6. Divide equally between 4 or 6 soup bowls (about 1½ cups [360ml] or 1 cup [240ml] per bowl), top as desired.​
​Optional toppings: black pepper, fresh or dried herbs, dehydrated onion flakes, a small amount of vegan cheese, and/or a thinly sliced Brazil nuts (for selenium and the appearance of cheese).
✎ Notes:​
  • The weight given in the serving size was measured soon after blending. The soup may weigh more per cup once it has been stored and is less aerated.
  • I have not tried making this recipe with fresh or steamed/boiled broccoli. Frozen broccoli is often quickly blanched before freezing and so may be closer to cooked than raw fresh broccoli. If you want to try it with fresh broccoli, you may need to run the soup function an additional time. I assume making this soup with cooked fresh broccoli would be perfectly fine. If doing so, I would steam/boil the broccoli until tender, put all ingredients apart from the lemon juice and yogurt in the blender, and run the soup cycle just once.
  • Vegetable broths and bouillon cubes can be quite high in carbs if sugars or starches have been added. Check your labels. I usually use Edward & Sons bouillon cubes.
  • I'm using an unsweetened soy yogurt (Alpro) that has no net carbs and 4g protein per 100g. It is also very low in fat and calories. Macros on yogurt can vary a great deal, so if you're watching your macro intake carefully, you may wish to recalculate the macros for this recipe with yout own product.
  • Macros for this recipes are calculated with American national nutritional data (i.e. NCCDB & USDA entries in Cronometer) for all ingredients apart from the bouillon cubes (Edward & Sons Vegetable), coconut milk (Aroy-D), nutritional yeast flakes (blend of Bob's Redmill and Foods Alive unfortified), and yogurt (Alpro Soy No Sugar).
  • Macro numbers are rounded. Numbers equal to or greater than 10g are rounded to the nearest whole number (e.g. 10g, 11g, 12g, etc.) and numbers below 10g are rounded to the nearest 0.5g (0.5g, 1g, 1.5g ... 9g, 9.5g). Any numbers below 0.5g are given as is (e.g. 0.1g, 0.2g, etc.). Calories are rounded to the nearest multiple of 5.