Pureed Vegetable Soup – The Perfect Starter

Inspired by the book The Skinnygirl Dish by Bethenny Frankel, I decided to create a vegetable soup to eat before meals. This vegetable soup is the perfect appetizer to serve to company. Not only do I sneak more vegetables into my diet (yes, I am a five year old) but I love the idea of filling up on this hearty and delicious soup before sitting down to a meal as a way of portion and appetite control. The base of this soup is from the garlic, onion, carrot and celery – but feel free to substitute the other four vegetables to ones that you love. The key to this soup is to cut all vegetables to roughly the same size for even cooking and a smoother puree. Substitute vegetable broth for a purely vegetarian soup.

Pureed Vegetable Soup:

1 tbsp butter

1 tbsp olive oil

2 cloves garlic, diced

1 c onion, diced

1/2 c celery, diced

1/2 c carrot, diced

1  c sweet potato, diced

1 c broccoli, diced

1 c cauliflower, diced

1 c red pepper, diced

1 quart chicken broth

1/4 c parsley, loosely packed

Over medium heat, combine olive oil and butter in large sauce pan. Add garlic and saute until fragrant. Add onion, season with salt and pepper. Saute for 5 minutes. Add carrot and celery, saute another 5 minutes. Add remaining vegetables and chicken broth. Bring soup to a boil, lower the heat and simmer for 40 minutes. Take soup off of the heat for 5 minutes to cool. Add parsley and blend soup (with traditional blender or immersion blender) and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Tagged as: immersion blender, puree soup, pureed soup, Soup, sweet potato, vegetable, vegetable soup