Inspired by Iron Chef to experiment with food, and having seen battle zucchini last night, I decided to see if I could make a soup out of zucchini. No recipe, nothing aside from checking to see if it’d been done before (if it hadn’t, I’d be wary but still try it). So I bought a few things that I thought might go well in a creamy vegetable soup and had a go at it. After several taste tests and much tweaking, it turned out even better than I expected.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 tsp. paprika
- 1 pound of young zucchini (a little more is fine, i used about 1.1 lb)
- 2 Tbsp. olive oil
- 3 tsp. minced roasted garlic (or about 6 cloves, but less if you don’t want the garlic flavor so strong)
- 1 cup (1 pint, 8 oz, different brands say different measurements) heavy cream
- 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
- 7-8 oz. fire roasted tomatoes
- 1/2 tsp. onion powder
- chicken or vegetable broth (I don’t know the amount on this, but the soup turned out heavy and I would thin it next time – I’ll update this when I make it again)
- parmesan cheese and bacon for garnishing
Directions
- Preheat oven to 400 F.
- Put paprika in a small pan on the stove on medium heat to toast for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, slice zucchini.
- Toss sliced zucchini with 1 Tbsp. olive oil and the toasted paprika. Spread on a baking sheet and cook in the oven for 10 minutes.
- Put zucchini in a blender and blend until smooth.
- Heat 1 Tbsp. olive oil in a soup pot on the stove.
- Add garlic and cook, stirring continuously, for about 30 seconds.
- Turn heat to between low and medium (3 out of 10 on my stove). Add zucchini then heavy cream, mix.
- Once thoroughly heated, add cheese. Stir, continue heating until melted.
- Add onion powder and fire roasted tomatoes (chopped up to whatever size you’d like). Stir, cook until all heated through.
- Add broth, stir, cook about 5 more minutes.
- Serve topped with parmesan cheese and bacon crumbles.
Even my bf (who I’ve never seen enjoy zucchini, even though he tries it each time I make it) loved this soup. We both agreed it was too heavy, but the addition of the broth will solve that no problem. Make sure you taste the soup throughout if you change anything (or even if you don’t, to make sure your personal tastes don’t dictate any changes) because until the addition of quite a bit of extra garlic and cheese it had a bitter aftertaste. I’ve gotta say, this is one of my original recipies that I’m most proud of. I served it with pasta. A nice filling meal.
