Creamy Soups Creamlessly: YAY FUN!

As promised in this post, here are Ellie Krieger's super tricks for making thick creamy-tasting soups without all the cream. Nothing too ground-breaking, but helpful nonetheless. Enjoy!

Vegetable Purées

Puréeing vegetable-based soups is a great way to create thick and lustrous dishes. If you want your soup ultrarich and creamy, purée the whole pot in batches in the blender, as with the Curried Butternut Squash Soup and Green Pea Soup. If you just want to thicken it a little but retain a certain chunkiness, just purée some of it, as with the Summer Corn and Vegetable Soup and Tomato-Tortilla Soup. For ease, you can use an immersion blender until the soup is the consistency you desire. But if you are aming for something silky smooth, it's got to be done in a regular blender. *I made the Summer Corn and Vegetable Soup over, um, the summer, and it was very tasty (though not as much to my taste as the Tuscan Vegetable Soup). I can't wait to make the Curried Butternut Squash one. YUM.

Mashed Beans

Mash some white beans in a small bowl and stir the mash into your hot soup. There it will dissolve into the broth, thicken it, and provide body, not to mention vitamins, minerals, protein, and fiber. Kidney and black beans work too, but they will color the broth. If you want some whole beans in your soup as well, you can just mash half, as in the Tuscan Vegetable Soup. *This seriously works. And I didn't really believe that it would, but the mashed beans gave the soup body and yumminess like you wouldn't believe. For serious.

Eggs

In my Lemon Chicken Soup with Orzo, I use a traditional Greek mixture of egg and lemon juice called avgolemono as a thickener. In it the egg and lemon juice are beaten together and tempered (meaning you gradually beat warm broth into the egg so it adjusts to the temperature and you don't wind up with scrambled eggs). Then you stir the mixture into the soup, which becomes luxuriously full-bodied.

Bread

I use crustless white bread, moistened in a little water and puréed with the broth to make the White Gazpacho with Grapes and Toasted Almonds thicker and more opaque. This technique works with most puréed cold soups.

Taken from The Food You Crave: Luscious Recipes for a Healthy Life by Ellie Krieger.