This Slow Cooker Cream of Broccoli Soup is one of my fall favorites.
The leaves are beginning to turn. The growing season is winding down. Soon fresh produce at the local farmer’s market will be scarce. I rely more heavily on frozen veggies during the colder months. Frozen vegetables often contain more nutrients than trucked-in out-of-season fresh veggies.
They can also be a great time saver – especially when you are busy with soccer games (I remember those days!) and other fun activities!
Slow Cooker Cream of Broccoli Soup
This Slow Cooker Cream of Broccoli Soup combines the convenience of frozen veggies with a busy cook’s best friend: a Crock-Pot. There is nothing more satisfying than dumping a few ingredients in a pot and returning hours later to a nearly complete meal.
While broccoli is the star ingredient, this soup features a lovely blend of flavors:
- Potato
- Sweet corn
- Pearl onions
- Basil
- Tarragon
- Sesame seasoning
You can blend the soup to a creamy consistency, or leave it a bit chunky if you like to have something to chew on.
Slow Cooker Cream of Broccoli Soup
Ingredients
Sesame Seasoning
- 1/4 cup sesame seeds preferably unhulled
- 1/4 tsp. fine sea salt
- 1 Tbsp. nutritional yeast flakes
Soup
- 1 potato medium, chopped into 1” cubes (don’t bother to peel)
- 2 cups frozen white pearl onions
- 1 cup frozen sweet corn
- 6 cups frozen broccoli florets
- 3 cups water
- 2 cups rice milk
- 1 1/2 tsp. dried basil
- 1/2 tsp. dried tarragon
- 1 tsp. fine sea salt
- 1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
Instructions
Sesame Seasoning*
-
Toast sesame seeds in a small dry skillet over medium heat – stirring constantly until seeds begin to pop and brown slightly. (About 5 minutes)
-
Add toasted seeds, ¼ tsp. salt and 1 tablespoon of nutritional yeast to a high-speed blender and grind into a fine powder. (About 30 seconds)
-
Set aside to add to soup at the end of cooking.
Soup
-
Add potato, onions, corn, broccoli and 3 cups of water to a 4-quart slow cooker. (The water won’t cover the veggies – that’s okay.)
-
Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours. (Veggies should be soft but not mushy.)**
-
Turn off slow cooker and add rice milk, basil, tarragon, salt, pepper and the sesame seasoning you prepared earlier.
-
Blend 1-2 minutes with an immersion blender until soup reaches desired consistency.***
Recipe Notes
*You may wish to double the sesame seasoning recipe and save half of it in a sealed container for later use.
**I make this soup in my 25 year-old Crock-Pot. A newer slow cooker may require less cooking time.
***If you do not have an immersion blender, carefully ladle 1/3 of the soup into a blender and mix until smooth. Pour mixture into a warm holding pot and repeat until all of the soup is blended, then return mixture to slow cooker to keep warm.
The soup and sesame seasoning were inspired and adapted from recipes in the book Foods That Fight Pain.
An immersion blender makes it MUCH easier to blend soup right in the cooking pot. If you don’t have one, check out my short article on why I think it’s worth the limited amount of storage space I have in my small kitchen.
Note: I do not include nutrition information with my recipes because I subscribe to the theories presented in the book Whole and believe we should focus on eating a variety of whole foods instead of counting calories or keeping track of individual nutrients.
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Yummy! This sounds super delicious! 🙂
It is! I just had the left overs for lunch. 🙂
It made a tasty dinner with some crispy toast dipped in it.
Glad you enjoyed it! <3
Think almond milk would work as well?
Yes! I’m sure almond milk would be fine. 🙂
2 questions. Do you think Hemp milk would work? Is the nutritional yeast necessary? I can’t have bakers or brewers yeast.
I imagine hemp milk would be fine. You can omit the nutritional yeast. The changes will likely alter the flavor to a degree – but it should still be tasty. Try it and see if you like it. Let me know how it goes. 🙂
I have a new crock pot and it was totally overdone mush at 6 hours on low when I got home. If you have a new crock pot, lessen the time quite a bit.
Thanks for sharing Crystal. New crock pots do seem to be a bit more powerful than the 25-year-old antique I use!
I had the same problem. My crockpot is a couple years old but at 6 hours on low everything was mush ????
Sorry Holly. As previously noted, newer slow cookers may require less time. Might be a good idea to cook 4 hours and have it keep warm until you get home if your slow cooker allows that. Although, since you blend it anyway, hopefully, your first batch was salvageable…
Is there a way to replace the sesame seeds? I’m allergic 🙁
I haven’t tried it, but you could try substituting the sesame seeds with hemp seeds. If you do, let us know how it goes!