Creams and soups are very popular spoon dishes in both the winter and summer months. With spring well advanced – when the heat begins to get worse – you no longer feel like turning on the stove to heat creams and soups, and this is usually the time when the salmorejos and gazpachos season opens, very fresh and delicious. In addition to the classic tomato, in recent years ‘gazpachos’ made with fruits such as strawberry, watermelon or melon have become fashionable. In summer, a cold leek, zucchini or cucumber and yogurt soup can also be very pleasant.
With the drop in temperatures, however, what we need are warm creams and soups, which help warm the body from the inside and restore energy spoonful by spoonful. Both cold and hot recipes have in common that they are very nutritious recipes—normally based on vegetables, which can be accompanied by legumes or some source of protein—and very easy and quick to cook, with excellent results.
In less than half an hour you can have a cream or vegetable soup ready. If you make a broth with meat or fish, or some legumes such as chickpeas or white beans, and cook it over low heat, it will take longer, but you can greatly speed up the process and have the dish ready in a short time if you do it in a pot. fast.
Vegetable cream recipes also don’t have to be boring. They can be combined with vegetable proteins such as tofu, with nuts, quinoa or legumes, which if we grind together with the vegetables we use, it will also provide creaminess and we will have a nutritionally complete dish. We are going to give you some recipes that are perfect ideas for both lunch and dinner.
Broccoli cream with mascarpone and coconut milk
This is not the typical vegetable cream, but we assure you that if you try it you will surely repeat it. It is an excellent way to introduce broccoli, which is not usually the most appetizing vegetable on the market, into our recipes. For four people we will need one broccoli, one onion, 200 ml of coconut milk and vegetable broth, 125 ml of mascarpone cheese, salt and spices to taste.
We chop the onion and brown it while separating the stems from the broccoli and add them once the onion is well browned. Sauté everything together for a few minutes so that the flavors mix well and add the vegetable broth and coconut milk. When the broccoli is cooked, we grind everything and add the mascarpone. In this type of recipes it is essential to blend very well to give it the ideal creaminess. Once we plate we can add a splash of liquid cream, chopped nuts or croutons.
Quinoa and pumpkin cream
A very complete way to prepare a vegetable cream is by combining it with a source of vegetable protein that is as complete as possible, such as quinoa. We are going to need an onion, half a leek, 600 grams of pumpkin, a glass of quinoa, curry —it gives it a special touch—, and if you like the flavor, half a fennel bulb.
We cut all the vegetables and sauté the onion together with the leek, then add the pumpkin and stir. Next, we cover with water or vegetable broth and the curry. Meanwhile, we cook the quinoa in another saucepan and once both preparations are ready, we mix them. We can mash it all together. We cut the fennel into small pieces like half moons and brown them in a pan. We will serve it at the time of plating.
cauliflower soup
We give you a very delicious and light recipe for cauliflower soup, a seasonal vegetable that you can find every week from now on in your trusted market. To make it more flavorful we can sauté onion, garlic and sweet paprika, to which you can also add a splash of natural tomato. If you have vegetable broth, the better, but otherwise you can use water without a problem.
For four people we will need a whole cauliflower and a liter of water or vegetable broth. It is important to choose very fresh cauliflower. Make sure there are no black dots on its surface. Once clean, we are going to cut it into small trees so that it cooks more quickly. Make sure they are all the same size. When we have the sauce ready, we add the cauliflower, integrate the flavors well and add the broth. If you wish, you can also add some potatoes to the soup, it is also very delicious.
Miso and vegetable soup
A very comforting soup that is super quick to prepare is miso soup with vegetables. It is true that you need some ingredients that we do not usually have in the pantry, but that you can buy in an Asian supermarket or in large stores, and that usually last a long time and are preserved without problems. These are dried seaweed and miso paste, which is a fermented Asian paste made from soybeans and sea salt, with a high protein content and known for providing the tasty ‘umami’ flavor.
To make this soup you can use the vegetables of your choice, but grated carrots and cabbage, garlic and onion work very well. We will also need a small piece of ginger root, smoked tofu, wakame seaweed, an egg and sesame seeds. What we are going to do is, on the one hand, fry the vegetables and tofu, brown the sesame seeds and boil the egg. On the other hand, we prepare the broth with the garlic and ginger, and we add the miso paste. When serving, we first plate the vegetables with the seaweed, tofu and egg, and pour the broth over the top. You can add noodles or noodles.
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