Soup of the Week – Creamy Basil Zucchini Edition

Saturday. That means it’s time for Soup of the Week!

I have another really simple summer vegetable soup for you this time. Much like the summer squash soup, this one is fast and easy and helps take care of the copious amounts of zucchini you may have in your possession. Or basil.

This one was a Pinterest find a few weeks ago. When the basil kept flowing from the backyard and the CSA delivery, it looked like a good option. Yes, it’s on my Pinterest soup board, but originally hails from Sunset Magazine and shows up on myrecipes.com. Go get the recipe via either option. But if you check out my soup board, you’ll find lots of other soup goodies! Here’s what’s funny about the reviews on MyRecipes.com (there were two) – one reader loved it and the other said it was blah. I can actually agree with both of those reviews.

I picked this soup because, well, it was a great use of all that basil and zucchini. I followed the recipe just as it was listed and there was nothing surprising – heat olive oil, cook veggies, add broth, simmer, puree in blender. Done. It does make a rather large pot, so rather than transferring all of that to the Vitamix, I just used the immersion blender. It worked fine, even if a bit slower than the 90,000 horsepower beast. We ended up with three pint-sized mason jars of the stuff.

I skipped the part where the recipe says to push the soup through a strainer because I just couldn’t see the sense in losing all the great nutrients, etc. from the whole veggies. The final version was smooth enough for me, so I was happy with that. My final product was not quite the green of the recipe photo, but who knows why? Perhaps it was that I used one huge zucchini rather than several small ones and the ratio of green peel to inside flesh was off. It’s still pretty.

At first taste, I thought this one might be just a bit bland, just like the reviewer said – none of the seasonings actually happen until after the soup is made. But, like many things, once it sat overnight it was a whole different story. It is really smooth and mild so if you want that, you’re all set. Or, as the recipe suggests, you can top it with crème fraîche, chili powder, and basil leaves to garnish. Sour cream or Greek yogurt works just as well (taste-wise, not visually) and really, anything you can think of eating with zucchini would work just fine here, too. I’ve tried some chopped sweet red pepper on top as well as some tomato and those were also good options. Shredded or grated cheese of whatever variety you have would work – I’ve done parmesan and cheddar.

One variation I did make was to toss in some nutritional yeast flakes like the summer squash soup called for, just to see what would happen. I tasted the soup before and after and I honestly don’t know that I perceived a difference. Or maybe that’s why it tastes so good later? Hard to say. At any rate, it definitely did not change the soup for the worse and it adds a little protein. Win.

Would I make this again? I would. But perhaps with a bit more flavor added on the front end of the process.

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After the soup was made and the basil taken care of, the CSA box brought two more bunches of basil…some went to Super Sister and one stayed here. We both ended up making pesto at some point; she used walnuts in hers (which was fantastic on the ravioli I snagged while delivering veggies) and I used pine nuts. Pesto is fast and another great way to use those fresh herbs before they end up sad and wilty – or even just after!