It’s time for another Sweet or Savory Challenge! Ricki, from Diet, Dessert and Dogs and Kim from Affairs of Living have concocted another great challenge for all of us. This month, we’ve been charged with creating unique sweet or savory recipes featuring sesame, in all its many forms – sesame oil, sesame paste (tahini), or straight up sesame seeds.
Now, don’t anyone have a heart attack or anything, but I’m actually posting something savory. I know, I know. It doesn’t happen all that often. But, I do eat savory foods. Honest I do. I just don’t photograph them well, and I’m really quite bad about throwing a little of this and a little of that in a pot and never doing it quite the same way twice. It’s hard to post a recipe when you don’t actually follow a recipe, ya know?
But, just for all of you (and Ricki and Kim) I decided to actually try to write down what I did for this family favorite soup. I’m cheating a bit, though. We’ve been making this soup for years – long before I stopped eating gluten or dairy. The recipe originally came from Epicurious. They wrote down most of it for me (hence, the cheating). We’ve morphed it into something quite a bit healthier, and that fits all my dietary needs.
Granted there isn’t a LOT of sesame in this recipe. But, it really isn’t the same without the tahini. The tahini makes it “creamy” and the combination of nutritional yeast, tahini and lemon juice is what gives it that “cheesy” kick. Mmmm….cheesy… and yet, it’s vegan and gluten-free.
Broccoli Red Pepper "Cheddar" Chowder - Tahini Makes it Creamy
Broccoli Red Pepper “Cheddar” Chowder
1 T. coconut oil (eyeball it – anything close is fine)
1 onion, chopped
1 potato, diced
1/2 red pepper, chopped
2 1/4 cups gluten-free veggie broth
1 t. whole mustard seed
1/2 t. ground mustard seed
1 t. ground cumin
1/2 t. salt
A few generous grinds of pepper
1 large clove garlic, minced
1 small head broccoli, cut into bite-size pieces
1/3 cup nutritional yeast
2 T. tahini (sesame paste)
1 T. lemon juice
In a 2 quart kettle, heat the coconut oil over medium heat until melted. Add the onions, red pepper, potato, mustard seed and cumin. Sauté several minutes until onions begin to soften. Add the broth, salt and pepper and garlic. Bring to a simmer. Simmer 5 minutes. Add the broccoli and continue to simmer until potatoes are soft and broccoli is tender. Remove from heat.
Using a stick blender or regular blender, puree the soup. If you so desire, you can scoop out a few pieces of broccoli before you puree it. Or not. No big deal either way. Leave some chunks. This is a chowder, not a cream soup.
Add the nutritional yeast, tahini and lemon juice. Adjust salt and pepper, if needed. Enjoy!
What do you do with sesame? Are you up to the challenge?
The Mommy Bowl 
Sounds like a perfect fall/winter soup! I love adding tahini to soups and stews for that bit of creaminess–I bet it is delicious. And thanks for even posting something savory!! 😉 Another great submission for the SOS Challenge–thanks!
This looks absolutely delicious! And since I’ve actually never had broccoli soup (in any form) before, I’m really excited to try it…
Consider yourself book-marked 🙂
Thank you JD! Broccoli soup (in all its many forms) is completely delicious, and a great way to get kids to eat broccoli without even knowing it. 🙂
Sounds lovely!
Thank you Colleen!
I’m super excited to try this recipe! It will be my first time using nutritional yeast – I picked some up a couple of weeks ago, and have been wondering what to do with it! Now all I need is ground mustard – for the mustard seeds do you use yellow, brown or black, does it matter?
Yay! I’m so glad you’re going to try it! For the mustard seeds, I use brown, because it’s what I have on hand. I’m not sure it makes a huge difference, though.
If you’ve never had nutritional yeast before, you may want to start adding it slowly and taste along the way. It can be a bit of an acquired taste. Once you’ve acquired it, though, watch out! Both my son and husband decided that they wanted more to sprinkle on top of the soup while eating it.
Thanks! I just finished eating this for lunch – I made a few modifications, but it was great! I plan on posting the recipe with my modifications and linking back to yours if that’s okay. I only purchased about 1/4 cup of the yeast from a bulk bin, I would have liked a little more, but it was great – I’ll definetly be using it recipes a lot more now!
Sure – Ashlie. Feel free to post your modifications and link back. Isn’t that what we all do? Modify other recipes that inspire us? 🙂
Thanks Deanna! Here’s the link to the post, I just put it up!http://delshadduo.blogspot.com/2010/10/broccoli-chowder.html
OMG… I have to try this… these food combinations are definately new for me… gotta do it…
this looks wonderful – I tried a cheese soup recently that was very disappointing – I love the flavours here and must try as I am sure they would be more to my liking
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