This broccoli and potato soup recipe with cheddar cheese, crispy bacon and crunchy croutons makes a deliciously creamy broccoli potato soup without cream, but with loads of flavour and texture thanks to the cheese, bacon, croutons, and optional but recommended toppings such as fragrant fresh herbs, extra virgin olive oil, sour cream, and chilli flakes.
If you find a deliciously creamy bowl of vegetable soup as comforting and as satisfying as I do, then you’re going to love this easy broccoli and potato soup recipe with cheddar cheese, crispy bacon and crunchy croutons. It’s one of our best broccoli recipes and one of our best potato soup recipes. Bonus: it’s not only hearty, but it’s healthy, as it’s all vegetables and no cream.
Fortunately, our readers are soup lovers, too. Three of our most popular recipes this time last year were potato soup recipes. If you enjoy slurping soups as much as I do, do browse our other soup recipe collections. We have compilations of chicken soups, noodle soups, chicken noodle soups, and fish soups, along with warming winter soups and cold summer soups, depending on what hemisphere you’re in.
Now before I share this easy broccoli and potato soup recipe with cheddar, bacon and crouton crumbs, I have a favour to ask. Grantourismo is reader-supported. If you’ve enjoyed our recipes, please consider supporting Grantourismo. You could buy a handcrafted KROK, the best mortar and pestle ever; or book a cooking class or meal with locals on EatWith; or buy something on Amazon, such as these cookbooks for culinary travellers, classic cookbooks for serious cooks, or gifts for Asian food lovers and picnic lovers.
Looking for more cooking inspiration? We’ve got thousands of recipes in our archives from around the world from places we’ve lived, worked, travelled, and loved. And note that you can save your favourite recipes in a private account by clicking on the heart on the right of the post. Now let’s tell you all about this easy broccoli and potato soup recipe.
Broccoli and Potato Soup Recipe with Cheddar Cheese, Crispy Bacon and Crunchy Croutons
My quick and easy broccoli and potato soup recipe with cheddar cheese, crispy bacon and crunchy croutons will make you an incredibly delicious creamy broccoli potato soup without the cream – although I add a dollop of sour cream with the toppings and garnishes, which are all optional of course.
I’ve long loved creamy vegetable soups. But while I can appreciate a rich vichyssoise of the sort Terence used to prepare for the dinner parties we often used to host, he served his creamy potato, leak and cauliflower soups, garnished with chives, more cream and caviar, as an amuse bouche in a shot glass – which is enough cream for me.
My kind of creamy vegetable soup is what these days is called a vegetable-forward soup or a vegetable-driven soup – a vegetable soup made without cream but is creamy in consistency, and the best way to achieve that creaminess is in a blender with soft potatoes or cauliflower to provide the ‘creamy’ texture. A dollop of sour cream on top, or rich thickened cream if you must, completes the illusion!
Just a few tips to making my quick and easy broccoli and potato soup recipe with cheddar cheese, crispy bacon and crunchy croutons.
Tips to Making this Broccoli and Potato Soup Recipe
Melted cheddar cheese will give your broccoli potato soup a richness and denser texture if you use enough of it – and there’s a long tradition of using cheddar in broccoli soups.
I prefer to sprinkle a little quality vintage cheddar cheese at the end (or a little Parmigiano Reggiano), along with a handful of other toppings, rather than turn my broccoli and potato soup into a soupy green fondue. But that’s just me. You do as you prefer.
And as for that colour: broccoli is green, so I’ve never understood why so many broccoli potato soups look yellow, even when the greater proportion of the vegetables on the ingredient list is broccoli. My broccoli and potato soup recipe is going to give you a gorgeous green soup.
This latest batch of broccoli and potato soup I made for the recipe photo shoot was with a several days-old piece of broccoli, which had some older florets that were yellowing at the base, resulting in a broth that wasn’t as green as I liked. Although it certainly was yellow.
But that’s easily fixed: after you’ve blended your soup to the perfect consistency, toss a few fresh green veggie leaves or handful of herbs into the blender and give it a quick blitz. It doesn’t matter what they are, as long as they’re fresh and green. If you use a mix of herbs and leaves, there won’t be a dominant flavour, just an added freshness.
I had a few rucola leaves and a small dish of mixed fresh herbs I’d plucked from our balcony herb garden – a little dill, some basil and celery leaves – and that was enough to take my broccoli and potato soup from a pale green to bright green colour, which is so much more appetising.
No other tips to making my easy broccoli and potato soup recipe, as it really is a cinch to make – just use the best quality sea salt and extra virgin olive oil that you can afford, and I highly recommend making your own homemade croutons which you can pound a little in a mortar and pestle.
If serving this to guests, I recommend providing additional dishes of crispy bacon, croutons, grated cheese, fresh herbs, and sour cream, along with chilli flakes and extra virgin olive oil, so guests can help themselves and customise their bowls to their taste. I personally, love adding loads of extra fresh herbs, especially fresh dill, basil and celery leaves.
This recipe makes two big generously-sized bowls of soup for a main for dinner, three medium-sized bowls that would be ideal for lunch or a light dinner, or four smaller bowls that would be perfect for light lunch with a salad or an appetiser for dinner.
But please don’t hesitate to let us know if you have any questions about our easy broccoli and potato soup recipe and I’ll answer in the comments below and add anything helpful here. Enjoy!
Broccoli and Potato Soup Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 litres water - or 1 part vegetable/chicken stock and 1 part of water
- 1 tsp salt
- 200 g potatoes - diced in 2cm cubes
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 200 g onion - finely diced
- 2 garlic cloves - finely chopped
- 400 g broccoli - roughly chopped into small florets
- 2 smoky bacon rashers - sliced into strips
- 2 tbsp croutons - pounded into crumbs
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tbsp vintage cheddar - grated
- 2 tbsp sour cream
- 1 tsp chilli flakes
- 1 tbsp fresh herbs - such as dill, basil, celery leaves, etc
Instructions
- In a soup pot, boil the diced potatoes in two litres of salted water or a litre of vegetable or chicken stock and a litre of water.
- In a wok or fry pan on medium-high, heat one tablespoon of olive oil until shimmering, then fry the onions until soft and translucent, add half the garlic and fry until fragrant, then transfer the onion and garlic to the soup pot.
- To the same wok or fry pan on medium, heat two tablespoons of olive oil until shimmering, then fry the rest of the garlic for 30 seconds until fragrant, add the broccoli and stir-fry to ensure its covered in olive oil and continue to stir-fry for a few minutes until soft and starting to brown.
- Scoop 2-3 ladles of garlicky-onion stock out of the pot and into the wok/pan of fried broccoli – the liquid only for now; let the potatoes continue to boil and soften – and stir then leave to simmer for a few minutes, stirring to ensure it doesn’t stick and even adding another scoop of stock if needed.
- When the broccoli is soft, turn the heat off and transfer it to the soup pot and stir to combine well. If the potatoes aren’t tender yet, leave it to simmer a little longer.
- While you’re waiting, prep the garnishes/toppings: in the same wok you’ve been using, fry the slices of bacon rashers until crispy (you probably won’t need any oil but add a splash if you do); and pound the homemade croutons in a mortar and pestle until crushed into crumbs.
- When the potatoes are tender, transfer the soup to a blender – you may need to do two batches – and pulse until thick and creamy.
- Pour into soup bowls, drizzle on the extra virgin olive oil, shower with grated cheese, add a dollop of sour cream to each bowl, sprinkle on chilli flakes, strips of crispy bacon and crouton crumbs, garnish with fresh herbs, and serve immediately with crusty bread.
Nutrition
Please do let us know if you make this easy broccoli and potato soup recipe as we’d love to hear how it turned out for you.
