Creamy Vegetable Soup: A delicious and easy-to-make dish packed with veggies and wholesome ingredients.
Serve Creamy Vegetable Soup with this Pear Salad, these Roasted Brussels Sprouts, or a crusty loaf of bread!
Pure Comfort Food!
This Creamy Vegetable Soup is pure comfort food! I make it whenever the weather is chilly or when I have some leftover veggies that need to be used up. While I’m a huge fan of broth-based vegetable soups (like this Vegetable Soup or this Chicken-Vegetable Soup), my boys prefer creamy soups with lots of cheese in them. This is one of their favorites. I’ll also usually whip up a salad to serve alongside it (like this Crispy Chicken Salad), and if I’m feeling ambitious, these Dinner Rolls also make it to the table.
But if not, there is always some kind of bread served on the side for dunking—soup just isn’t the same without it!
Another one of our favorite ways to enjoy this creamy vegetable soup is in a crusty bread bowl—there are few things better than that!
How To Make Creamy Vegetable Soup
- Prepare the vegetables by sautéing the carrots, celery, and onion in butter and oil.
- Stir in the chopped potatoes, Italian seasoning, and chicken stock. Bring to a boil and cook for 15-20 minutes.
- While the veggies are cooking, prepare the cream mixture by melting the remaining butter, stirring in the flour, milk, and cream.
- Once veggies are tender, stir in the frozen broccoli and corn and cook for 2-3 additional minutes, or until the broccoli and corn are warmed through.
- Remove the vegetable mixture from heat and add in the cream mixture. Season to taste, top with sharp Cheddar shredded cheese and enjoy this Creamy Vegetable Soup!
In this recipe, I have provided my favorite way to make a soup creamy – a good mix of butter, flour, milk, and cream. However, there are lots of other ways to make a soup creamy. Read on for alternate solutions.
How Do You Make The Soup Creamy?
- If you are vegan or lactose-intolerant, you can replace the butter with vegetable oil and use almond milk as well as dairy-free cheese.
- For a gluten intolerance, the flour can be replaced with cornstarch, using half the amount called for.
- If you are working to make this meal shelf-stable, replace the milk and cream with evaporated milk.
Shortcuts
Creamy Vegetable Soup admittedly has quite a bit of chopping required, but below I’ve got a few shortcut ideas to help save some time in the kitchen.
- To save yourself chopping time, pick up a mirepoix (also called soup starter at some stores). Lots of stores sell pre-chopped mirepoix (a French phrase for diced onion, carrot, and celery)in the produce section. If you’re in a hurry, get that fresh-chopped mirepoix or you can even use frozen mirepoix.
- To save yourself chopping time, use jarred garlic or a garlic press. Instead of mincing your own garlic, you can use jarred to save time. Alternatively, a garlic press gives you fresh minced garlic in a fraction of that time that hand mincing requires.
The secret to the great flavor of this soup and most vegetable soups in the stock it is cooked in. I used Kroger’s Simple Truth® Organic chicken stock in this recipe and it is delicious! There are a lot of spices you can also add to enhance the flavor of your vegetable soup.
Lets Talk Spices In Vegetable Soup
- Italian seasoning – Italian seasoning is a great addition to most savory dishes, and it is delicious in this soup. Creamy Vegetable Soup calls for 1 ½ teaspoons of Italian Seasoning, but feel free to add more if desired. (Kroger’s Private Selection Italian Seasoning blend is my favorite!)
- Paprika – If you like a little heat in your soup, you may want to add some paprika (up to 2 teaspoons).
- Black pepper – Freshly ground black pepper is a great addition to any vegetable soup.
- Other fresh herbs such as thyme or basil would taste great in this soup – add according to your personal preferences!
Storage
Leftovers?
- Allow the soup to cool completely before transferring it to an airtight container. Store it in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.
- For longer storage, you can freeze the soup for up to 3 months. Just make sure to leave some space in the container for expansion.
- When reheating, thaw the frozen soup in the refrigerator overnight, then warm it on the stovetop over low heat, stirring occasionally.
More Delicious Soup Recipes
- White Chicken Chili made in the slow cooker
- Crockpot Chili winner of dozens of chili cook-offs!
- Tortilla Soup in 20 minutes!
- Creamy Tortellini Soup with Italian sausage
- Beef and Barley Soup made in the slow cooker
Creamy Vegetable Soup
Ingredients
- 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, separated
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 3 cups mirepoix: (1 cup diced carrots, 1 cup diced celery, 1 cup diced yellow onion)
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 4 cups baby red or baby gold potatoes, chopped into small bite-sized pieces
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
- 3 cups chicken stock (or chicken broth--or vegetable stock for vegetarian)
- 2 cups frozen broccoli florets, thawed and finely chopped
- 1 cup frozen corn
- 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons white all-purpose flour
- 3 cups milk (I use 1%; use 1%, 2% or whole)
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 3/4 teaspoon EACH: salt and pepper
- 2 cups Freshly grated sharp Cheddar cheese
- Optional: fresh parsley or thyme, crusty loaf of bread
Instructions
- In a large pot over medium heat, melt 1 tablespoon of butter with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Add the diced carrots, celery, and onion, and sauté for 5-7 minutes. Add garlic and sauté for 30 more seconds.
- Stir in the chopped potatoes, Italian seasoning, and chicken stock. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce to medium. Cover and cook for 15-20 minutes, or until the veggies are crisp-tender. Add the frozen broccoli and corn, and cook for 2-3 more minutes, until all veggies are tender and warmed through.
- Meanwhile, melt the remaining 4 tablespoons butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the flour and cook, whisking constantly, for 1 minute. While whisking vigorously, slowly pour in the milk (whisk until smooth).
- Cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture gently boils and thickens. Stir in the heavy cream and remove from heat. Once the veggies are tender, pour the milk/cream mixture into the soup and stir. Season with salt and pepper. Reduce heat to low, stir in the shredded cheese, and cook until melted. Serve warm with chopped parsley or thyme and bread!
Video
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
You should try making a vegetable soup with vegetable stock! It’s better for you, the environment and tastes better.
You can definitely use vegetable stock in this recipe if you’d prefer
Decided to cook this after trying to figure out what to do with the left over chicken stock. I happened to have most of the veggies … not all – used onion powder instead of an onion. Regardless, there is so much flavor in this soul!
So glad you enjoyed this soup! 🙂
Oh My Goodness! This creamy vegetable soup is so tasty and a nice change from regular tomato based vegetable soups. I substituted vegetable broth for the chicken broth, and half-and-half for the heavy cream because that’s what I had at home, and this recipe turned out delicious. My family loved it and it has earned a spot in our favorite soup recipe collection. Thank you!!
I am so happy to hear this Claudine! Thanks so much for your comment! 🙂
I made a began version of this recipe. Soooo good!
*vegan
So glad you enjoyed 🙂
This recipe is fantastic and I am making it for the second time tonight (during lock-down) and due to lack of groceries have to make some adjustments. I used cream of celery soup (2 cans) with milk and I roasted my broccoli and my potatoes. I also added peas. Thanks again for a great recipe that can be changed up and still taste great.
I am so happy to hear this! I’m so glad you were able to make it work with what you had, sounds delicious! Thanks Jamie! 🙂
DELICIOUS!! My family really enjoyed this soup! I used fresh brocoli, marble cheddar and half & half cream, all I had on hand) just as delicious! 🙂
I’m so glad you guys loved this Creamy Vegetable Soup! And so glad you were able to work with what you had, sounds delicious! Thanks for your comment! 🙂
I am the queen of picky eaters and this was YUMMMMMMMY!!!! I thought you could probably throw a few mushrooms in if you wanted. I did add a little more of the spices and onion than the recipe called for since milk/ cream dilutes everything. I made it and let it sit overnight. So good and went into my recipe book where I put recipes I will make again.
Yay! Thrilled to hear that! Thanks so much for the comment and review Angela 🙂
This looks good, however, I’m doing a modified Keto diet (not allowing all fats but trying to have more good fats than bad fats). I’ll have to modify this to remove all the carbs (i.e. potatoes, corn, and replace the milk with like an almond or soy milk). But I’m tired of having just plain’ ole chicken broth based vegetable soup so this looks to be a good starting place.
I also noticed the recipe says this is for 4-6 servings but the serving size isn’t posted (or at least I couldn’t find it). Just a suggestion to do so in future posts.
I know every recipe doesn’t have to be sensitive to those that are battling carbs. I just wanted to post this for those that are.
Thanks for sharing this recipe. 😉
Excellent! I did some tweaks to get a creamy texture. Mine was surely different but it was delicious. Thanks!
Tweaks:
I mashed the veggies.
I put butternut squash since I didnt have celery.
Cauliflower since i didnt have broccoli.
I used mozzarella since I didnt have cheddar.
I’m so glad you loved this! Thanks for the tips, those sound delicious! 🙂
I made this recipe but instead with almond milk and everyone loved it!
Yay!! I’m so happy to hear this! Thanks for the tip! 🙂