Broccoli and Sweet Potato Soup Recipe
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This broccoli and sweet potato soup recipe is creamy, hearty, and easy to love. One pot, simple ingredients, and lightly sweet, this European-style soup is a full meal with some crusty bread on the side.
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Broccoli Sweet Potato Soup Quick Look
Prep 10 min, cook 25 min, large pot or Dutch oven, 4 servings.
- One pot, simple ingredients and super easy
- No bouillon cube, built entirely on a mirepoix of onion, carrot and celery
- European style, no ginger, turmeric or spice, just flavorful veggies in a slightly sweet, hearty soup
- Delicious plain, with a splash of cream, or a vegan cream for a dairy-free version
Table of contents
- Broccoli Sweet Potato Soup Quick Look
- What Makes This Broccoli and Sweet Potato Soup Recipe Special
- Equipment
- Ingredients to Make Sweet Potato Broccoli Soup
- How to Make Broccoli and Sweet Potato Soup
- Tips
- What to serve with Sweet Potato and Broccoli Soup
- How to Store Broccoli Sweet Potato Soup
- FAQ
- What to Make Next
- Broccoli Sweet Potato Soup Recipe Card
- How I Tested This Recipe
What Makes This Broccoli and Sweet Potato Soup Recipe Special
You might not think broccoli and sweet potato go together, but they do! The sweet potato gives this soup a light sweetness and takes away that slightly grassy taste that broccoli sometimes has. The combination works really well.
This isn’t a curried or spiced version. There is no ginger, no turmeric. It’s meant to taste like the vegetables and is European in style.
You also don’t need stock powder. If I have homemade chicken stock, I may use that, but really this soup does not need it. I use the French technique of a mirepoix instead, chopped onion, carrot and celery, sautéed first to build depth. I prefer it because a stock cube tends to make every soup taste like the same soup.
I picked this method up properly in France, and I’m revisiting it now. I’m actually doing my Certificate III in Commercial Cookery through TAFE in Victoria, which has a strong focus on French technique. You can read more about my background on my About page. it’s the same method I use for many of my soups, like this Fall pumpkin, carrot and apple soup and this spinach leek soup.
Equipment
- Large pot or Dutch oven
- Immersion blender (stick blender)
- Vegetable peeler
- Cutting board and knife
Ingredients to Make Sweet Potato Broccoli Soup
Full quantities are in the recipe card below.
- Onion, carrot and celery – your mirepoix, and the whole flavor base of the soup.
- Sweet potato – peeled and cubed. It adds a lovely sweetness and is rich in beta-carotene.
- Broccoli – fresh is best, but you can also use frozen. Also, this soup is great for using up those sad looking broccolis you might have forgotten in your fridge. And broccoli is full of fiber and vitamin C.
- Water or homemade stock – The mirepoix base of onion, carrot and celery means you don’t need stock powder.
- Parsley – adds more depth.
- Cream or milk – the soup is creamy enough on its own, but I love a bit of cream in my soup 🙂. You can use a vegan cream to make this recipe vegan.
- Chives or garlic chives or more parsley – for garnish
- Salt and pepper – It brings out all the flavors. Definitely don’t skip! I like to salt it at the very end.
How to Make Broccoli and Sweet Potato Soup
- Heat a tablespoon of oil or butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add your onion, carrot and celery and cook for 5 to 7 minutes, until it’s all nice and soft. Keep the heat at medium and stir often, you want the onion soft, not colored. Browning it here will give the soup an unwanted smoky flavor.
- Add the sweet potato, broccoli, and water (or homemade stock) and bring it up to a boil. Turn the heat down, cover it, and let it simmer for 20 to 25 minutes, until everything’s completely soft. You want to be able to squash a piece of sweet potato against the side of the pot with basically no effort.
- Stir in the chopped parsley, then blend until smooth. Give it a bit longer than you think it needs, that’s where you get that really silky, velouté-style texture.
- Stir in the cream or milk if you’re using it.
- Finally, season with salt and pepper. You may find you are adding a bit more salt than usual if you don’t use stock powder. This is because often stock powder contains quite a bit of salt.
- If it’s thicker than you’d like, loosen it up with a splash more stock or water.
Tips
- Slice the celery fairly thinly so you don’t get long strands caught up in your mixer.
- You can use more or less of the broccoli and sweet potato. Just make sure the total weight stays the same.
- I keep the water or stock on the lower side on purpose. Since it’s water rather than a seasoned broth, it’s easy to add more at the end if it’s thicker than you want, but harder to fix a soup that’s gone too thin.
- Blend it fully smooth if you want to hide the broccoli from picky eaters, or you just prefer a smooth soup. If your family’s not fussed, pulling some sweet potato and broccoli out before blending gives you more texture instead.
What to serve with Sweet Potato and Broccoli Soup
Serve with a bit of parsley, chives or garlic chives on top, and some crusty bread on the side if you want to make a real meal of it.
I used a mix of regular chives and garlic chives from my garden – the garlic chives are the thicker ones. I find chives give a lovely flavor to this soup, but you can also add parsley, some black pepper or homemade croutons or bread “fingers” like I did in my pumpkin and carrot soup.
How to Store Broccoli Sweet Potato Soup
- Keeps in the fridge for up to 4 days in a sealed container, and freezes well for up to 3 months.
- For make-ahead, add the cream or milk after you reheat the soup rather than before storing or freezing.
FAQ
Yes! This soup is nice and creamy without the cream or milk, so you can just serve it plain. Or, you can use a plant-based cream which is also very nice.
Yes, this is perfectly fine. I think using the veggie base lets the veggie ingredients shine, instead of having that slightly generic taste, but if you are in a rush, you can absolutely just use a stock cube and the soup will still taste very nice.
What to Make Next
If you liked the sweet potato in this one, my asparagus sweet potato soup uses the same trick with a different vegetable pairing. For more broccoli, my broccoli asparagus soup is a good next step.
If you like smooth, veloute textured soups, try my cauliflower, potato and leek soup and my pumpkin and cauliflower soup.
For something a bit more Baltic, this asparagus soup with dill is lovely (one of my absolute favorite soups), and for a lighter, summer version of this same simple style, there’s my zucchini dill soup.
Broccoli Sweet Potato Soup Recipe Card
Want to save this recipe?
We’ll email this recipe to you, so you can come back to it later! Plus get great new recipes from us every week!
Broccoli Sweet Potato Soup
Equipment
- 1 Immersion blender (Stick blender, or regulr blender)
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp olive oil or butter
- 1 onion chopped
- 1 carrot chopped
- 1 small celery stalk chopped
- 4 cups sweet potato peeled and cubed (500-600 grams)
- 5 cups broccoli cut into florets (around 500 grams)
- 5 cups water or homemade stock 1.25 liters
- 1-2 tbsp fresh parsley chopped
- Salt and black pepper to taste
- 1/3 cup cream optional (90 ml or so)
- Fresh chives or garlic chives or parsley optional, for serving
Instructions
- Heat oil or butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add onion, carrot, and celery, cook 5 to 7 minutes until softened. Keep the heat at medium and stir often, you want the onion soft, not colored. Browning it here will give the soup an unwanted smoky flavor.
- Add sweet potato, broccoli, and stock (or water). Bring to a boil.
- Reduce heat, cover, and simmer 20 to 25 minutes until vegetables are very tender.
- Add parsley, then blend until completely smooth.
- Stir in cream, if using. Season with salt and pepper.
- If too thick, add a little extra stock or water.
- Serve topped with fresh parsley or chives.
Notes
- For a vegan version, omit the cream or use a plant-based cream.
- You can use more or less of the broccoli and sweet potato as long as the total weight stays about the same.
- Slice the celery fairly thinly so you don’t get long strands caught up in your mixer.
Storage:
- Keeps in the fridge for up to 4 days in a sealed container, and freezes well for up to 3 months.
- For make-ahead, add the cream or milk after you reheat the soup rather than before storing or freezing.
Nutrition
How I Tested This Recipe
I made this a few times before I was happy with it, mostly figuring out how much water I needed. I keep the water on the lower side on purpose. It’s easy to add more at the end, but harder to fix a soup that’s too watery.
I start most of my soups with a “mirepoix” mixture, so that was a given, but the other thing I did pay close attention to was the onion. Let it catch or brown too much in that first step and the whole soup ends up with a faint bbq flavor, which is the last thing you want in something meant to taste light and European, not smoky. Keep the heat at medium and stir it. You’re just softening the onion, not coloring it.
Blending it completely smooth turned out to matter for another reason too. When my kids were younger, broccoli wasn’t exactly a favorite in this house. Blended in like this, they had no idea it was even in the bowl 🙂.
The only seasoning I really adjust is salt and pepper, and I do that right at the end, once everything’s blended. This is a European-style soup, flavorful from the vegetables themselves, not from a spice cabinet.
Healthy and tasty – best for winter
Thanks Dee. So happy you liked it 🙂