Gordon Ramsay's Best Advice For Making Tastier Broccoli Soup

Broccoli soup is a delicious and bright way to up your soup game, yet one of the major problems with this dish can be its color. Cook the broccoli too long and your vibrant green becomes a flat, muddy grey. It may taste delicious, but it loses a lot of that visual appeal. Fortunately, Gordon Ramsay has some tips for making broccoli soup that are easier than expected and lead to a beautiful, finished dish.

It's important to always use fresh, ripe broccoli and not frozen, so you have better control of what you're using. Additionally, according to Ramsay in this YouTube video, rich, dark green broccoli with tightly packed florets comes highly recommended. However, you don't want any of them to start opening yet. To ensure only the best parts get into the soup, Ramsay holds the broccoli stem up and trims in a circle to remove the florets while avoiding the thick, woody stalk, which won't impart the color or the flavor you desire. For the celebrity chef, it's florets only for broccoli soup.

Ramsay adds the florets to rapidly boiling, salted water, which is part of preserving the color. If the temperature is too low, it typically takes longer to cook and results in a loss of that vibrancy. Then, he puts on the lid to help maintain the temperature. It only needs to cook for three and a half to four and a half minutes, until tender enough to cut with a knife.

As Ramsay demonstrates in the video, keeping the water after boiling is essential. Since it is full of broccoli flavor, it's a better base to use than chicken stock. The chef blends the broccoli with half a blender full of water while it's still hot to ensure a velvety texture. Then, it's just a matter of checking the seasoning and adding more salt if needed. While the entire soup is just broccoli, water, and salt, this technique makes it look like a fancy, restaurant-grade meal. And it would pair amazingly well with grilled cheese.

If grilled cheddar isn't your thing, Ramsay suggests serving the soup with a bit of strongly flavored, mature goat cheese. In his preparation, he adds a few walnuts and a thin slice of goat cheese to the bottom of a bowl before pouring the hot soup around it. The cheese will soften and add creaminess as it does. For some added smoothness, Ramsay has often suggested adding a knob of butter to soup, and it would work here, too.

For a richer dish, you might also consider Ramsay's broccoli soup with double cream, but this simpler one is ideal for vegans if you forgo the cheese. We also have a handful of other Gordon Ramsay tips for making soup if you're looking to recreate the Michelin-starred chef's dishes at home.