15/10/2020

Celery Soup with Blue Cheese & Bacon

Name: Celery Soup with blue cheese & bacon
Prep time: 25 min
Cook time: 35 min
Total time: 60 min
Ingredients: 1 tsp olive oil; 40 g butter; 2 medium onions (roughly chopped); 250 g celery stalks (finely chopped); 4 cloves garlic (finely chopped); salt & pepper; 1 medium potato (150-200g peeled or unpeeled, diced small); 2 handfuls celery leaves (roughly chopped); 250 ml chicken or vegetable stock; 250 ml whole milk; 50 ml double cream ((optional: you can increase the milk/stock by 50ml instead)); 50 g blue cheese (e.g. Dovedale Blue, Stilton) (diced small); 2 - 4 rashers smoked bacon, cooked until crispy (diced small or crumbled); celery leaves (finely chopped)

Celery Soup, made with onions, garlic, a little potato, half stock and half milk, finished with an optional dash of double cream, is beautifully flavoured with a subtle taste of celery.

For top notch Autumn and Winter comfort food, top each creamy, satisfying bowl with cubes of blue cheese to melt in plus crispy, smoky bacon.

Jump to Recipe

CELERY: from supporting role to star attraction

I suppose I’ve always thought of celery as a background flavour.

Yes, I almost always have some in the fridge, ready to add depth to stocks, sauces and soup bases, to add vegetable content to grain pilaffs and vegetarian bakes, or crunch to salads. But it was only when I got the magnificent specimen you see below that I felt the urge to make it the star of the show.

The beautifully gnarly organic celery came in my latest Moorlands Veg Box and I thought it deserved special treatment.

With Autumn well under way now, I’m making soup at least once a week. So a soup, with a little creaminess off-setting celery’s slight bitterness, immediately suggested itself.

As well as those fabulously twisty stalks, my two heads of celery had lots of lovely leaf, so I wanted to use some of those too. If you didn’t already know, you can eat the leaves just as you would any other herb or greens. Just use them anywhere that would benefit from a little celery flavour.

CELERY SOUP

You’ll find a detailed recipe card at the bottom of this post, but here’s a quick overview of how to make this fab Celery Soup.

Along with the celery stalks and about two handfuls of the chopped leaves, into the saucepan went onions and garlic which I sweated in a generous amount of butter plus a little olive oil. After they’d softened for around ten minutes, I added a chopped potato which helps to give body and texture to the soup.

Next went in stock (I used homemade chicken stock from the freezer) and an equal amount of whole milk.

All you do then is put a lid on and simmer until all the vegetables are nice and soft. As we’ve chopped them small, this should take not much more than 10 minutes.

Although I often like some chunky texture to my soups, I think celery soup is one best whizzed up to a smooth puree. This is especially important if your celery is a bit stringy (luckily, mine wasn’t). I take the saucepan off the heat and go in with my stick blender and whizz away.

To finish the soup, just 50ml of double cream is enough to really take it up a notch. Update: I’ve since made the soup without the cream and didn’t miss it, so consider it optional. You can increase the milk and stock by a total of 50 ml instead if you like.

Check the seasoning and add a little more salt and pepper if needed.

Put the pan back on the heat and gently heat through again before serving.

SERVING CELERY SOUP

Celery Soup, with its subtle flavouring and lightly creamy texture, is hugely satisfying.

It makes a lovely light lunch or first course just with some good bread. Here I paired it with my Cheese, Onion & Chilli Bread.

But, with a few simple toppings, I think you can really take Celery Soup to the next level.

If you’ve seen my recipe for Roasted Cauliflower Soup, you’ll know that I’m fond of serving soups with a scattering of diced cheese. As you spoon it up, you’ll find half-melted little nuggets that give extra pops of flavour and gooey texture. Heaven.

So, for my Celery Soup, I decided to use a classic pairing with celery: blue cheese.

Specifically, I used one of my favourite blue cheeses: creamy but tangy Dovedale Blue from the Staffordshire Cheese Company. Made in the village where I live, it doesn’t come more local than that.

To contrast with the tangy Dovedale Blue and the soft, creamy soup, how about some crispy, smoky bacon? While the soup was simmering, I grilled a couple of free-range smoked streaky bacon rashers until well done. Crumbled or chopped then sprinkled over the soup, they added extra salty, smoky flavour as well as crunchy texture. Think of them as porky croutons!

For colour, as well as a hit of fresh celery flavour, I sprinkled more of those dark leaves, roughly chopped, over the soup.

All that’s left to do then is dig in with your spoon, stirring though the creamy soup those tasty morsels of cheese and bacon.

I love the way the cheese just half melts and only some of the spoonsful have bits of bacon. This means that every bite is different. Some more cheesy. Some with a hit of salty pig. Others just creamy celery.

You won’t want to waste a single bit of this wonderful, easy and comforting soup. So have a hunk or two of good bread on hand to clear every bit from the bowl.

Have you made Celery Soup with blue cheese & bacon?