I feel like Mary Poppins would be a really wonderful soup maker.
Iโm not talking about the spoonful of sugar.
Itโs that magical purse she carries around. If she can pull a coat rack and house plant out of her nanny bag, imagine the things she could coax from a giant soup pan. Dreams! I imagine the most lovely and effortlessly delicious soup, with a dash of cream like whaaat!?
Waitโฆ can Mary Poppins make us all soup forever and always?
I wonder if Mary Poppins has wasabi peas and a baguette in her purse. Probably.
I made this soup on a day that I needed soupโฆ and a day when I needed soup to be easy.
This zucchini soup went from coarsely chopped veggies, to a hot broth bath, to blender soup magic. Itโs incredibly simple and majorly satisfying.
This soup can be as meaty or vegan as youโd like. Itโs entirely flexible. Chicken stock versus vegetable stock. Butter versus olive oil. A sprinkling of parmesan cheese or a smattering of chopped toasted almonds. Tarragon is essential. It has a bright anise-like flavor that really compliments the base zucchini flavor.
Adding a bit of cream to finish is decadent, but the soup is dang delicious without it. I made the soup with and without cream and I happened to eat the entire bowl of cream-laced soupโฆ just sayinโ.
This soup recipe comes from the center of my stack of Spring reading inspiration. The new Daphne Oz book, Relish is disarmingly sweet and has some really lovely recipes that inspire sharing and caring. Alsoโฆ I think reread East Of Eden because it tears my heart apart then puts it back together-ish. Lastly, kitten toe hair is a thing. I canโt deal (but I can).
Creamy Zucchini Tarragon Soup
recipe from Relish
serves 4
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium sweet yellow onion, about 1 1/2 cups
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
4 medium zucchini, chopped, about 5 cups
2 tablespoon fresh tarragon leaves, plus more for garnish
1/4 cup white wine
2 cups vegetable or chicken stock
salt and fresh cracked black pepper
1/4 cup heavy cream, optional
white truffle oil for garnish, optional
Heat olive oil in a large soup pot over medium heat. Add onion and saute until translucent, about 3 to 5 minutes. Add garlic and saute for 1 minute more. Add zucchini and tarragon leaves and cook for about 2 minutes, stirring often. Add the wine and deglaze the bottom of the pan. Add stock and bring to a simmer. Cook for 15 to 20 minutes, or until zucchini is cooked through and soft.
Transfer soup to a blender, place a towel over the blender and puree until smooth. You can also use an immersion blender. Return the soup to the pot and stir in cream, if using. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with a drizzle of white truffle oil and a few tarragon leaves.
88 Responses
My umpteenth time making this soup at the end of August when the zucchini supply begins to dwindle and a warm soup on a breezy evening is just a good idea. Even zucchini-deniers love it. Thank you Joy!
Love this soup. So good.
Please amend your โprint the receiptโ programme. It wasted 3 sheets of my printer paper and ink with โjunkโ before printing the actual recipe. But I do look look forward to trying it!
so sorry about that margaret.
Everything that Iโve tried of yours has been delicious and this is no exception!! Now I finally know what to do with all those zucchini from the garden this summer! I need to buy every cookbook you have stat- keep up the good work ????
Thank you so much Amy! Thatโs so sweet Amy! Good thing I have two books out, and working on a third!
This soup looks fabulous, and I love zucchini! Thanks
My 2 year old LOVES this soup โฆ and we had a hearty tarragon crop this year, so Iโve been making it constantly. One thing I do differently โ I wait to add the tarragon until the soup is done but before I puree it. The hot soup still takes on the tarragon flavor, but itโs a lot brighter.
Joy,
If you had to choose 2 books for a wannabe baker/pastry chef โ what would you choose?
I love this soup. I just threw a jalapeno in the pot. Iโm not sorry. :)
Is there a substitute for wine. I do not drink alcohol. Thanks
you can just add more vegetable or chicken stock.
This is very good thank you
wow, this sounds amazing!!!
I made this soup two days after I saw the post. It was delicious! Minus the cream and its rather low fat!
Just made this and it was delish! Thanks, Joy. :)
I love this thought. Mary Poppins absolutely would have been a great soup maker.
This is on my hob now and will be dinner tonight! Smells fab!
Up here in Alaska my friends and I call kitty toe hair โExtra Tufts,โ because we humans all wear rubber boots called โXtra Tufs.โ I love those extra tufts.
Your pictures are so crisp and neat. Itโs finally zucchini season! Looks delicious!
Mary Poppins always brings back great childhood memories! And Iโm digging this soup โ so refreshing :)
Looks so good! Love your blog, and canโt wait to try out some recipes. I just started my blog http://www.lyndsaynicole.blogspot.com. Would love a follow back :)
Thank you for a wonderful recipe and a delightful post. This will be the perfect soup when the zucchini is coming in fast and furious in the garden. Youโve given me the nudge I needed to pull the old Vitamix and give it whirl. Thanks so much!
I love zucchini, canโt wait to try this. I will probably use the cheddar cheese suggestion instead of the heavy cream. But what the heck might even try both :)
That soup looks extremely delicious! I love zucchini. :D
This looks delish! However, what does it mean to deglaze the bottom of the pan?
Iโve been looking for a good spring soup recipe, this looked so delicious i went out and bought all the ingredients last night, except I forgot the tarragon.. damn! the union square whole foods is far too crazy to venture back into, so my soup making has been postponed.. now the anticipation has built even more!
The cat paws are heartbreaking (in a good way!).
Ah Mary Poppins โฆ I trusted her so muchโฆ
How many time did I try to snap my fingers to clean my bedroom magically ?โฆ sigh โฆ
Never know what to do with zucchini in my gardenโฆ here is a great option!
love the little guy lurking behind your books haha
Your pictures make me smile. :) Keep up the great work.
Em
This soup sounds delish!
Though, not gonna lie, the real reason Iโm commenting is because I really want to know more about this โAbsolutely Avocadosโ book in your stack of lovely books!
Delightful flavours!
JOY. Ok, soup is great. BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY!!! I canโt even stand that you are in love with East of Eden, too!!!! Your copy looks as well loved and several-times-read as mine. I read it the first time the summer before high school and have read it nearly every year since. My copy has all of my favorite parts/passages underlined (so likeโฆmost of the book) and ev.er.y time I read it I have to read the โtimshelโ passage twice in a row, it is so powerful. I totes named my parentsโ dog โSteinbeckโ. No bigs. (Ok, nerd freak out over.)
Yes, I too know that kitty toe hair is a real thing. It is fun to tickleโฆbut only if kitty is not sleeping when you try it. I love this photo of your catโฆeven though his handsome face is hidden.
Canโt wait to try this soupโฆit looks yummy.
YUM! Trying this soon!
xo Lisa
Making Lifeโs Lemons
Yum, this looks good. Iโm a big soup fan. I even made a chilled soup during our recent socal heat wave. Do you think this soup would be good cold too?
I am so happy you posted this today! I have zero food in my pantry but I do have zucchini, tarragon and a lone onion! Going to veganize this for dinner tonight. Perfect.
Did you have this soup hot? I bet itโd be good cold, too, with some goat cheese & arugula crostini, or something like that!
i served the soup hot, but i think it could totally work as a cold soup too!
I donโt know how you feel about the movie version of โEast of Eden,โ itโs the first time I ever saw James Dean act. If youโve not seen it, you MUST. His acting is just shockingly good. I was floored. And Iโm a picky creature, not wowed by histrionics. It hurt SO good.
And the actress who plays his romantic interest, her voice is forever burned on my brain, so even when sheโs 70-something and acting today, I IMMEDIATELY recognize it and hear her cry out โCal!โ *sigh*
I should read that pup.
Kitty toe fur drives me crazy w/happiness. So many kitty details are excruciatingly charming. Hurts so good. =)
(oh, yeah, the food looks great, too. =) Husband adores zucc, and itโs near planting time!)
xoxoxo!
oh my goshโฆ iโve actually never seen the movie version! i know what iโm doing this week!
Seeing Tender in your stack made. my. day. I LOVE Nigel Slater. Can we be friends? Seriously, though. I live in Santa Barbara and I would bring you homegrown friendship tomatoes and make Thai food for you. I feel like we could be bffs.
are your bribing me with tomatoes and thai food!? YES!
I am totally bribing you! Unashamedly. If you ever need a little Santa Barbara holiday (and who doesnโt, really), shoot me an email. Iโll clear my shedule and drag my kitchen table out to my little garden and you can come eat Thai among my rose bushes (which are blooming all over the place). Howโs that for an offer, eh? :)
I am not a zucchini fan. It is one of 2 veggies I just donโt like (along with eggplant). However, this makes zucchini seem actually delicious and appealing! :-) And what memories this brings back!
My Mom used to make a simpler version, made from zucchini out of our garden, that she named โOooh La La Zucchini Soup.โ My sister and I did not think there was anything โOoohโ or โLa Laโ about it, ha, ha! Once, in an effort to make it taste better, while my Mom had her back turned, we added sugar. Needless to say, this did NOT make it taste better! But of course we couldnโt say anything and had to somehow swallow it down. Ugh. My first โcookingโ lesson!
At any rate, while I may not necessarily make this myself, I am sure others would love itโฆso I shared it on our โSaucy Soupsโ Pinterest board: https://pinterest.com/deliciouskarma/saucy-soup.
sugar makes everything better, right!? wrong. sooo funny.
East of Eden has somehow escaped my reading listโฆItโs on it now! Thank you for this lovely recipe.
you must you must!
Delicious creamy!!
Looks delicious! I love the cat-behind-the-bookstack photo.
Iโm loving that photo of cat and books! The zucchini and tarragon soup sounds wonderful. Oh, and the reviewer who wrote about a zucchini pizza. Hmmmmm. Visions of zucchini dance in my head!
easy soups are always welcome :) i have never cooked with tarragon ever though
That soup looks delicious but Iโm mostly just dying over that cat picture. Cats are so weird.
yum.
i just realized how boring that comment was, but damn, thatโs all i could think of when i saw this.
yum is totally right!
I now sound like a crazy lady squealing with delight at your adorable kitty book stack! Oh well, people pretty much think that already, on another note I randomly yelled out โMARY POPPINS!โ while out with my boyfriend yesterday because I saw someone that looked like her, complete with an umbrella. He didnโt look up from his phone then asked why I just yelled that for no good reason other than being weird.
i think we should be friends.
This looks so fabulous, Joy!! Yum!
This looks amazing.my favourite green.
I think i may need to try this tonight. I have a soup-obsessed toddler and a zuke about to go. And if I make zucchini tacos one more time, I may just scream.
zucchini tacos actually sound really good right now.
Oh, I need to re-read East of Eden as well. Itโs just so good.
And the soup looks wonderful!
Yummy I need to make this soup.
That soup looks so creamy and I love that you can make it vegan! I used to be totally turned off by green soup when I was little. I have horrible memories of a pea soupโฆbut now I canโt get enough green! Iโll be trying this one for sure.
I love it when you go all vegan for a second :)
hahaha!
Yum I love zucchini and tarragon. This soup is like summer in in a bowl!
I need to buy a copy of Tender! Iโve been on a zucchini kick (if I can call it that) and have just been eating this white pizza with thinly sliced zucchini and thyme and oodles of olive oil (obsessed with it ever since I ate it in Rome) and this soup looks like just the thing for a bit of variation.
Loves divine! Always nice to add a new soup to my repetoire.
Photos are lovely as always!
xo Quinn
Quinn Cooper Style
I like my soup meaty so Iโm going with chicken and butter.
I am so old I remember going to see Mary Poppins movie as a child, sigh. Still remember most of the songs as well. The kat is cool as a cucumber lurking behind the books. I deeply love Nigel Slaterโs books and food, the books are in my kitchen for inspiration and admiration, and cooking from. I make a zucchini soup in summer which has risotto rice, thyme, parsley and lots of lemon juice, it is splendid. As are you and your recipes and your integrity as a human bean.
Joy, I recently attempted your tomato zucchini soup and it was rad! You make zucchini taste awesome in all sorts of ways, I have to try this one tonight!
Mary Poppins would have been able to make soup for the world twice or thrice around! Ah, I need soup.
If Mary Poppins made this soup, of course it would have to be called courgette tarragon soup. And it might have to be made in a kitchen with a low ceiling. But it would still be lovely.
i canโt handle (and can) the little ears above your stack of books. i feel they go well with kitten toe hairs. andโฆ iโve never tried a zucchini soup, but am very intrigued by the fresh tarragon in this soup. certainly enough to give this recipe a try!
Love your stack of books!
And blender soup magicโฆyes, those are the best kinds of soups! And tarragonโฆnot a frequently used herb for me but I really like it and thanks for the reminder to use it more!
Omg I love Mary Poppins! That was one of my all time fav Disney movies growing up. I watched it on VHS over and over countless times. Thanks for bringing back memories of simpler times! Iโd bet she would make the bestest soups. Sheโs Mary Poppins! Sheโd have all kinds of ingredients in that purse of hers..maybe sheโd pull out some booze too (Mary Poppins for grown up version) to go with that soup!