So, I had a beautiful head of broccoli and some potatoes in my veg box and so I decided to try a soup hack I had read on Cooks Illustrated about how to make your creamy veg soup more velvety.

They suggest adding 1/2 teaspoon of sodium bicarbonate to your veg while you are boiling them all up. Apparently it helps veg breakdown before you hit them with the blender or stick blender. I tested it with vegan broccoli soup, using broccoli stalks, celery, carrots, onion, and potatoes all boiled in water with a 1/2 tsp of baking soda. I sautéed the florets in a separate pan to add later. I let it all boil for about 10 mins and then blended it with a glug of olive oil, the juice of a small lemon, some lemon zest, and 1/4c of nutritional yeast. It was great! The texture was really really smooth and soft. I’ll be doing this again.