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Can't Beat this Cream of Spinach Artichoke Soup

This creamy spinach artichoke soup is GREAT for rainy days where you're stuck inside and have nothing to do. It's nice and easy to make so do not sweat it, not one bit. We promise that you will have fun with it and know that it'll come our delicious. Just follow the steps below and you're on the way.
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Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 2 hours 10 minutes
Total Time 2 hours 30 minutes
Servings: 12 people
Course: Main Course, Soup
Cuisine: American
Ingredients Equipment Method Notes

Ingredients
  

Vegetable Sauté
  • 1½ Tbsp Butter
  • 1½ Tbsp Neutral oil Avocado, Canola, Vegetable
  • 4 Celery sticks Chopped
  • 4 Carrots Chopped
  • 1½ Spanish onion Medium dice
  • 8 Garlic cloves Whole
  • 2 1 lb Bags Spinach Chopped, Reserve 2 cups after chopping
  • 1 can Artichoke hearts Quartered, Reserve 3 hearts after quartering
Herbs, Seasonings, & Flavors
  • 3½ tsp Garlic powder
  • 2 tsp Dried parsley
  • 1½ tsp Onion powder
  • 2 tsp Ground thyme
  • 2½ tsp Ground paprika
  • 2½ tsp Ground coriander
  • 1 Tbsp Soy sauce
  • 2 tsp Salt more to taste
  • 3 tsp Ground black pepper more to taste
  • 3 oz Mild swiss cheese shredded
Broth
  • 12 cups Water
  • 3 tsp Vegetable base Brand: Better Than Bouillon
  • 3 tsp Roasted garlic base Brand: Better Than Bouillon
  • 1 cup Heavy cream (see note #1)

Equipment

  • 1 Stock Pot Large (more than 12 cups)
  • 1 Immersion Blender Or food processor/blender

Method
 

  1. First things first, get your stock pot and begin heating it to medium to medium high heat. Toss in the butter & oil. Once the butter & oil is hot, add in your chopped celery, carrots, onion, and garlic. Stir regularly with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until veggies appear translucent. If they begin to look dry, don't be shy, add a little more oil and continue to stir.
  2. Once the begins to brown, add in your spinach & artichoke hearts. Be sure to reserve their respective amounts. It isn't the end of the world if you forget, so don't sweat it. Keep stirring, you want to get the spinach fully coated and cooked down before continuing without burning any of the other ingredients.
  3. Once the spinach cooks down, and we promise it will, add in everything from the "Herbs, Seasonings, & Flavors" section except the cheese. Give things another stir to coat your veggies with all the goodies you just added.
  4. Add in your water, then stir with a whisk/whip to pull up anything that might be stuck to the bottom. We're not deglazing, just keeping food from settling at the bottom of the pot. Toss in both of your bases (see Note #2 about substitutions for base) with the whisk. Let simmer for about 30-45 minutes to cook out excess water. Taste and adjust salt/pepper as needed here.
  5. Now it's time for the immersion blender. Give the soup one last stir and submerge your blender. Once everything has been emulsified, add in your heavy cream and blend a bit longer, until fully incorporated.
  6. Remove the blender, and bring soup back to a light simmer. You may toss in the cheese from before. Stir vigorously with the whisk until the cheese has melted completely into the soup. Toss in the reserved spinach & artichoke (see Note #3) and simmer for another 15-20 minutes. Taste and make any final salt/pepper adjustments you see fit.

Notes

Note #1: With the heavy cream you may add another 1/2 cup if you would like a lighter, creamier soup. We found that drizzling just a touch of cream before serving lightened the soup up real nice. This allowed for everyone at the table to make adjustments that suited their own preferences.
But if you know what everyone will like then by all means adjust away!
 
Note #2: As far as bases go, with Better Than Bouillon 1 tsp = 1 cup. The main reason we didn't go cup for cup in the recipe is all of the spices and herbs we added ourselves. Regardless, if you do not have Better Than Bouillon, using 6 bouillon cubes would work almost the same. We do however recommend using like flavored bouillon cubes, i.e. 3 veggie & 3 garlic.
The same can be said if you opt for broth. Use 3 cups veggie broth and 3 cups roasted garlic, then supplement with 6 cups of water.
 
Note #3: The main reason that we reserved spinach & artichoke was for texture variation. While it did not change things much for this soup, other creamy soups (like cream of mushroom) benefit from having whole ingredients as well as their emulsified counterpart. In short, it creates a better mouth feel for texture sensitive individuals.