Unfortunately it’s still winter, so it’s pretty cold and dreary…in good news, it’s still soup season!
This soup was inspired by a cheddar ale soup I had at a California Food and Wine Festival last year. When I decided to remake it I thought “why not add pumpkin ale?”. Let’s be honest everything in the cold months is better with pumpkin. I also reduced the amount of cream and butter in it to be easier on the stomach, and gave it a tiny kick of heat in the end to really warm things up.
Cheddar Pumpkin Ale Soup
Prep: 10 minutes
Cook: 35 minutes
- 1 stick Unsalted butter, 1/2c.
- 1sm. Sweet onion
- 2 Celery sticks
- 1/2c. Flour
- 2c. Chicken stock
- 1 bottle Pumpkin ale, 12oz
- 1c. Heavy cream
- 8oz. Sharp white cheddar
- 1tsp. Worcestershire sauce
- 1/2tsp. Cayenne pepper
- Salt and Pepper TT
- 4 slices Bacon, chopped
- 1/4c. Chives, chopped
- Mise en place. Small dice the onion, chop the celery, shred the cheese.
- In a large pot over medium-high heat, melt the butter.
- Sauté the onion and and celery until cooked.
- Mix in the flour and cook for a few minutes to get out the raw flour taste.
- Using a whisk slowly stir in the chicken stock, until smooth. Doing this step slowly ensures there won’t be any flour chunks.
- Stir in the pumpkin ale and heavy cream. Simmer for 20 minutes.
- Turn off the heat and whisk in the sharp white cheddar until melted.
- Carefully ladle the soup into a blender, don’t overfill the blender! Doing this step in batches is recommended.
- Blend until smooth.
- On the last blender batch add the worcestershire sauce and cayenne pepper, mix this batch in with the rest of the soup.
- Put over low heat, and salt to taste.
- Top with chopped bacon and chives and serve.
I would highly recommend some good toasted sour dough bread with this soup, enjoy!
