French Spring Soup is a creamy vegetable-based soup perfect for spring when asparagus is at its peak of flavor.
As vegetable soup recipes go, they’re usually pretty decent. My Italian Vegetable Soup is a good one if you’re watching your calories. My Tuscan Vegetable Soup is flavorful and has Parmesan cheese mixed in. And my Autumn Vegetable Soup is a butternut squash-based soup that is lightly sweetened with apple and maple syrup. This French Spring Soup is a tasty vegetable soup, but it has a a creamy broth instead of straight-out broth.
Ingredients needed:
- unsalted butter
- leeks
- onion
- water
- chicken or vegetable broth
- potatoes
- sliced mushrooms
- asparagus
- carrots
- white rice
- garlic
- spinach
- half and half or heavy cream
- salt
How to make French Spring Soup:
The full, printable recipe is at the end of this post.
Vegetable substitution suggestions:
The great thing about making a vegetable soup is that you can always leave out vegetables that don’t appeal to you. Or you can substitute your favorite veggies for some of the vegetables in the soup. Use green onions in place of leeks. Use shallots in place of onion. If you want this to be a vegetarian soup, use vegetable broth instead of chicken broth.
Try using zucchini instead of asparagus. Use butternut squash in place of carrots. Cauliflower rice can be used in place of white rice. And Swiss chard or kale may be used in place of spinach.
So this is still a brothy soup. The cream added to it just gives it a richer texture. You can certainly leave out the cream if you’d like. Or try adding whole milk or evaporated milk to the soup instead of cream. Enjoy!
French Spring Soup is simply flavored with garlic and salt. The vegetables provide the rest of the flavor. Try adding in a little fresh thyme, if you would like to add an additional flavor component.
The Best Soup Recipes:
If you happen to be following the Weight Watchers WW plan, you’ll find a link to the WW Points on the recipe card below.
French Spring Soup
Ingredients
- ¼ cup (½ stick) unsalted butter
- 1 pound leeks, chopped
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 1 quart (4 cups) water
- 1 quart (4 cups) chicken broth
- 3 large potatoes, peeled and chopped
- 1½ cups sliced mushrooms
- 1 bunch (about 1½ pounds) fresh asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
- 2 large carrots, peeled and chopped
- ⅓ cup uncooked long-grain white rice
- 1 medium garlic clove, minced
- 1½ teaspoons salt
- 8 ounces fresh spinach
- 1 cup half and half cream (can sub heavy cream)
Instructions
- Melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat. Stir in the leeks and onion, and cook until tender.
- Pour the water and chicken broth into the pot. Mix in the potatoes, mushrooms, asparagus, carrots, rice and garlic. Season with salt. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 30 minutes, or until the vegetables and rice are tender.
- Stir the spinach and cream into the soup mixture, and continue cooking about 5 minutes before serving.
Notes
- If you are preparing this recipe as GLUTEN FREE, just be sure to use a brand of chicken broth that is known to be GF.
- Use vegetable broth if you are preparing this recipe as vegetarian.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Great Soup! I made the vegetarian version using veggie broth made from the potato peels, carrot peels, onion skins and leek tops and any other veggies in the fridge instead of chicken broth. Very good soup!
8 oz spinach is a huge amount, confirming this is correct
Yes, that is correct. It will shrink greatly!
Yum, just finished my First, Make that second bowl. Love it👍
Your recipe includes a quart of water and a quart of chicken broth at the time I’m writing this message. The recipe only instructs to add water and never mentions the broth. Is this supposed to be either 1 quart chicken broth or 1 quart water, or is it supposed to be one quart of each?
Sorry- both should be added! I changed the instructions- thanks for pointing this out, and sorry for the confusion.