Asparagus Soup With Lemon and Parmesan

For those of us in the southern hemisphere, and at the time of writing, it’s summertime. That means it’s time for summer soups and what’s better than this delicious asparagus soup with lemon and parmesan. Here is how it turns out.

Fresh seasonal asparagus blended with onions and garlic and finished off with parmesan cheese. No cream added or needed. Yum! The NHS counts vegetables cooked into soups towards your 5 A Day, and one 80g portion of vegetables counts as one of the five.

Let’s make it.

1. Gather the ingredients together

There are only a handful of ingredients but this soup is still very easy to make. All that’s required is asparagus, onion, garlic, parmesan, olive oil (or butter), lemon juice, vegetable stock, and seasoning. Herbs can be added as an optional garnish. I used thyme simply because I love it!

The recipe card below gives the measurements of the ingredients, which makes 4 servings of soup. Just scale up or down as you need. Note, this soup can also be frozen. Although I’d advise freezing before you add the cheese and simply add this when you defrost and reheat. The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service says cooked leftovers keep for 3 to 4 days in the fridge, so freeze any portions you will not eat in that time.

2. Prepare the ingredients

There really isn’t a great deal of preparation for this soup. Just finely chop the onions, slice the garlic, grate or shred the parmesan and extract the juice from the lemon. For the asparagus, cut the tips off half of one bunch, this will be used as a garnish for the soup, and cut the remaining asparagus into 2-3 inch pieces. Easy.

3. Prepare the garnish for the asparagus soup

In addition to the optional thyme, I garnish this with asparagus tips and parmesan.

For the asparagus tips, simply boil some salted water in a saucepan and then add the tips that you have cut off and boil for no more than a minute. Once the minute is up, remove the tips from the boiling water and put them in a bowl of cold or iced water to refresh. This will keep them crunchy and fresh green looking.

For the parmesan, you can just sprinkle some of the freshly grated parmesan over the top or make parmesan crisps and add this as a whole or in part. Parmesan crisps are just grated parmesan baked in small piles until golden.

4. Make the asparagus soup with lemon and parmesan

To make the soup, first, warm the oil or melt the butter, whichever you decide to use, in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onions and garlic and sweat off for about 8 minutes. Do not allow the onions to color.

After the 8 minutes is up add the remaining asparagus.

And then the vegetable stock.

Bring all of this to simmer and then turn the heat down and place the lid on the saucepan. Allow the raw soup to cook for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, and using a hand blender or food processor, blitz the soup to a smooth texture.

Next, add the lemon juice and parmesan cheese and melt the cheese until the texture is smooth again.

All that needs to be done now is season to taste and serve. Once the soup is in bowls, garnish with an asparagus tip, parmesan, and thyme. Delicious.

And that, my fine food friends, is all there is to it. A simple asparagus soup with lemon and parmesan. Healthy, delicious and very easy to make. You can even freeze it and eat it later if you like. Yum!

This is a very simple recipe even if you’re not yet a confident cook, so give it a go. If you’d like to be kept up to date with all of The Yum Yum Club’s recipes just sign up for our monthly newsletter at the top of the page. You can also follow us on Facebook, Pinterest or Instagram by clicking the link.

Many thanks for reading, and until next time… Steve.

Recipe card

Steve Deacon

Founder & Writer

Hi, I'm Steve, founder of The Yum Yum Club. After years in the corporate rat race traveling the world, my wife Jen and I settled back in the UK to follow our true passion: great food and wine. Having worked in restaurant kitchens in my youth, I share honest home-cooked recipes, kitchen timing tips, and culinary discoveries.

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