4 Ingredient Creamy Kale Cheddar Soup
This creamy kale soup recipe is a total lifesaver. It is only 4 ingredients and is ready in less than 30 minutes! Plus, it’s super healthy because it is just broth, kale, potatoes, and cheddar cheese! The texture is so velvety smooth that it’s hard to believe it’s just 4 ingredients, requires no sautéing, no making-of roux, and no fancy ingredients. It’s the perfect recipe for when your calendar is crazy busy!
Table of contents
Why We Love Creamy Kale Soup
Friends, I have the perfect healthy weeknight recipe for you for busy evenings! It’s easy, creamy, cheesy, filling, and your kids won’t even mind that there’s kale in it! This creamy kale and cheese soup paired with some crunchy garlic bread will make you the hero of weeknight dinners.
This soup only requires 4 ingredients, that’s right – f o u r. It’s naturally gluten-free and made of ingredients that you’ll feel thrilled to feed your family. Not to mention they joy you’ll feel when they scarf it down as quickly as mine did!
I’ve made kale soup recipes before like turkey sausage and kale soup and potato and kale soup with sausage, but this creamy potato kale soup take the cake because of how simple it is. In fact, it’s so easy to make that my 4th grader whipped this up for us one night! Don’t you love the idea of making something so yummy that your kids are inspired to make it?
Key Ingredients For This Pureed Kale Soup Recipe
Kale
Kale is a bitter plant, but its deep, earthy flavors is perfect for soup recipes! And don’t worry, the bitterness will dissipate as the kale cooks. Keep in mind that curly kale, especially those darker in color, is the most bitter variety of the plant. If you want to try to mellow out the bitterness before you even cook it, try soaking it in cold water with a pinch of salt before cooking.
Chicken Broth
Use whatever kind of chicken broth you like, but keep sodium in mind. If you choose low-sodium chicken broth, you will probably want to add a bit of salt to taste. That route would allow you to control the amount of sodium that goes into your soup.
While chicken stock will create a richer flavor, if you want to keep this recipe vegetarian you can feel free to use vegetable stock instead.
Potatoes
Yukon Gold is your best bet for this recipe because of it’s ultra-creamy texture after being boiled and pureed, but you can use any waxy, thin-skinned potato you like. As long as the potato is lower in starch and higher in moisture, it will react well to boiling.
Sharp Cheddar
Freshly shredded sharp cheddar is sublime in this soup! If you want a tangier taste, try using extra-sharp!
Step By Step Instructions To Make Creamy Kale and Cheese Soup
Step 1: Boil
Bring your broth and potatoes to a boil in a large saucepan, and then reduce the heat to maintain a simmer. Cook until the potatoes are tender when pierced with a fork, which should take about 12 to 15 minutes.
Step 2: Add Kale
Add the kale and stir to wilt. Cook, stirring occassionally, until the kale is bright green and tender. This should take about 5 minutes, and then you can remove the mixture from the heat.
Step 3: Puree
Carefully puree the mixture in two batches with either a blender or an immersion blender. We recommend two batches because the heat from the mixture can cause your blender to sort of…explode.
Step 4: Add Cheese
Finally, stir (or fold, if you’re a Schitt’s Creek fan) in your cheese to put the finishing touch on this creamy and cheesy soup!
FAQs and Expert Tips
This soup is good for 4-5 days kept in an air tight container in the refrigerator. Rewarm it on the stovetop on low-medium heat.
This soup is better when it is freshly made. If you do plan to freeze it, do not add the cheddar. Without the cheese it can be frozen for 3 months. Once you thaw it, reheat it, and then stir in the cheddar cheese.
Additional Recipes To Try
- This Sauteed Kale with Cider Vinegar recipe is such a simple and flavorful side dish!
- Creamy and hearty Healthy Vegetarian Kale Risotto is a delicious entree packed with extra veggies!
- Healthy Stovetop Mac and Cheese with Kale takes only 20 minutes and is the perfect happy-medium that blends a classic dish with more nutrition.
- Cheddar Potato Soup is another creamy pureed soup to try.
- Cheddar Chipotle Sweet Potato Soup has a smoky and tangy kick that makes it perfect for the autumnal season!
At Healthy Seasonal Recipes, we specialize in cooking with fresh veggies and creating weeknight meals. Sign up HERE to get more produce-forward dinner ideas for FREE! If you make this recipe, please come back and leave a star rating and review. I would love to hear what you thought! Happy Cooking! ~Katie
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4 Ingredient Creamy Kale Cheddar Soup
- Total Time: 25 minutes
- Yield: 6 1/2 cups, 4 servings 1x
Description
This creamy kale soup recipe is a total lifesaver. It is only 4 ingredients and is ready in less than 30 minutes! Plus, it’s super healthy because it is just broth, kale, potatoes, and cheddar cheese! The texture is so velvety smooth that it’s hard to believe it’s just 4 ingredients, requires no sautéing, no making-of roux, and no fancy ingredients. It’s the perfect recipe for when your calendar is crazy busy!
Ingredients
- 1 32-ounce box chicken broth
- 4 cups, peeled 1-inch dice potatoes (20 ounces) *See note
- 4 packed cups chopped kale leaves
- 6 ounces shredded sharp cheddar
Instructions
- Bring broth and potatoes to a boil in a large saucepan. Reduce heat to maintain a simmer, and cook until the potatoes are tender when pierced with a fork, 12 to 15 minutes.
- Add kale, and stir to wilt the kale. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the kale is bright green and just tender, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat.
- Carefully puree in two batches in a blender or with an immersion blender.
- Stir in cheddar.
Notes
Freezing Instructions
This soup is better when it is freshly made. If you do plan to freeze it, do not add the cheddar. Without the cheese it can be frozen for 3 months. Once you thaw it, reheat it, and then stir in the cheddar cheese.
Which Potatoes To Use
I recommend using Yukon Gold potatoes, but any thin-skinned and waxy potato variety will work fine.
- Prep Time: 25 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Category: Soup
- Method: Stove top
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: about 1 3/4 cups
- Calories: 186.49 cal
- Sugar: 2.58 g
- Sodium: 306.38 mg
- Fat: 8.69 g
- Saturated Fat: 4.51 g
- Trans Fat: 0.25 g
- Carbohydrates: 17.54 g
- Fiber: 1.85 g
- Protein: 9.79 g
- Cholesterol: 24.45 mg
Our family has made this recipe so many times now. It’s super easy and very delicious.
What kind of potatoes are best for this recipe? I was thinking Yukon Golds or maybe even Idaho, but they can end up really mushy but maybe that’s a good thing for a pureed soup. I can’t wait to try this. I have loads of kale on hand but not potatoes.
Either work, but I recommend a thin skinned potato such as red or white.
This soup is so simple and delicious. We have tons of kale from the garden and this is a great way to use it. The only thing I added was some carrot because I had it in the house. This is a new go-to recipe for us!
Hi Lynn. So glad you discovered this recipe. Yay for kale in the garden. I didn’t grow any this year and I am missing it! I love the addition of carrot. Good idea. Have a great weekend.
I have made this and I do like it. Even better with some crispy hash browns!
Yum! We made this last night, but added a couple things to just use up what we had in the fridge. But this recipe is a fantastic base. We browned a couple slices of bacon first, crumbled and set aside. Then cooked some onion and garlic in the bacon grease before we added the broth and potatoes. Topped the soup with the bacon crumbles and proceeded to inhale hehe. Thanks for the great use of our fresh kale from the garden!
Great, easy, healthy soup!
I added a large onion, some small carrots, red pepper and lemon pepper salt since the broth I used was very low salt and the broth needed pizzaz.
Going to go buy an immersion blender; I liquified it in my blender which was fine but added work.
Just stumbled upon this recipe — looks great! Do you think it would come out okay in the crockpot?
Absolutely! Please let me know how it turns out.
About how many potatoes are needed? Thank you
It depends on the size of the potatoes. If you have access to a scale you’ll want about 20 ounces. That’s about two large or three medium.
Can’t wait to try this recipe right now! Quick and healthy dinner!