By Irene Hayton

For those who want to avoid dairy and/or excess fat, you can still enjoy “creamy” soups without adding any cream or milk; in fact, this website contains a number of examples of this. Here are some suggestions:

• Often just puréeing the soup in a blender (or with a hand-held blender) is enough to make it creamy and it’s a great way to sneak in extra veggies for those picky eaters (see the recipe for Pumpkin Soup).
• You can use coconut milk, almond milk, or rice milk instead of milk or cream (see the recipe for Creamy Veggie Soup).
• Those who can eat yogurt can add some to the soup at the end of the cooking time (see the recipe for Creamy Mushroom Soup).
• Adding a small amount of potato or rice helps to thicken the soup (see this month’s recipe for Creamy Asparagus Soup).