Creamy Broccoli Sauce

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I’ve been having a cream cheese moment. It’s not an ingredient that I usually keep around, but because it was plentifully in stock at the grocery store I grabbed a few packages. And it’s been quite useful in this pared-down pantry for adding creaminess and tang when there’s not a lot of other dairy around. (All my mom’s Junior League cookbooks had this figured out well before I did.) You don’t need much—a few pats here and there in for dressing certain pastas, or into a saag tofu-type simmer sauce, and smeared on toast and crackers as snacks throughout the day, of course. In this recipe as I first developed it, cream cheese provides creaminess but not too much cheesiness, if that makes sense. The broccoli is what shines, so you have to like broccoli. I wanted a version with no cheese, too, and tahini plus a bit of miso paste do their usual wonders, turning the sauce into something equally good and of its own distinction.

The recipe makes a big batch, which give you lots of opportunities to experiment. I like it over hot pasta, dusted with a little parmesan or some nuts, or loaded up with a pan of broiled cherry tomatoes and zucchini, plus a can of chickpeas. It can function as the saucy element in quinoa or other grain bowls, where I also tried stirring in a bit of yogurt to the tahini-sauce version to give it more lift and cool tang (a bit of water would also lighten it up further). It’s obviously a nice dip, for crackers or crudités, and I think it’d be an excellent addition to sandwiches and wraps, especially after it’s chilled, because it firms up quite a bit. You may have ideas as well!


Creamy Broccoli Sauce

Makes about 4 cups, enough to dress up to 2 pounds of cooked pasta (see more ideas above)

3 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 white or yellow onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
Salt
4 cups broccoli florets (from 1 large or 2 small heads)
1/2 cup white wine, stock, or water, plus additional as needed
[With cheese] 3 tablespoons cream cheese + 1/4 cup (packed) grated parmesan cheese, OR
[Without cheese] 3 tablespoons well stirred tahini + 1-2 tablespoons light-colored miso, taste
Lemon juice, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper

In a pot or deep/wide pan that can be lidded, heat half of the olive oil. Add the onions, celery, and a few pinches of salt, and sweat the vegetables until they’re soft and glistening, 7 to 10 minutes. Stir in the broccoli, then add the wine (or other liquid) and cover the pan to steam the broccoli, until it’s tender and easily pierced with a paring knife, 10 to 15 minutes. You want the broccoli on the softer side of tender, though not so well cooked that its color drains out. If the pan is dry before the broccoli is properly cooked, add a 1/4 cup or so water.

Transfer the contents of the pot to a blender. Add either the cream cheese and parmesan, or the tahini and 1 tablespoon miso, along with the remaining 1-1/2 tablespoons oil, and 1/2 cup water (or stock, or pasta-cooking water if that’s on the stove). Using caution, since the mixture is hot, process until until you have a rich and smooth sauce, adding additional liquid as needed to get things moving (I usually need about 1/2 cup more). Add lemon juice (the vegan version needs more acid than the cheesy one) and adjust the seasonings, with additional miso if needed for vegan sauce (you may wish to add more tahini as well), and salt. Play around to get the balance right. The sauce thickens as it cools, but will loosen as it warms up, and you can always whisk in more liquid to adjust the consistency later on, and you can also play around with the acid for specific uses, too. See above for some serving suggestions.

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