Simply Delicious Cream of Celery Soup

This cream of celery soup is extremely easy and very tasty. It requires just a little chopping. I posted a similar recipe about seven years ago. This one is a bit better and makes fewer servings - three to four instead of six. I also added an ingredient that I thought made it even better - pancetta.

The catalyst for making this soup was to use up celery left over from making potato salad. It was so tasty, I pigged out and had two servings with the rest of my dinner.

Even the most inexperienced cook should be able to produce excellent results with this recipe. I found it at  https://www.daringgourmet.com/homemade-cream-celery-soup/. If you have time, I suggest reading the whole article at that site. As that article explains, you can also use this soup as a base for other soup recipes that call for cream of celery soup.

Here's my version of the recipe:

Ingredients
- 1/4 cup butter
- 1 cup yellow onion finely chopped (1 small onion)
- 2 cups finely chopped celery (5 large ribs)
- 1 large clove garlic, minced
- 1/3 cup all-purpose, unbleached flour
- 1 & 1/2 cups chicken broth
- 1 & 1/2 cups whole milk (or richer taste by using some combination of milk and cream or half & half. I used 3/4 cup light milk and 3/4 cup half & half because that's what was in the refrigerator.)
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp sugar
- 1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper
- 1/4 cup chopped panchetta (I used the Publix chopped.)

Instructions

1. Melt the butter in a Dutch oven or heavy stock pot over medium-high heat and cook the onions, celery, panchetta, and garlic until soft and translucent, 5-7 minutes. 

2. Add flour and cook for another minute.

3. Add chicken broth and milk/cream. Stir until the mixture is smooth.

4. Increase the heat and bring it to a simmer. Reduce the heat to medium, add the remaining ingredients, and simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes. Add salt to taste.