We tested out almost all my soups for the perfect second course of Christmas dinner (all soup recipes here). They were delicious – but I wanted something new. We always use clean, never “previously frozen” and wild caught seafood preferring to purchase from Wild Caught Alaskan Salmon and Seafood.

We’re lucky enough to have our favorite available at our Farmer’s Market but if you don’t have easy access to petite lobster tails in your area, please order online from the company above. In keeping with this exact recipe, we used the lobster tails – $47 for a pack of four). The price may change but just remember to use petite tails.

We then used my tried and true, never will live without: Philips Soup Maker. I linked it with Williams Sonoma but it truly is available everywhere. This recipe can be made with your preferred method but I measured everything using that machine. It was done in 18 mins and was the hit of our Christmas dinner.

You Will Need (per one batch through the soup maker at a time, makes starter servings for four, entree servings for three):

• Two Small Tails of Lobster (and an additional one for topping – should you only find large, please use one large meaty tail per soup maker and one for topping) – thaw under running cold water first

• One Box of Chicken Broth (low-sodium is preferable) – we use the Imagine brand as it is the cleanest we have found

• One Clove of Garlic (get already peeled if you’d like)

• One Roma Tomato

• One 1/4 of an Onion (yellow)

• One Tbsp Butter (unsalted, with an additional Tbsp to sauté the other lobster tail)

• One Pinch of Saffron (ok to omit if you can’t find)

• 1/4 Tsp of Smoked Sea Salt (can be located at most stores – we like this brand and purchase online if needed / use in almost everything: Alderwood)

• Black Pepper (fine – to taste)

• Heavy Whipping Cream (larger container)

• Cashews (raw)

• Hungarian Paprika (or sweet paprika)

• Cayenne

• All Purpose Flour

• Himalayan Pink Salt (to taste)

• Parmesan End (you can plan ahead and save your rind of parm from purchasing and using throughout the month. Can be kept in plastic wrap / baggie in the fridge. You would just need the size of one quarter of your palm, and can omit) – stores now sell these separately. You can just cut the end off some parm and use if needed.

• Shredded Smoked Gouda – can omit, this is for topping

Defrost your lobster in the fridge (or if needing faster, in a plastic baggie under cold water) and then cut along the tail to loosen and free the meat.

Throw all of that into the soup maker with the tomato cut into quarters, a handful of cashews and the broth going up to the first line, the heavy whipping cream to the second (max) line.

Press the first button for “puree” and leave it to do its thing! It will take 18 mins so as that cooks, take the other Tbsp of butter and start to melt it in a pan on the stove, cut up your third lobster tail into pieces and let it sauté in the butter with some salt and pepper on medium, stirring occasionally.

As it starts to shrink reduce the heat to low and let it sit for the remainder of the soup cooking.

When the soup maker is done it will have a gorgeous creamy yellow color. Pour it into a pot and leave the continents on medium low.

Add the additional ingredients now:

• 1/2 Cup of Heavy Whipping Cream

• Half of 1/4 Tsp of Cayenne

• Half of 1/4 Tsp of Hungarian Paprika (or regular paprika)

• Himalayan Pink Salt (to taste)

• 1/4 Cup of All Purpose Flour

Start whisking the flour until mixed in entirely. Move the lobster pieces in the sauté pan to keep from sticking and now you are just waiting for the additional heavy whipping cream that you added to come to temp. Because you added the additional salt, taste it to make sure you don’t need more.

Decide how you wish to serve this – we used these little lidded bowls from Williams Sonoma with lion heads on the side. We wanted something that looked nice as a presentation but also worked to keep the soup warm as well as melt the smoked gouda.

In one instance we added small pieces of Olive Bread before serving:

Topped that with the shreds of gouda and it was creamy and smoky. So satisfying… That was one serving option instead of using lobster chunks.

You can see the creamy gorgeous color against the white bowl with the flecks of paprika…

The lobster tail in butter should absolutely be done by now, so when you go to serve – add pieces into each bowl and then top with a drizzle of the butter you cooked it in over the top.

You can then add the smoked gouda if you’d like and some toast (on the side) or leave as a purist – which turned out to be our favorite: bisque with lobster pieces and drizzle of the butter.