When I grew up there was a different set of vegetables and fruits for each season. A favorite season of mine was when the cauliflower were ready. We ate it in many different ways. Although cauliflower is probably no one’s favorite vegetable, it can be terrific with the right combination of spices and cooking methods.

Cauliflower has recently been getting a lot of attention in the cooking world. It has appeared in soups, cauliflower crust pizza, cauliflower steak, buffalo cauliflower bites, cauliflower rice, and cauliflower mash just to name a few.

Today I am making cream of cauliflower soup. To make the soup I first roast the cauliflower with a few other vegetable like carrots and celery. Yet the star of the soup is roasted cauliflower. When you roast cauliflower it develops a depth of flavor that you won’t find by just sautéing or steaming.

I blend my cauliflower soup with a hand-held blender but you can transfer the soup to a traditional stand blender and blend in batches and puree it until the soup is smooth.

I like to garnish my finished soup with a few pieces of roasted cauliflower and chives. Since it is a pureed soup, I add pieces of roasted cauliflower as a nice finishing touch. You can use green onion instead of chives, or whatever you have on hand. This is a hearty and creamy soup made with no meat at all — but it really doesn’t need it.

I hope you try this recipe and comment below to let me know how it turned out for you! 

Ingredients

Roasted cauliflower

• 2 tbsp. oil
• 7 cup cauliflower floret, cut into large pieces
• 1 cup celery, medium diced
• 1 cup peeled, trimmed carrots, medium diced
• 1 tbsp. seeded, chopped jalapeno
• 1 tsp. ground black pepper
• 1 tsp. salt

Soup

• 1/4 cup unsalted butter
• 1 cup yellow onion, medium diced
• 1 tbsp. minced garlic
• 3/4 tsp. dried thyme
• 1 tsp. dried parsley
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 1/2 tbsp. roasted garlic base
• 3 cups water
• 2.5 cup milk
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• Chives (Optional)

Instructions

Roasted cauliflower

Preheat oven to 550 degrees Fahrenheit.

Line a large sheet pan with parchment paper and place your cauliflower, carrots, celery, jalapeno, oil, salt, and pepper on it. Use clean hands to mix all the ingredients well.

Transfer the vegetables to preheated oven and cook for 25 minutes, rotating the the pan once. Reserve some of the roasted cauliflower for garnish.

Soup

Melt butter in a large soup pot over medium heat. Add onion and garlic, then cook for 3-4 minutes or until the onions are soft. Add thyme, parsley, bay leaves, and garlic base. Stir well and cook for a minute.

Add water, milk, and roasted vegetables, then stir well. Cover and cook for 10 minutes.

Turn off the heat and remove the bay leaves. Puree the soup to a very smooth consistency with a hand held blender. See images below. Stir in the cream, then turn the heat on to medium-low and warm up the soup. Taste for seasoning.

Transfer the soup to serving bowl, then garnish with reserved cauliflower pieces and chives.

Serves 6

Did you make this dish? I’d love to know how it turns out! Feel free to like this post and comment or use the hashtag #globaldinein on Instagram. If you would to be notified of upcoming posts, please consider subscribing to my blog!