Comfort food.
This cauliflower soup is flavorful and oh-so-creamy. Topping it with big buttery bread crumbs elevates it from excellent to exceptional. It’s the perfect comfort food for these difficult times.
By the way, did you know that cauliflower is 92% water? How interesting is that? Clearly, we can eat all we want and not worry if we add a bit of goat cheese to cream up this soup. No serious guilt there.
On the other hand, did you know that cauliflower is under attack? It’s true. The rice industry is pretty annoyed about all the promotion of cauliflower as a rice substitute. They dismiss cauliflower as a “rice pretender.” (Oh! The outrage!)
A rice trade group opposes the use of the word “rice” to describe products being sold as cauliflower rice. They argue that rice is a grain and not a shape. As the Pacific Standard reports it “In the rice industry’s worst nightmare, a harried customer enters the grocery store…. He or she might go to the frozen food aisle, grab a package of fried rice, and check out before realizing that the worst has happened: That rice is not rice at all.”
I know. How awful is that? Could ruin your whole day to feed your kid cauliflower that has less than 1/8 of the calories of white rice and 1/9th of the carbs.
Interestingly, at least four states have passed (or are considering passing) measures to ban food companies from using the word “rice” to describe cauliflower.
Here’s the recipe.
Save RecipeIngredients
- 1 large white cauliflower
- 4 C. vegetable broth
- 1 lemon (plus more to taste)
- 1 1/2 t. sea salt (to taste)
- 2 medium carrots
- 2 stalks celery
- 1 large yellow onion
- 3 T. olive oil
- 5 cloves garlic (chopped)
- 1 t. dried herbs (thyme, fennel, oregano, basil or a mixture or fresh herbs if you have them)
- 2 oz. fresh creamy goat cheese or cream cheese
- Garnish: Buttered breadcrumbs (sourdough is great for this!) and chopped parsley, chopped green onions or cilantro
Instructions
- Divide cauliflower into florets and chop the florets into small pieces. Add cauliflower to a large soup pot with 2 C. water and 4 C. vegetable broth. Juice the lemon and peel off a 1-inch strip of the zest. (Be sure to zest the lemon carefully. You don't want any of the white pith attached to the zest. The pith is bitter.) Add 2 T. of the fresh lemon juice, salt and the strip of zest to the soup pot. Bring the mixture to a boil, lower the heat and simmer (covered) for 15 minutes. Remove and discard the lemon zest.
- While the soup is cooking, chop carrots, celery and onion. Saute these vegetables in 2 T. of olive oil in a skillet along with the garlic and 1/2 t. sea salt. You want to saute the vegetables for about 20 minutes until they are soft and beginning to brown. Add the herbs and stir for a few additional minutes.
- Add the sauteed vegetable and herb mixture to the soup pot with the cauliflower mixture. Cover the soup pot and simmer for an additional 15 minutes. You want the cauliflower to be very tender. Remove the soup from the heat and allow it to cool for a few minutes before you blend it.
- Puree soup in a blender. Add salt to taste. Add additional lemon juice to taste. Return the soup to the pot and bring it to a simmer. Add the cheese and the last T. of olive oil. Stir until the cheese melts and is incorporated into the soup.( I found that using a whisk made it easier to incorporate the cheese uniformly into the soup.)
- Saute 1 C. of coarse breadcrumbs in 2 T. of butter.
- Serve soup topped with buttered breadcrumbs.
- Cook's note: If you are feeling indulgent, add a glug of cream to the soup. The original recipe used 1 t. herbs de Provence in the soup. I didn't like the flavor of the rosemary or lavender in the soup and substituted dried thyme, fennel, oregano, and basil.
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This recipe is adapted from one that appears in Anna Thomas’ Love Soup cookbook. Thomas is also the author of the classic cookbook The Vegetarian Epicure published in 1973. The Love Soup cookbook and The Vegetarian Epicure cookbook are available here.
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