Creamy Cauliflower Potato Soup

Cauliflower can be grown year round in the region I live in, albeit different varieties (I just planted my winter cauliflower out last week), but it’s most common around this time of year. Combined with main-crop potatoes, white beans for a filling protein boost, and hardy rosemary, it’s a velvety soup with subtle, delicate flavours.

I think many of us probably grew up with the cauliflower cheese kind of cauliflower potato soup, absolutely drowning in orange cheese to try to make up for an otherwise lacklustre and bland soup. Luckily, this version doesn’t need cheese! It’s delicious as is.

Sourdough rye bread croutons take things over the top here (replacing cheese, I guess) and add a nice textural element to an otherwise smooth dish. You can use any kind of bread (see substitutions) but the rye is a very nice pairing.

Scroll to the bottom of the post or click “skip to recipe” above to see the recipe card with full ingredient measurements and instructions.

Ingredients

• Olive oil
• Yellow onion
• Garlic
• Rosemary
• Sea salt and pepper
• Cayenne pepper
• Vegetable stock
• Potatoes (see tips)
• Cauliflower
• White beans or chickpeas (cooked/canned)
• Dark rye bread

Method

Heat the olive oil in a large soup pot and add the onion. Sauté for a few minutes, until softened and fragrant, before adding the garlic and rosemary. Cooking the rosemary for a short time in the hot pan better releases the oils than adding it to the soup at the end of cooking.

Stir in the spices, then add the vegetable stock, followed by the potatoes, cauliflower, and beans/chickpeas. Cover and bring to a rolling boil before reducing the heat to simmer, covered, for about half an hour. The vegetables should be fork-soft after this time.

While the soup is cooking, make the croutons. Simply mix the rye bread cubes with the oil and salt, then bake for about 15 minutes. Don’t worry if they’re finished a few minutes before the soup, they’ll stay crisp until they’re added to the dish.

Remove the soup from the heat and puree, either with an immersion blender or a standing blender as outlined below. Serve topped with the croutons. Leftovers (without croutons) keep well in the refrigerator for a couple of days and freeze very well.

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Tips and Notes

Floury potatoes are ideal for this soup and will make for a creamier end result. Russet potatoes, which are widely available, are a very good option. Use a potato that you’d use for mashing, rather than potato salad.

Use a good vegetable stock, homemade if you can wrangle it, for this recipe. It relies on solid base flavours like the stock, garlic, and rosemary, so you can’t have any ingredients that you don’t like the taste of.

I use a different method for this soup than I typically do for others, and don’t sauté all the vegetables. The cauliflower and potatoes are added after the stock for two reasons. One, potatoes in particular tend to stick to the bottom of the pan and easily burn, and two, adding to the stock makes for a nicer colour of soup. This is the typical German style of cauliflower soup.

If you don’t have an immersion blender, you can puree the soup in a regular standing blender. If it’s not heat safe, then make sure to cool the soup before blending, and then heat it back up again before serving. I use my immersion blender every day and highly recommend having one in the kitchen.

Substitutions

There’s not really much in the way of substitutions here – you can, of course, use a different kind of bread for the croutons if you prefer, or change the herbs. Any kind of bread you have on hand, preferably slightly stale, will work for croutons. I recommend one with lots of flavour, like a strong sourdough.

You can use just rosemary if you prefer, or go with dried herbs. Rosemary and thyme are both very good dried. If you go that route, make sure to use smaller amounts (to taste). Or try adding fried sage, which is also excellent here.

I prefer white beans over chickpeas, but both are good (I have had some difficulty finding white beans lately). Hypothetically you could use other beans, but a darker colour of bean will turn the soup into an unappetising shade of grey or dark brown.

More Cauliflower Recipes

Cauliflower Tikka Masala
Moroccan-spiced Roasted Cauliflower Steaks
Cauliflower, Sweet Potato, and Chickpea Curry
Vegan Cauliflower Tacos with Refried Beans
Rainbow Cauliflower Rice Bowl

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This post was originally published in March 2018. It has been updated with new photos and changes to the text as of September 2020.