Creamy Cauliflower Soup. (OMG it’s so good I swear.)
You know what?
I’m having a meltdown this week. I don’t know. Maybe it’s because the debate made sure that Private Practice couldn’t be on last night. Maybe it’s because I would like to unfriend everyone on Facebook, forever… or at least until mid-November. Maybe it’s because I’m inching closer to 30! eeek. Maybe it’s because I emotionally ate ice cream for dinner and then emotionally online shopped until midnight.
Ooomf.
Let’s talk about soup instead. Especially since my husband is reading this.
So the thing is, last year around this time I had some incredible cauliflower soup that seriously just melted in my mouth. No… I mean MELTED. I attempted to recreate it but it turned out like paste and consequently… ended up being showcased in my recipe disasters of 2011. But… I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. For a year. For 12 loooooong months. Do you have any idea how long that is in impatient, annoying girl-time?
Let me tell you: a long time. Totally worth it now though. Maybe sometimes patience pays off? I will probably never truly find out.
Oh and here’s the other thing. I’ve never been able to get behind the whole mashed cauliflower craze. No people, they are not potatoes. It’s freaking Thanksgiving and I want to eat REAL MASHED POTATOES. It’s the biggest food holiday of the year and I had a great workout this morning and I plan on stuffing myself to the brim and then doing it again four hours later and no, I don’t want to touch your mashed cauliflower no matter how delish you say it is.
Alright, perhaps the reason I haven’t been a fan is because I’d just have to swirl so many butter rivers and cream streams and five thousand pounds of cheese with eight sprinkles of salt into the mix in order to make it palatable and do what it’s supposed to do… taste like potatoes. Whatevs.
BUT. I might be changing my tune now. I’m not about to go swap one of my favorite side dishes for these goofy looking florets, but hear me out when I tell you that this soup tastes eerily similar to potatoes. To, say, potato soup. Except it’s lighter in texture and taste and is creamier, yet still does the whole mouth melting thing. It’s sort of… heavenly. And YOU KNOW how I feel about things that slightly resemble broccoli. Ugh.
What I’m trying to say is that if you don’t like cauliflower, you will probably still like this. I hope so.
While the soup is incredible and made most of it’s journey straight from the pot into my mouth, the toppings are what initially sold me on this soup last year. The roasted cauliflower is something I can handle in a small amount while enveloped in a soup pillow, but the crispy fried capers and chive oil are the bees knees. I mean it. If you don’t like capers, try them fried. Little crunchy pops in your mouth? Um hello lover.
If you’re having a meltdown sort of week, you might wanna make this soup. If you’re having a great sort of week, you also might want to make this soup. If you have a ton of “fake”book friends that are spamming up your feed with political rants every 30 seconds, definitely do not make them soup. And then unsubscribe. And make yourself the darn soup.
Problems solved.
Creamy Cauliflower Soup with Crispy Capers and Chive Oil
Ingredients
- 1 sweet onion, finely diced
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 large head of cauliflower, chopped into small florets
- 3 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
- 1 cup water
- 1/2 cup half and half or whole milk
- 1/4 cups capers, patted completely dry
- salt and pepper to taste
- additional roasted cauliflower for topping
- chive oil
- 1/4 cup chopped chives
- 3-4 tablespoons olive oil
Instructions
- Heat a large pot over medium heat. Add olive oil and 1 tablespoon butter, then add onions with a pinch of salt. Stir to coat and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add in chopped cauliflower and vegetable stock, then cover and cook for 20-25 minutes until softened. A few times during cooking, use your spoon to press down and break apart or mash the cauliflower.
- While cauliflower is cooking, make the chive oil. Combine the chives and olive oil in a blender or food processer and blend until totally smooth. If needed, you can strain the oil thru a very fine mesh strainer. To fry the capers, heat a small skillet over medium-high heat and add 1-2 teaspoons of olive oil. Add dry capers and shake the pan or stir, tossing for 1-2 minutes until crispy and fried. Set aside to drain on a paper towel.
- Once the cauliflower is soft, scoop it (and all the remaining broth) into a large bowl. Add half of the mixture to a blender with half cup of water and puree until smooth. Once smooth, add back to the pot and puree the remaining cauliflower mixture with the other half cup of water. Add to the rest.
- Heat over low heat, stirring in milk or cream and remaining butter. Taste and season with salt and pepper, then garnish with additional roasted cauliflower (I roasted at 425 with olive oil, salt + pepper for 40 minutes, tossing), capers and chive oil.
Did you make this recipe?
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I appreciate you so much!
I feel so much better already.
148 Comments on “Creamy Cauliflower Soup. (OMG it’s so good I swear.)”
Everything I’ve ever eaten from Habitat has been amazing – but I know I’d never come close to recreating the dishes myself. This soup looks beautiful, and Fairmont worthy! :)
I love cauliflower .. That last bowl looks like something out of Gourmet mag.
Capers and roasted cauli on top sound amazing!! I have two heads of cauliflower and I was thinking about making them into soup. Now I know that I am.
I love cauliflower! I recently made “mock” mashed potatoes using cauliflower, and it tasted just like mashed potatoes, so I can imagine how good this soup is! Your photos are stunning, Jessica!
Cauliflower Soup > Politics
Unfortunately I also think I prefer lima beans to politics.
…And that gross bright yellow mustard.
…And slimy processed lunch meat.
I definitely prefer wine to politics.
…And chocolate.
…And craft beers.
…And sushi.
Anywhooooo. I’m sick of politics as well, but this recipe looks fab. The end.
Agree!
You said it, girl!
I had the best cauliflower soup two weekends ago at Taste of MI and have been thinking about it ever since. This look amazing! I love your additions of chive oil and extra roasted cauliflower on top. I must try this!
Thank heavens that someone else loves this soup! My mother made cauliflower soup for us once (only once!) about ten years ago and ever since then I’ve been swearing up and down to people “I promise you it was great!”
Since she couldn’t remember making it, I now have recipe to make this myself! And by the way, I love the creamy white, lush green, and steely grey color scheme – very wintry! and cozy!
Swoon! I have never seen such a beautiful cauliflower soup! I will for sure be trying this.
OMG so gorgeous! I know this is weird, BUT, cauliflower is my favorite vegetable. I just call it ‘cauli.’ As in, havin’ cauli tonight. Cool, right?!
These photos are gorgeous! I love that dark grey backdrop–wow!
Pretty sure I’d love this! I’ve never been able to really love the whole mashed cauliflower thing either, but if you mash it with butternut squash, sweet potato, and turnips… well now that is another story!!
Cauliflower mashed faux tatoes are easy to screw up and a lot of the recipes out there are just plain bad. Therefore, a lot of people think they are bad or that they don’t like them when, in fact, they’d really like them if they had a solid recipe to follow.
I have no problem with eating a potato on occasion – whatever form it may be in – but I feel way better generally if the majority of my meals are accompanied by things like cauliflower. And I was once a vegetable-hater too.
Bonus: stock made from chicken feet (I know, it sounds weird but trust me) makes for the most velvet-y soups. Voodoo stock revolutionized by winter squash soups.
Oh my! Cauliflower isn’t my favorite but just the sights of this, okay, the fried capers are what sold me. Crave worthy! The photos look amazing as always.
Your soup looks amazing!! I never made cauliflower soup, but now I must!! I love the chive ol in it!! So pretty!
Mm I love cauliflower soup, especially when it’s spiced with curry powder! You could also do mostly cauliflower and 1 potato to thicken it up, or even cooked white rice. glad you finally made this one a success!
That looks great. When he opens back up in East Liberty, you have to try Notion, I had a Cauliflower soup there that was the best Cauliflower I’ve had. http://flic.kr/p/aE3Z91
Jessica! It has indeed been one of those weeks, and soup is one of my favorite comfort foods. Your food always looks so delicious but is typically enveloped with cheese which this poor stomach can’t handle. This recipe I might be able to tweak so I can eat it, too. Side note: the pictures look lovely! Thanks so much!
My mister swears he doesn’t like cauliflower, but I think I can trick him with this one! (is that bad I’m being tricky? Meh, whatever!)
So, you’re telling me I can feed this to the BF and he will think he’s eating potato soup? And I won’t have to think about all the miles I should be logging on the treadmill but totally won’t because House Hunters is on? Excellent. Recipe bookmarked.
I totally know whatcha mean! I’m sooo over the political rants on fb!
THAT and Farmville requests!
1. this looks amazing (and I don’t think I’ve ever said that about anything cauliflower related before)
2. I’m in love with your pics in this post
3. I want to un-friend 85% of my facebook and twitter friends too. I’ve learned to stay off social media on debate nights for fear of cyber-punching people.
I love this. I love cauliflower. I love soup. I hate facebook right now. I hate cauliflower as mashed potatoes. I love potatoes. The end.
Some weeks are just like that. I too, would like to skip FB for the next few weeks and pretend all my friends aren’t temporary lunatics! Sigh…. just had to get that off my chest.
Awesome, CALMING soup. :)
Your night sounds like fun! Ice cream and shopping! Cream of cauliflower is one of my favorites and this one looks so white and perfect you can hardly tell where the soup ends and where the bowl begins! Slurp.
Yes.
Thank you.
Mashed cauliflowers are NOT potatoes and NO, my child would never be fooled into thinking that they were, so people stop telling me to try it.
Sigh.
This soup looks gorgeous. Like magic in a bowl.
You want to defriend people on facebook and I wanted to do that to some twitter people last night! Glad you found comfort in the creamy cauliflower and that it worked out this time. Yummy!
seriously, i cannot ever LOOK at facebook these days – most annoying thing ever. i think i’ll drown my social media sorrows in a vat of this soup :)
These are probably the most beautiful pictures of soup I have ever seen. Seriously. Good work!!
Gorgeous soup. And I totally understand the mood. I’m blaming the weather front for mine. That and the fact that I need to clean out closets AGAIN! How is it possible for closets to constantly be so much work to keep clean. I need a closet fairy. And this soup.
Jesse you inspire me .Two ways in this blog.
1 .What to do with the lovely Cauliflower I just bought & 2. A color combination for one of my recycled cashmere scarves.I’m always looking for color ideas. And yummy food too!!!!!
Sounds perfectly yummy!
Crispy capers is a great idea! I actually really love cauliflower (even mashed cauliflower, yes, but I agree that it will never ever ever replace mashed potatoes), so I will be licking this bowl clean.
I keep waiting on the hubs to shout, “NO more soups!” because in the past couple of weeks I think I’ve made at least 4 soups, t he majority of them involving roasting some sort of vegetable and pureeing it haha!
However, he may have to suffer through juuusttt one more because this looks incredible!
“Does it taste like trees?” -Jessica
But seriously, this looks awesome. ;)
Chive oil. And this cauli soup. Wow. The flavor combo sounds so stellar! I love roasted cauli, broccoli, etc and this looks like creamy perfection!
Holy, this looks lovely! That chive oil is such a nice touch :)
Thank looks so fancy, yum! And I totally feel ya on the ice cream emotional eating. Watching the presidential debate will do that to ya!
Real mashed potatoes are a necessity! I think this soup looks like a much better way to eat cauliflower. I don’t think I’ve ever combined cauliflower with capers–they sound like such a perfect acid contrast to smooth, sweet cauliflower!
Thank you for writing this post solely for me–“meltdown” seems to be the word of the week here (it doesn’t help that one of my students experienced one in the smack middle of office hours), and I actually just had my first taste of creamy cauliflower soup last night. Needless to say, I will be making this myself as I continue melting…
I really do want to move in to your house. Ill do the dishes I pinky promise
I am pretty tolerant of the politics on FB (I often post news articles….but not my opinions :D), but my thing at this time of year is football. I can’t stand seeing every single one of my friends comment on every single play! Don’t get me wrong, I love watching the Super Bowl… but it’s a bit much.
Speaking of bowls, I’d like this soup in one right now. Drool.
Made this – delicious!!
I am a cauliflower lover, and I love cauliflower soup… but…your toppings are the bomb!
mashed cauliflower will never be mashed potatoes and nutritional yeast will never be cheese. also, your cutting board matches your blog. baller.
YUM! This is brilliant :) Thank you for sharing, will definitely be trying!
Could you tag this one Gluten Free please so I can find it later? Thank you!
Done! :)
Ugh, i feel the exact same way and recently defriended some of my husband’s family members because of political rants, FB is not the place for this, people! Cauliflower anything makes me feel better, and this soup looks gorgeous, love the addition of chive oil. Hope you’re back to your normal happy self in no time, and in any case you’ll be a well dressed angry person if you’re shopping online every night :)
I’m going through Private Practice withdrawal over here – I’m so thoroughly hooked on this Charlotte triplets plot line that I can hardly stand it! I’ve never tried cauliflower soup, but I like the idea, and I REALLY like the crispy capers.
OMG fried capers! MUST try! SOup looks great too.
Okay, I hate cauliflower. I MIGHT try making this soup, on one condition. You have to make these cupcakes. http://www.bakingdom.com/2012/05/bacon-hazelnut-buttermilk-cupcakes.html I couldn’t help but think of you when I saw the recipe.
Love the chive oil. Love it all