Cheesy Cauliflower Soup

Grace is picky.

I don’t actually call her picky (in my head or out loud).

I would like to believe this is just a phase, and she’s going to grow out of it soon. At least, that’s what I tell myself.

We aren’t desperate, but we do play tricks to coax her out of this picky eating business.

One such trick is to allow her to plan our meals.

Skeptical?

It works.

We don’t do it every day (not even every week), but when I let Grace choose what we’ll have for dinner, she picks healthy foods and eats them.

Last Friday, I asked Grace what we should have for supper, fully expecting her to pick pizza or McDonald’s or some such meal. She didn’t.

Soup, she said, with bread.

She really would have liked Joe’s awesome crock pot potato chowder, but it was already after lunch when I asked. There wasn’t enough time for that to cook.

I happened to be paging through the new Everyday Food magazine, and I passed a recipe for cauliflower cheddar soup.

I suggested it.

Sounds good, she said.

After I picked myself up off the floor, I called Joe and asked him to pick up the ingredients.

I have not seen Grace eat cauliflower – cooked or raw – for at least a year. Maybe 2 years.

But she agreed to have cauliflower soup for dinner.

And she ate it.

She told me about halfway through her bowl of soup that she didn’t like it.

She ate half of a bowl of soup that she didn’t like.

No kidding.

I did like it, and this soup is definitely going in to our meal rotation.

If my calculations were right, it has only 156 calories per cup, so it’s incredibly healthy in addition to delicious.

Print Recipe

Cheesy Cauliflower Soup

Course

Main Course, Main Dish, Soup

Servings

cups

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons butter unsalted
• 1 medium onion diced small
• 1 large head cauliflower trimmed and cut into bite-sized pieces
• 4 cups low sodium, fat free chicken broth (plus more if you like thinner soup)
• 1 cup water
• 2 cups Cheddar cheese shredded
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Course Main Course, Main Dish, Soup Servings cups Ingredients 3 tablespoons butter unsalted 1 medium onion diced small 1 large head cauliflower trimmed and cut into bite-sized pieces 4 cups low sodium, fat free chicken broth (plus more if you like thinner soup) 1 cup water 2 cups Cheddar cheese shredded 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Instructions

1. In a large pot, melt butter over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally until the onion is soft, about 8 minutes. Add cauliflower and cook until it begins to brown. This step took about 20 minutes for us.
2. Pour broth and water into the pot and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat and simmer until the cauliflower is very tender, another 20 minutes or so.
3. Be very careful when blending hot liquids! Transfer the mixture to a heat-safe bowl.
4. Fill your blender halfway with the cauliflower mixture and chop coarsely. Pour the coarsely shopped cauliflower back into the original pot.
5. Refill the blender halfway. This time (and any subsequent times necessary), purée the soup until it's smooth. Return the soup to the original pot.
6. If you prefer your soup to be thinner, add more chicken broth to the pot of soup and stir until it's blended.
7. Heat the soup over medium until it's hot and bubbly. Add the shredded cheese and stir until it's all melted and incorporated.
8. To serve, sprinkle with cayenne pepper and a few shards of shredded cheese.

Recipe Notes

We really liked this soup with some chewable bits of cauliflower in it, but you could purée all of the soup smooth if you prefer that.

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© 2012 – 2018, Tara Ziegmont. All rights reserved.