This dairy-free roasted cauliflower soup is naturally rich and creamy, without the addition of cream or cheese. It's a warm bowl of velvety soup for a cool day. This recipe combines the deep flavours of roasted cauliflower, aromatic toasted sage leaves and a spicy punch of pumpkin seeds, all in one nutritious comforting bowl!
❤️ Why you'll love this cauliflower soup recipe
- Comforting: This roasted cauliflower soup is a warm hug on a cool day! Coming home to a bowl of warm soup can be the ultimate comfort some days.
- Dairy-free: This recipe makes a velvety smooth, thick and creamy soup without any cream!
- Nutritious: You're going to love this low-carb soup that's full of essential vitamins and minerals.
- Delicious: Cauliflower soup has a mild flavour. It's fun to bump up the flavour by loading on different soup toppings.
- A good option for meal prep: I like to double the recipe and freeze this soup in individual portions.
It was a little cooler out on market day this week, and the thought of colder days on the horizon made me think it was time to get out my soup pot.
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🛒 Ingredients
You'll love this creamy dairy-free cauliflower soup and wonder why you don't make it more often! So easy, so good! Here's what you'll need to make it. You'll find a complete list with quantities in the recipe card below.
- cauliflower: a large head
- olive oil: extra virgin
- onion: You'll use half a yellow onion.
- leek: Use the white and light green parts only, washing carefully to release any trapped dirt between the leaves.
- fresh garlic clove: Everything is better with garlic!
- celery: a couple of stalks for that natural salty flavour.
- chicken broth: Your choice: chicken stock or vegetable broth or bone broth.
*Note: the ingredients in the photo below show what you'd need if you doubled the recipe.
🔪 Step-by-Step Instructions
This creamy roasted cauliflower soup does not take long to make. Here are the simple steps. You'll find detailed instructions in the recipe card below.
- First, wash the cauliflower, and remove the outer leaves, but leave most of the core. Separate it into florets, toss them with a little olive oil, and spread them out on a parchment-paper lined large baking sheet. Roast them in the oven.
- While the cauliflower is roasting, chop the onion, garlic, leek, and celery. Sauté them in a heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven until translucent, but not browned.
- When the cauliflower is fork tender, remove the baking sheet from the oven and add the roasted cauliflower to the soup pot, stirring to coat with the sautéed aromatics.
- Next, add the broth and water (or use all broth) and simmer for 5 minutes or so. Check the seasoning and add salt if you think it needs it.
- Transfer in batches to a blender and purée until smooth and velvety. At this point, you can freeze some of it for another day, or return it to the pot to simmer, then ladle it into bowls.
- Finally, garnish with spiced pumpkin seeds, toasted sage leaves, or bacon bits and chives. Try it with pesto and fresh basil leaves!
❓Readers' Questions
Roasting makes the cauliflower in this soup is delicately sweet. Science explains this sweetness easily. Roasting at a high temperature causes the natural sugars in vegetables to caramelize and the proteins to brown.
You can increase the caramelization by increasing the surface area of the vegetables exposed to the heat. More simply put, don’t pile the veggies on top of each other.
You can also increase the browning by increasing the heat. In this case, you don’t want the cauliflower to brown too much, as you want the soup to have a creamy colour, so it's best to use a moderate oven.
Five reasons to make your own soup at home:
1. Making soup is so simple, even for a beginning cook. Chopping and prepping the vegetables does take a bit of time, but most soups do not need to simmer for hours on the stovetop.
2. Besides being simple to make, you get to control what's in your food, knowing what you've added, or what has not been added.
3. Not only that, but you can tailor-make your soup according to your family's likes, or in the case of kids . . . dislikes.
4. You can make a whole meal around a simple bowl of soup, or it can just be an after-school pick-me-up.
5. Homemade soup is budget-friendly! You can save a lot of money by making a big batch of soup and freezing it in individual or family portions.
You might like these silicone freezer trays. Freeze your soup, pop out the cubes, and store in a resealable freezer bag!
Ways to serve roasted cauliflower soup
- Make it a meal by stirring in crab meat, smoked salmon, or cooked sausage.
- Make it vegetarian by substituting vegetable broth for the chicken broth. In this case, you may want to add a teaspoon or so of dried thyme to increase the depth of flavour.
- Keep it dairy-free by following the recipe and choosing dairy-free soup toppings.
- Make it Keto by using bone broth, and add a garnish of crispy bacon bits.
- Garnish it by adding some crunch with spiced pumpkin seeds and/or toasted sage leaves or any of these 20 Healthy Soup Topping Ideas
- Make it fun! Try these Roasted Cauliflower Soup Shooters as a party appetizer!
Spice it up! Try this Slow Cooker Moroccan Harissa Cauliflower Soup, too. With exciting flavours from warm North African spices, this Moroccan soup recipe is vegan, paleo, Whole30 and keto-approved. Perfect for soup season!
Make a vegan cauliflower soup! Try this Creamy Mushroom Soup with Cauliflower. Another creamy soup without cream, not just for mushroom lovers!
More cozy soup recipes to try
🌟 Did you make this dairy-free roasted cauliflower soup?
When you make this recipe, please leave a comment and a star rating below. Thanks in advance!
📖 Recipe
Roasted Cauliflower Soup with Spicy Pumpkin Seeds
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 head cauliflower, sliced, including the core
- 2 tablespoons olive oil, extra virgin, divided
- ½ medium yellow onion, diced
- 1 medium leek, white and light green parts only, sliced thinly
- 1 clove garlic, chopped
- 2 stalks celery, diced
- 1 teaspoon sea salt or Kosher salt
- 1 cup chicken broth or vegetable broth or bone broth
- 2 ½ - 3 cups water
- ¼ cup pumpkin seeds toasted, then tossed with ¼ to ½ teaspoon smoked paprika for garnish
- ¼ cup sage leaves, toasted with 1 teaspoon olive oil
Instructions
- Heat oven to 350°F. Place the cauliflower florets on a baking sheet, drizzle with a little olive oil and roast until tender, about 15 - 20 minutes. Watch carefully to prevent too much browning.
- In a large, heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven, heat the oil until hot. Sauté the onion, leek, celery, and garlic until soft but not browned.
- Add the sea salt, then add the roasted cauliflower and toss until it is completely coated with the onion mixture. Cook for another 2 minutes.
- Add the chicken broth or vegetable stock and water. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 5 minutes or until cauliflower is starting to break down. Purée in a blender in batches until smooth. Alternatively, you can use an immersion blender or stick blender.
- Pour the soup back into the pot and reheat to a simmer. If desired, gently stir in crab or smoked salmon OR add optional parmesan cheese and cream.
- Toast sage leaves in a teaspoon of oil in a small skillet, turning once until lightly brown and crispy. Remove promptly.
- Toast pumpkin seeds in a teaspoon of oil in a small skillet. Once they start to make a popping noise, remove from the heat and sprinkle with a very small amount of smoked paprika. (¼ teaspoon to ¼ cup of seeds.)
- Serve the soup hot. Garnish with spicy pumpkin seeds, toasted sage leaves, bacon bits, a swirl of pesto, or fresh basil.
Notes
- 1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese
- 2 tablespoon heavy cream
- ¾ to 1 cup fresh crab meat or smoked salmon or cooked sausage
Dee
So thick and creamy! Love it. Hard to believe there's no added cream in it. I froze half for another day.
Julia Butler Kelly
Could I substitute something else instead of celery? Looks yummy and the topping of fresh crab or smoked salmon.... Can't wait to try it
Flavour & Savour
Hi Julia,
You could just leave it out, or add a grated carrot instead (although that may change the taste slightly.) Celery adds a natural salty flavour, so if you do leave it out, taste it while you're cooking to see if the soup needs a little extra salt. I hope this helps! I LOVE this soup--so creamy!
Don Orwell @ SuperfoodsToday
Great thick soup!! It reminds me to eat more roasted veggies, I always forget such meal ideas. Roasted eggplant, red peppers and garlic are my favourite.
Flavour & Savour
I love roasted vegetables! Roasting brings out their natural sweet flavour. It really does make a difference in this cauliflower soup. Great concept for your blog, by the way!
Ceara @ Ceara's Kitchen
This soup looks so creamy, comforting and delicious! I love that you roasted the cauliflower!
Flavour & Savour
Thanks! Happy to hear you liked this soup, too.
Amanda @ Cookie Named Desire
Yum! This sounds great! I love the flavor combination and it just sounds like something I would love to make on a chilly day and eat while I binge on Netflix!
Flavour & Savour
Just visited your site--beautiful! Those Bergamot cookies grabbed my attention right away.