Cauli-Tato Soup
Yield: 4 one cup servings
Adapted from Natural Gourmet Institute’s Carrot Soup Recipe
(Whole 30 Compliant)
This soup tastes like a baked potato in a bowl, but your little healthy secret is that it’s made entirely from cauliflower. Even I can’t believe how much this mimics the flavor of potato without any use of potato, or even butter. This is a great kiddo fakout. I have topped mine with the traditional baked potato toppings of bacon and scallions (the store did not have any chives, so scallions are great substitute). I’m sure you could get creative and add even more unique toppings like taco trimmings for example. I’m actually currently entertaining the idea of 1/4inch diced up and roasted parsnips. With that said, this is a completely dairy free recipe, but you can also make it vegan or vegetarian by using vegetable broth in place of chicken and making shitake mushroom bacon to replace actual bacon.
Ingredients:
Organic, nitrate free, nitrite free, no sugar bacon (or shitake bacon for vegans)
1 tablespoon avocado oil
1/2 a white onion chopped into 1/2 inch cubes
2 cups of cauliflower florets cut into 1/2 inch pieces
4 cups of organic chicken broth, divided (with no added sugar)*
2 tablespoons of arborio rice (you could also substitute rolled oats)
Salt and pepper to taste
2 scallions slice thinly on the diagonal for garnish
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350*F and place the bacon slices onto an elevated wire rack inside a roasting pan. Cook the bacon for 30 minutes.
In a small (1 quart) saucepan, heat up the oil and add the onion. Add a pinch of salt and sweat the onion (Cook while stirring frequently so that no color forms on the vegetable and the juices start to come out. The vegetables will start to shimmer from the moisture when you’re done).
Add the cauliflower to the pan with another pinch of salt and cover with a lid. Continue to sweat the onion and cauliflower, stirring occasionally, until the cauliflower starts to soften a little bit (about 5 minutes).
Add 3 cups of the chicken broth and the rice to the pot. Cover and bring to a boil. Lower to a simmer and simmer covered for about 25 minutes, or until the cauliflower is so tender it’s almost mushy and the rice is broken down.
Transfer the mixture into a Vitamix:
(***WARNING: NEVER fill the Vitamix more than halfway with hot liquid, otherwise you risk it exploding and burning yourself very badly***).
Puree the mixture until smooth (It will likely take 2 batches).
Return the now smooth mixture to your saucepan, add the remaining 1 cup of chicken broth and return to a simmer. Taste and see if you need any more salt ( I did not) and feel free to add some freshly ground black peppercorn at this time as well.
Serve immediately (in a warm bowl if possible to take it up a notch) and top with scallions and bacon for garnish. Or garnish as you like.
Enjoy!
*”Broth” is seasoned, while “Stock” is unseasoned, I used broth here to speed up the process and didn’t add any additional salt until tasting at the end as it may not need any with the initial choice to use broth instead of stock. Be sure to keep that in mind when you are purchasing store bought broth.
- Organic, nitrate free, nitrite free, no sugar bacon (or shitake bacon for vegans)
- 1 tablespoon avocado oil
- ½ a white onion chopped into ½ inch cubes
- 2 cups of cauliflower florets cut into ½ inch pieces
- 4 cups of organic chicken broth, divided (with no added sugar)*
- 2 tablespoons of arborio rice (you could also substitute rolled oats)
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 2 scallions sliced thinly on the diagonal for garnish
- Preheat oven to 350*F and place the bacon slices onto an elevated wire rack inside a roasting pan. Cook the bacon for 30 minutes.
- In a small (1 quart) saucepan, heat up the oil and add the onion. Add a pinch of salt and sweat the onion (Cook while stirring frequently so that no color forms on the vegetable and the juices start to come out. The vegetables will start to shimmer from the moisture when you're done).
- Add the cauliflower to the pan with another pinch of salt and cover with a lid. Continue to sweat the onion and cauliflower, stirring occasionally, until the cauliflower starts to soften a little bit (about 5 minutes).
- Add 3 cups of the chicken broth and the rice to the pot. Cover and bring to a boil. Lower to a simmer and simmer covered for about 25 minutes, or until the cauliflower is so tender it's almost mushy and the rice is broken down.
- Transfer the mixture into a Vitamix:
- (***
- WARNING: NEVER fill the Vitamix more than halfway with hot liquid
- , otherwise you risk it exploding and burning yourself very badly***).
- Puree the mixture until smooth (It will likely take 2 batches).
- Return the now smooth mixture to your saucepan, add the remaining 1 cup of chicken broth and return to a simmer. Taste and see if you need any more salt ( I did not) and feel free to add some freshly ground black peppercorn at this time as well.
- Serve immediately (in a warm bowl if possible to take it up a notch) and top with scallions and bacon for garnish. Or garnish as you like.
- Enjoy!
- *"Broth" is seasoned, while "Stock" is unseasoned, I used broth here to speed up the process and didn't add any additional salt until tasting at the end as it may not need any with the initial choice to use broth instead of stock. Be sure to keep that in mind when you are purchasing store bought broth.
