Cauliflower Cheddar Beer Soup
Mar 25, 2013, Updated Mar 05, 2017
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This super creamy cauliflower cheddar beer soup is packed full of flavor and is perfect for cool weather. In an hour you can go from hungry to full.
Last Friday I had the pleasure of having lunch with two fabulous bloggers, Gina and Winnie. I always enjoy going out to lunch with them and we usually end up chatting for hours. We really need to plan a dinner together so we can chat the night away.
While at lunch we all had the most delicious soup. I decided this weekend I had to recreate it’s deliciousness. Off to the store I went to gather the ingredients!
{On a totally unrelated note can we talk about how awful it is to go to the grocery store on a Sunday? We live close by to a college and the store is always packed with students pushing carts at the pace of a snail. I watched one college girl walk by with nothing in her cart but cases of bottled Perrier water. Really? That’s what you are choosing to spend your money on…Perrier water?}
Back to the soup. It’s creamy, savory and packed full of flavor. I even added a little bit of jalapeño to add a bite of spice. It was the perfect addition to this cold winter (please spring come soon!) day.
Califlower Cheddar & Beer Soup
This super creamy cauliflower cheddar beer soup is packed full of flavor and is perfect for cool weather. In an hour you can go from hungry to full.
Yield: 4 servings
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 35 minutes
Total Time: 50 minutes
Ingredients:
- 1 head cauliflower, diced (heads only)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
- 6 strips thick cut bacon, diced
- 1 small onion, diced
- 2 carrots, diced
- 1 small jalapeño, diced and seeds removed (use only half if you don't like heat)
- 2 bottles brown ale (I used Newcastle)
- 3 cups chicken stock
- 1 bay leaf
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)
- 1 tablespoon dijon mustard
- 8 ounces extra sharp cheddar cheese, grated
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- Chives, diced (optional)
Slightly adapted from Mark Bittman
Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Cut off bottom of the cauliflower (the green part), cut the head into 4 pieces, cut out the center core and cut off just the florets.
Lay out onto silpat lined rimmed baking sheet, drizzle with 1 tablespoon olive oil, sprinkle with a little kosher salt and fresh ground pepper. Bake for 10 minutes, stir/flip the cauliflower florets and continue baking for another 10 - 15 minutes until the cauliflower is soft and golden brown. Careful not to let the cauliflower burn. Once cooked set aside until ready to use.
In a large soup pot add olive oil and diced bacon. Cook over medium heat until the bacon is just starting to brown. Add in onion, carrots and jalapeño. Continue cooking until the vegetables are started to soften.
Add in beer, chicken stock, bay leaf, cayenne pepper, salt, roasted cauliflower and dijon mustard. Cook for about 10 minutes until flavors are combined and all vegetables are soft.
Add mixture to a Vitamix (or other high powered blender) and puree starting on speed 1 and slowly going up to speed 10. Blend on speed 10 for about 2 minutes until completely smooth.
Add pureed soup back to the pot and cook over low heat while you prepare the cheddar cheese.
In a bowl add shredded cheddar cheese and toss with 2 tablespoons cornstarch. Add cheese to the soup a handful at a time. Stirring the whole time so the soup does not burn and the cheese incorporates smoothly. Continue until all the cheese has been added and the soup is smooth.
Serve hot with diced chives if desired.
* It would also be great with little pieces of bacon on top but I forgot to make more.
not only do i love the sounds of this soup recipe, but i love your wooden bowls too! i love your photography. 🙂
Thank you Sally! I got the bowls at Home Goods for only $3 a piece!!!
I LOVE the bowls you used and you pictures are gorgeous. My husband would love this soup – I am totally going to make it for him soon!! And I am going to find wooden bowls like these and use them as an excuse to make the soup exactly like yours, bowls and all!!! ha ha
Hahaha thanks Shanna! I got the bowls at Home Goods for only $3 a piece!
Boozy, cheesy, bacon-y and good for you cauliflower? Definitely a soup I can easily love! Plus your pictures make me feel like I can reach in and really eat it. If only I had a spoon.
It’s a perfect soup for this cold weather we are having. I hope it warms up soon!!!!!
This looks so good! I have a hard time getting my husband to eat cauliflower, and I love it. Maybe with the addition of beer, he won’t be able to pass it up! 🙂 I too hate going to the store on Sundays. Saturdays are also bad for us.
I need to give cauliflower another try. I think if I roasted it and made this soup I could be converted. Beautiful photos (as always!) too.
This sounds so incredible. The weather here is getting continually colder and colder, so I am most definitely going to keep this in mind for future making.
I hope you like it! It’s perfect for cold evenings!
Booze, cheese and veggies? It’s all the important food groups in one glorious, cozy soup!
Wow, this soup looks absolutely amazing. Can you tell me if it has much of a beer flavor. We are just know into the taste of beer, so I’m leery about trying this one. If it does taste like beer, could I substitute more chicken broth and have it taste yummy? Thanks.
Hi Cynthia! The soup does have a bit of beer flavor and if your not a fan I think stock would work just fine. You would still gets lots of yummy flavor from the cauliflower and cheese.
This has wayyyyyyyy too much beer in it! It was super butter and unfortunately unedible. My husband and I were really looking foward to eating this tonight. I followed the recipe, but might only need 1 bottle of beer….:(
Hi Jen! The soup definitely has a beer taste but it doesn’t usually come out bitter. If you would like to mellow out the taste I would recommend adding in more chicken stock and cooking it down to make it lovely and thick again. I’m super sorry you didn’t like the way it turned out. Do you mind if I ask what beer you used? Thanks!
This was so so good!!!! I’m a veggo so I left out the bacon and used vegetable stock. I added some smoked paprika and a roasted red pepper (because I had it). Will defiantly make again! I made some soft pretzels to use for dippers — amazing! Thank you so much for the recipe.
Hi Molly! Thank you so much for coming back and letting me know you liked the recipe! I love the idea of adding smoked paprika (its my favorite spice!) and roasted red pepper. Plus those pretzel dippers sound amazing!