There’s lots to like here, folks, in this sophisticated cauliflower soup whose strength lies in its simplicity. Cheesy. Creamy. Cauliflowery. Classy. It’s sorta like cream of cauliflower soup but minus the cream. Speaking of simple beauty, can you imagine setting a big ole tureen of this soup on your dining table come any formal fall occasion? Breathtaking.–Renee Schettler

LC Lotsa Leeway Note

You may notice that the measurements in this cauliflower soup are all pretty lax in terms of the precise portion of potato, onion, and cauliflower. Intentionally so. Truth of the matter is, no matter how many times we’ve made this soup, we’ve never ended up with out-of-whack proportions—not once, no matter what amount onion, potato, or cauliflower we used. So don’t get hung up on exact measurements. Just relax and rest assured that this cauliflower soup recipe won’t let you down.

A white bowl of cauliflower soup on a white linen cloth with a spoon resting beside it.

Cauliflower and Blue Cheese Soup

4.84 / 12 votes
This elegant cauliflower soup is rich and cheesy, thanks to the addition of blue cheese.
David Leite
CourseLunch
CuisineAmerican
Servings4 to 6 servings
Calories384 kcal
Prep Time15 minutes
Cook Time30 minutes
Total Time45 minutes

Ingredients 

  • 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 medium onion, chopped (about 1 cup)
  • 2 smallish potatoes, peeled and chopped into 3/4- to 1-inch pieces
  • 1 head cauliflower, stems discarded, florets chopped into 3/4- to 1-inch (18- to 25-mm) pieces
  • 4 cups homemade chicken stock or canned chicken broth, (or substitute vegetable stock for a vegetarian alternative)
  • 1 cup cold water
  • 5 1/2 ounces soft blue cheese, preferably Gorgonzola or Gorgonzola dolce, crumbled, plus extra for sprinkling and nibbling
  • Salt and freshly ground white or black pepper, to taste

Instructions 

  • Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Toss in the onion and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the potatoes and cauliflower and cook, stirring frequently, for 2 minutes. Add the stock and water and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and gently simmer until the veggies are tender, 20 to 25 minutes.
  • If using a handheld immersion blender, purée the soup until smooth. If using a countertop blender, let the soup cool for at least 10 minutes, pour it into the blender, and process until smooth, working in batches if necessary. Return the soup to the pot and gently rewarm over low heat.
  • Add the blue cheese to the soup and stir until it melts. Season the soup with salt and pepper to taste.
  • Ladle the cauliflower soup into bowls and top with the extra blue cheese. If desired, you can let the soup cool and then refrigerate it for up to several days or freeze it for up to a month. The soup actually improves with time spent in the fridge.
Grow Harvest Cook Cookbook

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Nutrition

Serving: 1 servingCalories: 384 kcalCarbohydrates: 38 gProtein: 20 gFat: 18 gSaturated Fat: 9 gMonounsaturated Fat: 7 gCholesterol: 36 mgSodium: 845 mgFiber: 6 gSugar: 9 g

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

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Recipe © 2014 Meredith Kirton | Mandy Sinclair. Photo © 2014 Sue Stubbs. All rights reserved.

Recipe Testers’ Reviews

If you’re a cheese lover, you will adore this cauliflower soup with blue cheese. I must point out that as a family, we’re just not fans of blue cheese; however, this soup is the closest we’ve come to it. The soup is velvety and has a light tang from the the cheese, but the taste of the blue cheese isn’t overwhelming. We also liked the fact that it’s creamy without the addition of cream or milk. All the veggies were chopped into 1-inch chunks, and everything was tender at the 20-minute mark of simmering. I was out of chicken stock, so I used a blend of vegetable stock and the cooking water. We chose not to serve it with any additional blue cheese. The general verdict, the soup was not at all bad even if it had blue cheese in it. I think this is a versatile enough soup that I will make again but change the cheese for something more suited to our palate like a Camembert or Brie.

This cauliflower soup recipe comes together so easily you might think there was something left out, but the cauliflower and potato work so well with the simple addition of the blue cheese that there isn’t really any need for additional garnish. It would make a great beginning course, or a lunch for company, and worked for a light summer dinner alongside a salad. Cauliflower is almost always available in the market, especially if it’s grown locally, but it was especially nice while fresh and tender. While an ordinary blue cheese worked very well, I think this would also have been very nicely flavored with Gorgonzola or a creamier veined cheese. This is a no-fuss recipe that works for an easy weeknight dinner, yet is also nice enough for a more formal weekend dinner party. Crisp fried shallots might also make a more dramatic topping, but it looks just fine with the sprinkle of cheese and a bit of pepper. While it might be tempting to gussy this up a little more, I like that even with a good amount of blue cheese, it did not become too rich or too cheese-dominant.

This cauliflower soup is DELICIOUS! It will comfortably serve 6 people or, better yet, 2 people for 3 days. The soup, beginning to end, takes less than an hour, and the hands-on time is only about 10 minutes. I used 1 onion, 2 potatoes, and a large cauliflower, each diced into 1/2-inch cubes. This recipe works perfectly as written. I added some crisp crumbled bacon on top for good measure.

This cauliflower soup recipe is unique! The combination of blue cheese and cauliflower is brilliant. While blue cheese can be pungent, the flavor in this soup is well-balanced and not at all overpowering. The texture is silken, and the presentation is simple yet elegant. This soup is great on its own, but would be elevated even more by a topping of croutons or bacon or both. The recipe works just as written, and the best part is the soup is finished in about 35 minutes. I cut my vegetables into 1-inch pieces, and the vegetables were tender and ready for blending after cooking for only 20 minutes. Add to that the 10 minutes hands-on time, and I have a new weeknight dinner recipe. My head of cauliflower weighed in at 1 3/4 pounds and measured 5 cups. The onion I used was small and measured 1 cup. My potatoes weighed 1 pound and measured 1 1/4 cups. I love that I can freeze this soup so I will always have a fast soup on hand for family or company.

In just 1 hour, I had a lovely, thick, creamy cauliflower soup. The night I made it, the soup tasted good, but I think it tasted even better the next day for lunch. (The few cold spoonfuls I sampled while putting it into my lunch container were quite tasty, too.) The blue cheese I used was fairly robust. Anyone who doesn’t care for blue cheese wouldn’t like this soup very much at all, as the flavor is fairly pronounced.

This cauliflower soup is one of my new favorites! Quick, super easy, and damn tasty. (If you like blue cheese, that is. My wife tried one spoon and left the rest for me.) I used 1 medium onion, 2 medium russets, and a smallish head cauliflower. I also added a few drops Worcestershire sauce, which I like in my soups. I also added some minced parsley as garnish. This soup recipe is a keeper, even if it’s only for me.

I’ve really wanted to get into soups, and the weather just recently turned chilly enough for it to be acceptable to try this out! The cauliflower soup recipe is incredibly easy and has few ingredients. It took roughly 45 minutes from the beginning of prep to serving. I found that 20 minutes was plenty of time to get everything cooked well. This fed 3 hungry people with a quart left to freeze. The blue cheese flavor was certainly there and added to the richness of the soup. I imagine a hot bowl of this in the depths of winter as a cozy evening meal with some crusty bread and a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil. Yum.

This cauliflower soup is exactly what it purports to be: a cauliflower and potato soup that tastes like whatever blue cheese you put in it. It took about 20 minutes of chopping prep, mostly done while the onions were going, then another 20 minutes of cooking and 5 minutes of puréeing with the immersion blender and adjusting the pepper and salt levels. I used a veggie stock, rather than chicken. I wanted a slightly richer, more multi-dimensional flavor, but if you’re looking for a straight cauliflower and blue cheese concoction you can count on, this is it.

I recently spent 6 days at an endurance running event in Silverton, CO. During this race, I not only ran, but also provided breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the other runners. Lucky me, my two favorite things! I used this cauliflower soup recipe to feed the runners when the temperatures plummeted to below freezing after 3 days of cold, wet weather. With a number of runners either vegetarian or vegans, this was also an easy recipe to adapt to the various dietary restrictions using vegetable broth, no cheese, etc. This makes a nice creamy soup, with or without the cheese. What the blue cheese adds is the salty, umami flavor; without it, the soup is a tad bland, as one would expect, but for the runners, this was perfect since, at this point, they had been running for almost 4 days. I will admit that my input on the quantities will be completely inaccurate. Since I was cooking for 25 people, I used 4 onions, 10 potatoes, 3 heads cauliflower, and either vegetable or chicken broth. I will say that I quartered the potatoes lengthwise and then cut them into either 3 or 4 pieces, depending on the size, so I had equal size pieces for even cooking.




About David Leite

I count myself lucky to have received three James Beard Awards for my writing as well as for Leite’s Culinaria. My work has also appeared in The New York Times, Martha Stewart Living, Saveur, Bon Appétit, Gourmet, Food & Wine, Yankee, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, and more.


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Recipe Rating




10 Comments

  1. 5 stars
    Loved this soup – delicious- thanks for sharing! I added 50/50 gorgonzola dolce/ danish blue. Many cauli cheese soup recipes call for a large amount of butter and cream as well as the cheese, but this recipe gained enough creaminess and fat from the cheeses with minimum olive oil, making it healthier than others I’ve seen. Sorry no photo, we ate it all!

    1. You’re welcome, Fiona. I’m so pleased that you enjoyed it. Thanks so much for taking the time to comment.

  2. 5 stars
    Thanks for such an easy soup to make and perfect in damp weather! I put a chunk of blue cheese in the dish and then ladle the hot soup over so each bite you can take some of the chunk, yummy!