Creamy Carrot and Cauliflower Soup

Hello, creamy cauliflower soup! This healthy cauliflower soup is the best carrot and cauliflower soup you’ll ever spoon into. And it’s easy to whip up.

I love a good bowl of soup anytime of year. And I love digging into a warm bowl of this delicious gluten-free, vegetarian soup.

The carrot cauliflower soup recipe is creamy without the addition of cream or coconut milk. Plus, it supplies a cup of vegetables in every serving! 

Ready to learn why it’s so good for you, as well as the (easy, I promise!) step-by-step instructions on how to make a batch? Let’s get started!

Why I love this cauliflower soup

Cauliflower carrot soup? Yes, please! I love a good bowl of soup any time of year—especially now, when summer nights up here in the northeast are still a bit chilly.

Of course, I’m always thinking about how I can pack in extra nutrition into my food, so I set out to make this soup a hearty, nutrient-filled dish. Enter this cauliflower and carrot soup recipe. The beauty is you don’t even need to roast the cauliflower florets.

I found that the key to creating a delicious cauliflower soup is the spices. So you’ll see that you get cinnamon, turmeric, garlic, and black pepper in this recipe.

The combination of black pepper with turmeric allows the turmeric to be better absorbed by your body. And that’s a win-win. 

Ingredients

Now, let’s look at the ingredients you’ll need to make this cauliflower carrot soup.

Olive oil: When it comes to heart-healthy fats, olive oil is one of my favorites because you can easily add it to so many recipes.

You just need to make sure you’re buying a quality oil, and one way that you can ensure you’re doing so is by looking for the North American Olive Oil (NAOOA) seal.

This ensures that olive oils produced in North America meet standards set by the International Olive Council.

The NAOOA purchases olive oils from supermarkets in the United States and Canada several times a year and tests them for adherence to these standards.

Of course, this doesn’t apply to olive oils produced outside of North America!

Onion: Along with garlic, onions provide the health-helping antioxidant allicin—which is also how the veggies get their white color.

Garlic: This herb is super beneficial for health, especially for helping to lower levels of inflammation. Have extra garlic? It freezes really well. Store minced onion in a freezer-safe bag in the freezer.

Carrots: Now, what would a carrot cauliflower soup be without carrots? The orange veggie boasts the antioxidant beta crytophanxin. And you don’t need to waste those green carrot tops—chop ‘em off and use them to make pesto.

Then, if you have any extra carrots, cutting off the green tops will help the carrots last longer in the fridge, as those greens draw out moisture.

Cauliflower: This cruciferous vegetable is thankfully high on the list of vegetables that contain immunity-helping vitamin C. And this vitamin C helps your body absorb the plant-based iron that’s also present in the vegetable.

Turmeric: Here’s a super herb for you. Turmeric is the spice that provides the yellow color in curry. It’s incredibly anti-inflammatory and may even help control knee pain as much so as ibuprofen.

Combining turmeric with a healthy fat, such as extra-virgin olive oil, helps slow the rate at which the curcumin degrades—increasing the benefits you get from the spice.

Black pepper: This ingredient helps ensure that you get the benefits of turmeric from this soup. To get the maximum benefits of turmeric, you’ll want to combine turmeric with black pepper.

This is because the piperine in black pepper and the curcumin in turmeric work in synergy. 

Cinnamon: I love adding this spice to savory recipes.

Here’s a big reason why cinnamon is so good for you: In a study in The Review of Diabetic Studies, people with type 2 diabetes drank black tea with either cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, or saffron for two months—versus tea on its own.

The volunteers who consumed the spices in their tea saw beneficial effects on their total, LDL “bad” cholesterol, and HDL “good” cholesterol levels.

Low-sodium vegetable broth: Using vegetable broth, versus chicken or beef broth, in this recipe makes the carrot cauliflower soup vegetarian. Go for low sodium to make the dish more heart-health friendly.

Greek yogurt: This vegetarian protein adds a fantastic creaminess to the recipe. And fermented foods such as Greek yogurt are great for gut health.

You also get calcium from the Greek yogurt. When you don’t get enough calcium, that puts you at risk for osteopenia, a condition that can increase risk of osteoporosis.

Pumpkin seeds: These crunchy toppers provide protein, as well as fiber and healthy fat. You also get the minerals magnesium, iron, and zinc. Iron is typically a nutrient that vegetarians and vegans need more of.

Helpful kitchen tools

As far as equipment goes, the only semi out-of-the-ordinary kitchen tool you’ll need is I an immersion blender, which you’ll use to puree this creamy cauliflower soup.

But you can easily also use a high-speed blender or a food processor instead. That’s really all the fancy equipment you need. Thankfully, you don’t need a dutch oven to put together this cream of cauliflower soup.

You might also find the below kitchen tools helpful:

• Garlic press
• 8-quart stock pot
• Soup ladle

Step-by-step instructions

This soup is pretty simple to make, I promise! You start off by chopping all the veggies, then heating olive oil in a stockpot over medium heat.

Next, you add the onion and garlic, stirring them occasionally until they’re softened.

Then, you stir in the carrots and cauliflower, along with the spices and remaining olive oil.

You’ll cook everything for about five minutes, while stirring frequently. Next, cover all the veggies with broth, place the lid on the pot, and bring everything to a boil over high heat.

You’ll reduce the heat to maintain a lively simmer and cook until the vegetables are very tender, about half an hour.

The really fun part is up next! You’ll use an immersion blender to puree the soup until smooth.

Then top each serving of the carrot and cauliflower soup with black pepper, Greek yogurt, and pumpkin seeds. You can also use an herb such as parsley for a garnish, if you’d like. You’ll get six servings out of the recipe.

Nutrition

When it comes to nutrition, this delicious carrot and cauliflower soup has plenty to offer. Here’s an overview of the nutrients you’ll get from it, including the daily values (DVs), per serving.

• Calories: 110
• Fat: 5 g (6% DV)
• Saturated fat: 1 g (5% DV)
• Fiber: 4 g (14% DV)
• Sugar: 6 g
• Protein: 3 g (6% DV)
• Sodium: 190 mg (8% DV)
• Cholesterol: 0 mg (0% DV)

Why this soup is so nutritious

When I was developing the recipe for this carrot and cauliflower soup, I experimented with a few different veggie combinations. I finally settled on the most delicious of them all: a combo of onions, carrots, cauliflower, and garlic.

These veggies provide filling fiber, as well as an excellent amount of your daily need for immunity-helping vitamin C and eye-benefiting vitamin A. Love cooking with cauliflower? Try my sweet potato cauliflower pizza, too.

I love that this carrot and cauliflower soup is creamy and yummy—yet contains no actual cream! And I hope you love this healthy cauliflower soup recipe as much as my family and I do.

I love the toppers as is, but you can also sprinkle on some herbs, if you’d like.

Recipe FAQ

More healthy vegetarian recipes

If you enjoy this carrot cauliflower soup, you’ll also love these recipes:

• Wild blueberry cauliflower smoothie
• Sweet potato flatbread with cauliflower
• Coconut and mandarin orange smoothie bowl

Sources

• A study in The Review of Diabetic Studies