Vegan Cauliflower Cheese Soup

Bethany's Vegan Kitchen

Oct 22

A fun twist on a traditional cauliflower cheese, turns this into a comforting, tasty soup. This combines cauliflower, onion, potato, celery and garlic, along with a dairy free three cheese blend. The soup is blended until smooth and creamy, then topped with melted cheese, crispy vegan bacon and spring onion. It's best eaten with slices of freshly baked bread

Yield; Six large servings Cook time; 30 minutes

You'll need;

One tablespoon of oil
One brown onion, peeled and roughly chopped
One stick of celery, sliced
Three cloves of garlic, sliced
One medium potato, chopped
One medium head of cauliflower, cut into florets
One litre of hot stock. I used two Oxo vegetable stock cubes and two Oxo chicken free chicken stock cubes dissolved in a litre of boiled water
100g dairy free cheddar, grated. I used Plant Based Cathedral City which is available from Tesco
20g dairy free hard cheese, grated. I used Violife Prosociano which I bought from a health food shop, but it's also available from Waitrose, or online from Ocado
Three tablespoons of nutritional yeast
Salt and black pepper to taste

Method;

Start by heating the oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat. Once it's warmed up, add in the onion and celery. Give them five minutes to start to soften
Next, add in the garlic and give it a couple of minutes to cook with the onion and celery
Then add in the potato and cauliflower, pour over the stock and pop a lid on the saucepan. Allow the vegetables to simmer until the cauliflower is tender, so for around 7-10 minutes
Once the vegetables are cooked, add in the cheese and nutritional yeast and blend until it's completely smooth. Season to taste with salt and black pepper (if you don't want the pepper to be visible in the soup use white pepper instead)
Now the soup is ready to serve, I topped mine with additional grated cheese, some crispy fried vegan bacon, and spring onions

Vegan Cheese

I listed above the particular vegan cheeses that I used, but you can feel free to use different ones. There are so many different vegan cheddars around now, from specific brands and supermarket own brands too. So feel free to use whichever is your favourite

Likewise, most supermarkets sell their own versions of hard cheeses. Green Vie, Sheese, and Nurish, all offer plant based versions of hard cheese too. If you click/tap on the bold links it will open a separate window to their website, where you can find out where they're stocked