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
Bethany's Vegan Kitchen 