Today I’m sharing an easy starter for Day 3 of Thanksgiving Week! This Golden Cauliflower Soup is light, creamy, full of ginger and rosemary, and perfect for sipping on while you wait for Thanksgiving Dinner to be ready.
I don’t know about you, but in my family, Thanksgiving Dinner is really more like Thanksgiving Late-Lunch. We tend to eat somewhere between 1:00 and 3:00pm, depending on how long everything takes to make. As a result, I’m always either uncomfortably hungry when the meal is ready because I haven’t eaten lunch, or not really hungry at all because I ate lunch only an hour or so prior.
My solution to this annual problem: soup. Preferably a soup that has all the flavors of Thanksgiving, but isn’t going to fill you up too much before the big meal. Bonus points if you can make it in advance, warm it up, and just let everyone ladle it into a mug and bypass the need to wash all your spoons before the meal.
This soup is made from- you guessed it- cauliflower. An entire head of it, to be precise. The cauliflower gets cooked down with plenty of ginger, garlic, onion, and rosemary, then simmered in broth and pureed until smooth and creamy (despite having no cream involved!).
Oh, and that whole GOLDEN bit is thanks to our good pal turmeric. An entire tablespoon gets stirred in to this soup to give it a golden hue and ultra warming, earthy flavor. If you haven’t stocked your pantry with Turmeric yet, you really need to. It’s color and flavor are magical, but the true beauty is it’s power to reduce inflammation, boost antioxidants, help your brain perform better, and generally keep you in tip top shape.
Okay, I’m not claiming turmeric has the power to fix all your problems, but it certainly has been well-researched, and makes this soup extra beautiful, if nothing else.
If you’re like me- that is, part of a family who eats Thanksgiving Dinner freakishly early- this soup will be a lifesaver! It can be made in less than 30-minutes (or even made several days in advance and just reheated on Thanksgiving day, if that’s more your style) and is sure to keep everyone happy and, most importantly, out of your way while you finish cooking. If that’s not a Thanksgiving win, I don’t know what is.
I hope you love this recipe as much as I do! If you make it, leave a comment below, or take a picture and share it with me on Instagram!
Stay tuned this week for four more brand new Thanksgiving recipes, as well as the Thanksgiving Recipe Roundup on Monday, November 20th!
Golden Cauliflower Soup
Ingredients
- 2 Tablespoons coconut oil
- 1 head of cauliflower
- 1 small yellow onion
- 2 inches of fresh ginger
- 4 large cloves of garlic
- 2 Tablespoons fresh rosemary leaves
- 1 Tablespoon ground turmeric
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 6 cups vegetable or chicken stock preferably low-sodium
Instructions
- 1. Remove any leaves on the outside of the cauliflower, then cut into 4 and chop each quarter into bite-sized pieces. Roughly chop the onion and ginger into a few pieces each (since everything will be blended up at the end, there's no need to get uniform sizes).
- 2. Put a medium-sized soup pot over medium-high heat, then add the coconut oil, cauliflower, onion, and ginger. Cook for 5-8 minutes, stirring often, until cauliflower starts to soften and gets slightly brown on the edges.
- 3. Peel the garlic cloves, and add them whole into the pot with the rosemary leaves. Stir and let cook for another 1-2 minute, then season with turmeric, salt, and pepper.
- 4. Add the stock and turn the heat to high. Once the soup is boiling, cook for another 2-3 minutes, or until cauliflower is tender. Turn off the heat and let cool slightly, then carefully ladle the soup into the base of a food processor or high-powered blender, and puree until smooth (you may need to do this in 2 batches, depending on the size of your food processor. I recommend only filling your food processor about 1/2 way with hot liquid, so as it blends up you don't find yourself with hot soup all over the kitchen).
- 5. Once soup is pureed, pour back into the pot and keep on low heat until ready to serve. Taste and add extra pinches of salt and pepper, if needed.
- 6. To make this soup in advance, simply allow the pureed soup to cool to room temperature, then store in the fridge up to 5 days before Thanksgiving. Warm on medium-low heat about 15 minutes before you want to serve it.