Every now and then you get lucky and your new recipe idea works at the first try. My Greens and Cauliflower Soup is one of those recipes. Sometimes, I am searching my brain for a recipe based on an ingredient, sometimes on flavor, texture, occasion. This time I picked a color – green.
Do you think the Greens and Cauliflower Soup is green enough; pretty intense isn’t it. The deep dark green comes from the red kale that is added to the cauliflower and spinach; I love it.
This is red kale I found at the grocery store and it was so beautiful that I felt the need to buy it and do something with it. I know this may sound silly, I hear you, but that’s the way I am. I like buying on impulse and the try to figure out what to do with it.
Don’t ask me why it is called red kale, I would have called it purple/burgundy kale; another name for this particular kale seems to be Russian kale. May be burgundy was loosely translated into red ?? Whatever it is, this veggie got my attention. I had my greens and while looking around I decided to make soup; the logical second choice for green was spinach. I knew that the spinach would bring bitterness to the soup and so would the kale, so I needed a counter balance – cauliflower.
Kale and cauliflower, being from the same family, would hopefully give balance. The depth comes from the kale and the mildness from the cauliflower, especially when the cauliflower outweighs (literally) the kale and spinach. So that was the plan; a Greens and Cauliflower Soup. With regard to flavors, just wanted to see what the result would be from just the vegetables with onion, garlic and fresh ginger, before committing to add anything else.
This is the recipe in short
I chopped the onion, garlic and ginger, then cooked that in a little bit of olive oil. In the meantime, I cleaned the cauliflower and cut it in small florets, washed the spinach and kale and cut off the larger stems; also cut the kale leaves in smaller pieces.
Next step was to cook all the ingredients. Oil with onion, garlic and ginger in a pan, then add the cauliflower, kale and spinach and cook in water until tender. Pour everything in a blender (or use an immersion blender like I did) and smooth out the soup.
This Greens and Cauliflower Soup is really smooth, like green velvet. Make it as thin as you like. I added roughly and additional cups of water and then a couple of sprigs of fresh thyme leaves and salt and pepper and that’s all it needed.
At the start I thought cream. in whatever form may be needed, to soften the flavor and I had cheese handy, just in case I needed another fix, but I could do without. The soup has an awesome flavor, a wonderful feel, a beautiful color and nutrition wise it turns out to be a pretty healthy recipe. This soup is vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, dairy-free, high fiber and more.
Greens and Cauliflower Soup
Ingredients
- 1/2 onion
- 1 cauliflower
- 1 pound spinach
- 8 ounces red kale
- 1 garlic
- 1 inch ginger
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- sprigs fresh thyme
- salt and pepper
Instructions
- Clean the onion and chop it fine.
- Clean the cauliflower and cut it in small florets. Wash the spinach and kale and cut the large stems off.
- Mince the garlic and the ginger.
- Heat the oil in a large pan, add the onion, garlic and ginger and cook a few minutes.
- Add the cauliflower and fill the pan with water, so the water reaches the top of the cauliflower. Bring to a boil and cook for 5 minutes.
- Add the kale and cook for another 5 minutes. Add the spinach and cook for a few more minutes until the spinach wilts and the cauliflower is tender.
- Cool the soup down a little bit and then puree the soup in a blender in batches or use an immersion blender directly into the pan. Blend until soup is smooth.
- Add water if you like your soup thinner.
- Season with salt and pepper and add fresh thyme, a couple of sprigs as a time and blend again until you’re happy with the flavor.
- Ladle soup in bowls, garnish with thyme and freshly ground black pepper.
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