This vegan roasted garlic cauliflower soup is creamy, silky smooth, and oh-so-soothing. It requires just 15 minutes or so of active kitchen prep, and comes together rather effortlessly. Cauliflower and garlic are dry roasted until golden-brown, simmered in broth until tender, and blended until smooth + creamy.
This roasted garlic cauliflower soup is the epitome of simple + cozy fall comfort food.
Requiring little more than 15 minutes of active preparation (simple slicing/dicing, the occasional stir, and sprinkle or two of salt), it’s a soup that’s destined to become a Sunday favorite.
It’s perfect paired alongside a sandwich or soup for dinner, but I’m most drawn to it for lunch these days with a slice or two of warm sourdough bread nestled up against a warm mugful.
To make it, you’ll start by dicing up two large heads of cauliflower.
Spread the cauliflower florets out on a parchment-lined pan along with an entire head (or two) of garlic cloves.
One head of garlic yields a mild, garlic-kissed soup, whereas two heads yields a zestier, garlic-forward soup. I appreciate both variations for different reasons but tend to lean towards the garlicky side of things.
Once you’ve spread out the cauliflower and garlic, pop the pan in the oven and dry roast for 30+ minutes, or until the cauliflower is generously flecked with a rich golden-brown hue.
About 10 minutes before the cauliflower finishes roasting, sauté a diced onion and a small handful of fresh thyme in a bit of olive oil.
Once the onion is soft and translucent, add the roasted cauliflower and garlic to the pot along with several cups of low-sodium vegetable broth (or filtered water if you’d like to cutback on ingredients).
Bring the mixture to a rolling boil. Then, reduce the heat, cover, and simmer for about 15 minutes.
Turn off the heat, carefully remove the thyme sprigs, and use an immersion blender to purée the soup. Alternatively, you can transfer the soup to a blender and blend in batches, but I find an immersion blender offers the easiest and tidiest route here.
Then, stir in a bit of plain almond milk (see recipe notes for a few tips), nutritional yeast, a splash of apple cider vinegar, and a bit of salt + pepper. Briefly blend again, taste, and adjust seasonings if desired.
I like to finish this soup with a drizzle of high-quality cold-pressed olive oil for a touch of richness, but you do you.
Ladle the warm soup into cozy mugs or bowls, top with a few thyme sprigs if you’d like, and serve alongside plenty of hearty bread for dipping.
This vegan roasted garlic cauliflower soup will keep for up to a week in the refrigerator and can be frozen for up to one month.
Vegan Roasted Garlic Cauliflower Soup
This vegan roasted garlic cauliflower soup is creamy, silky smooth, and oh-so-soothing. It requires just 15 minutes or so of active kitchen prep, and comes together rather effortlessly. Cauliflower and garlic are dry roasted until golden-brown, simmered in broth until tender, and blended until super smooth and creamy.
Ingredients
- 2 large heads cauliflower, cored and cut into small florets
- 1 to 2 heads of garlic cloves, separated, smashed, and peeled (depending on how garlicky you prefer your soup)
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for finishing
- 1 medium white onion, diced
- Small handful fresh thyme sprigs (tied with kitchen twine if the twigs are fine)
- 4 cups low-sodium vegetable broth or filtered water
- 2 cups unsweetened plain almond milk*
- 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast flakes
- 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 teaspoons sea salt or to taste
- Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425F. Line a large baking tray with parchment paper.
- Spread the cauliflower florets and garlic cloves out over the lined baking tray.
- Dry roast the cauliflower and garlic for 30 to 40 minutes, or until the cauliflower is flecked with a rich golden-brown hue.
- Meanwhile, about 10 minutes before the cauliflower is ready, heat the olive oil in a large stockpot or dutch oven over medium-low heat. Add the onion and thyme sprigs and sauté for 5 to 7 minutes, or until the onion is soft and translucent, stirring occasionally.
Once the cauliflower and garlic have finished roasting, add them to the stock pot along with the vegetable broth. Increase the heat to medium-high and bring the mixture to a boil. Then, reduce the heat, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes.
Turn off the heat, and carefully remove the thyme sprigs. Use an immersion blender to purée the soup. It will take about 5 minutes or more to get the soup completely smooth, so just keep blending until the texture reaches the desired consistency.
- Stir in the almond milk, nutritional yeast, apple cider vinegar, sea salt, and black pepper. Use the immersion blender to briefly blend again. Then, taste and adjust seasoning, adding more sea salt and black pepper if desired.
- Ladle the soup into bowls and serve warm with a drizzle of olive oil, if desired.
Recipe Notes
*Ensure that your almond milk is plain, unsweetened, and free from "natural flavors". Some brands of almond milk (e.g., Califia) add "natural flavors" to their plain/unsweetened almond milk that, to me, impart an undesirable sweetness in savory dishes that's difficult to overcome even with added salt and seasonings.
I need this soup in my life…PRONTO!
Hope you enjoy it, Jennifer!
Como puedo traducir la receta al castellano o español? Hay un traductor automatico en tumblr?
Hi, Fabian! I use WordPress (not Tumblr), but you should be able to copy/paste the recipe into a translator in google or elsewhere online and get a solid translation.
What about the garlic?
Are you adding it in with the roasted cauliflower?
Hi, Mary! Yes, the garlic and cauliflower are added to the pot at the same time (will update this to clarify). Enjoy!
Made this yesterday and brought the leftovers to work for lunch today. Is 9:30 am too early for lunch? It was amazing and I am counting the minutes until I can have it again.
Thrilled to hear you’re enjoying the recipe, Kate!! Thanks for taking the time to come back and share your experience and thoughts. Happy lunch-ing to you this afternoon! :)
Delicious recipe! I really enjoyed this one. Although, I highly recommend using one cauliflower instead of two and chopping up the core and leaves to roast along with the florets. It’s much less wasteful and equally tasty.
This soup looks too creamy to be true! Love the addition of nutritional yeast for a bit of a cheesy flavour!
This is such a great way to get my kids to eat veggies – we love them pureed into soup like this. Looks delicious!
Will coconut milk work in substitution of almond milk?
Hi, Jade! It will impart a subtle sweetness and coconut flavor, but it will work texture wise. Just be sure you’re using unsweetened and unflavored coconut milk and keep in mind that it will alter the flavor slightly. Enjoy!
This looks SO delicious. I would definitely tend towards the more galicky option, too!
Thanks, Freya!!
I just made this and it was so delicious except when I added the suggested amount of salt. I had to throw it all out :( It was wayyy too salty. I should have just salted it per serving, but for anyone else wanting to make it don’t make my mistake!! I tasted it after I blended it and it was delicious, definitely needed salt but not as much as suggested in my opinion. Will try again because it really was easy and yummy before my sodium explosion. Just wanted to warn others to salt to taste or just add salt per bowl. Thanks for sharing the recipe!
Hi, Candace! So glad you enjoyed the flavor of the soup but bummed to hear it ended up overly salty for you. I’ll adjust the recipe note to suggest starting with a lower range of salt and work up from there. Of course, preferred salt content can depend on a variety of things including the taster’s taste buds (I find I’m usually about right in the middle, but admittedly, my taste buds have been a bit funny throughout pregnancy and sometimes I’m overly sensitive to salt whereas other times I’m a bit more immune to it). All this being said, there are a couple of other things that can affect the needed/preferred salt content in this particular soup, including the size of the heads of cauliflower you use. If your heads of cauliflower were more on the medium or even small side (as opposed to large), that would cause you to need a lesser amount of salt. Also, if you happened to use table salt instead of sea salt or kosher salt, that would make a big difference—you’d want to use much less table salt than the amount of sea salt noted in the recipe. Finally, if you happened to use regular vegetable broth instead of reduced-sodium that would cause the soup to be over-seasoned.
As you noted, it’s always best to salt to taste, but over-seasoning happens to the best of us. If you ever find yourself in the same situation again, you can try to salvage the soup by adding large chunks of peeled potato to the soup and simmering for about 30 minutes or so and then discarding the potato (with the lid on—you don’t want the soup to reduce further as that would only intensify the saltiness). It’s not a perfect fix but the potatoes will soak up some of the extra sodium. You could also try adding more liquid to the broth (provided it’s an unseasoned liquid, such as water or almond milk). Hope this is helpful!
Would this recipe still taste ok if I didn’t add the nutritional yeast?
Hi, Essie! It won’t be as rich or have the same depth of flavor, but I’m sure you could get away with omitting it! Just be sure to adjust the seasoning to suit your tastes. Enjoy!
I made this soup today and I’m a bit befuddled. Did you mean to write 1-2 cloves of garlic? I put in 1 head of garlic as it states in the recipe and boy oh boy is it garlicky.. This was my third soup made, and I must say I was disappointed :(
Hi, Dawn! I’m so sorry the soup didn’t turn out as you expected. It should be a full head or two of garlic (not cloves). Since the garlic is roasted before blending, it softens the flavor to a very mild and sweet garlic flavor (as opposed to a pungent one). Was your garlic very soft and tender (almost oily/buttery) after roasting? If not, it’s possible that it needed to roast longer to soften the flavor.
Can I use soya milk intead of almond milk?
Hi, Katie! That should work just fine as long as it’s plain, unsweetened, and contains no added “flavors”. Hope you enjoy the recipe!
Is a serving a cup or half a cup?
Hi, Becca! Probably closer to 1 1/2 cups (will depend on the size of your cauliflower but whatever one sixth of the recipe is). For serving size estimates, I tend to go on however many servings a dish offered up in our home versus precise measurements or nutrition info. Hope this helps!
I don’t have an immersion blender, could i ladle this into my blender instead?
Just made this – no changes to recipe, turned out perfect consistency and incredibly flavourful. Thanks very much!
So happy to hear you’re enjoying the recipe, Emily! Thanks for taking time out of your day to come back and share your rating.
I have a ton of frozen riced cauliflower. How much do you think would be the equivalent to two heads of cauliflower? Thanks!
Hi, Kells! I’m so sorry, but I have no idea! If I had to guess I’d estimate 14–20 loosely packed cups, but I’m really not sure.
This looks delicious….do you think it would freeze well?
Hi, Lori! Yes, this soup freezes well and will keep for up to a month when frozen. Enjoy!
What can you substitute for almond milk and yeast?
Hi, Denise! There’s no substitute for the nutritional yeast (it adds depth of flavor and a subtle cheesy tang), but you can substitute any plant-based milk for the almond milk. Just be sure that it’s unsweetened and completely unflavored (no “natural flavors” listed on the ingredient list).
I’m going to try this on the weekend for meal prep!
I’m thinking of adding some blended raw cashews in (soaked of course) for some extra protein, healthy fats, and hopefully a cheesier soup! Have you tried this before?
Also, if I’m looking for a little bit of zip to my soup (spice, but not too much), what would you recommend adding?
Hi, Holly! I’m so very sorry for my slow response time—I was out of town visiting friends for the weekend and missed your comment. I think adding blended raw cashews would absolutely boost the creaminess of this soup. I haven’t tried it before in this soup, but I use a cauliflower-cashew cream base in most of my other creamy soups, and it works out wonderfully.
For a little zip, I’d add a dash or two of cayenne or a few shakes of tabasco. Cayenne will add less flavor but more zip. Enjoy!