Low Carb Cauliflower Soup - Thick, Rich, and Creamy!
Low Carb Dieting
I’m creating a whole new batch of low carb recipes. I went sort of crazy over Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and I gained back half of the weight I’d lost. I was pretty upset when I got up the nerve to get on the scales. I’d lost seventy pounds over the course of about nine months, and in just two months or so, I’d gained thirty-five pounds of the seventy back. How? By pigging out on cakes, candies, pies, cornbread stuffing, yeast rolls, corn casserole, and all the goodies associated with the ubiquitous Christmas parties. When January first arrived, I was ready to get back on my low carb diet. Today is January 20th, and I’m happy to report that I’ve lost twenty pounds! That’s twenty pounds in twenty days, and I did it by low carb dieting and walking.
Low Carb Recipes
I’m a foodie, so if food doesn’t taste good to me, I don’t want to eat it. Or, if I do force myself to eat it, I find that I’m still craving something tasty and satisfying. In light of that, why waste my time on tasteless, boring low carb recipes?
Believe me when I tell you I do a lot of experimenting in my kitchen. I’ll get an idea for a recipe, and I’ll try different ways of making it until I find the one that tastes the best. This homemade soup recipe is no exception. It’s rich, creamy, cheesy, and delicious. It’s amazingly hearty, too. I had two bowls of this soup for lunch today and was very full. In fact, I couldn’t finish the second bowl.
Low Carb Ingredients
Let’s talk about the soup ingredients. Cauliflower is a low carb vegetable, and it’s also very healthy. A cup has about six grams of carbs, but about three of those grams are in the form of indigestible fiber. That leaves a net carb count of three grams for the cauliflower.
The heavy whipping cream has less than one carb gram per tablespoon, and I used four tablespoons, which is ¼ cup.
The milk I used has three grams of carbohydrates per quarter cup. To cut the carb count to an even lower amount, you could use a low carb milk product.
¼ cup onion has four carb grams, one of which is fiber, so the net carb count for the onion is three grams.
The remaining ingredients, including the butter and cheese, do not contain any carbohydrates.
Let’s do the net carb math: three grams for the cauliflower, three grams for the whipping cream, three grams for the milk, and three grams for the onion. That’s a total of twelve grams of carbohydrates for the entire low carb recipe. The recipe makes two servings, and each serving has only six grams of carbohydrates.
Cauliflower Soup Recipes
If you search for cauliflower soup recipes, you’ll notice that almost all of them include flour in the list of ingredients. I’m trying not to eat flour at all. Of course, the flour in the recipes is used to thicken the soup. Obviously, I had to find some other way to make my soup thick. The cheese helped, and so did the way I handled the main ingredient, the cauliflower.
I cooked the raw cauliflower until it was very tender, by boiling it. You could also use frozen cauliflower. Once the cauliflower was soft, I drained it well and pureed it in the blender. Use a food processor, if you prefer. I then drained the puree on several layers of paper towels in order to remove most all the liquid.
Rate my low carb soup recipe. Thanks!
Cook Time
Ingredients
- 2 tablesoons butter
- 1/4 cup chopped or diced yellow onion
- 1 teaspoon minced garlic
- 1 teaspoon dried parsley, or 1 tablespoon fresh parsley
- 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
- 1/4 cup shredded cheese, (cheddar, Colby, or jack)
- 1 - 2 teaspoons powdered chicken bouillon
- 1/2 cup hot water
- 1 cup cooked cauliflower puree, well drained, (see instructions, above)
- 1 teaspoon cayenne
- salt and pepper, to taste
- paprika
Instructions
- In a heavy pot, melt butter over medium heat. Sauté onion until soft and clear. Add garlic and parsley and cook for one minute longer.
- Add cream and reduce heat to medium-low. Stir in shredded cheese. Continue stirring until cheese melts.
- Dissolve powdered chicken bouillon in hot water and stir into pot. Add cauliflower puree, cayenne, salt (if needed), and black pepper. Cook until soup is piping hot. If soup is too thick, thin with more hot water.
- Ladle cauliflower soup into mugs or small bowls and sprinkle with paprika.