This is a thick and creamy cauliflower soup rather than a smooth and silky one. It feels hearty to eat and is so easy to make. And then you’ve got haloumi croutons… and why have I never done that before? of course that’s bloody delicious.

The salty, golden, crunchy cheese is perfect with the savoury thyme and roasted cauliflower. The creaminess of the sauce comes from both the cauliflower and roux base. By using a roux to thicken the sauce you don’t need to add potatoes or anything else, making it simple and creamy rather than starchy.

If you are luckier than me and can eat onion you could easily add a french shallot or 2 or 1/2 a brown onion to the soup, along with the celery. It has a lovely depth of flavour without it because you roast the cauliflower first, which gives everything a richer nuttier taste.

The consistency of this soup isn’t super smooth so when you’re blending it it’s totally fine to leave some chunks and texture in there. How much texture you want is totally up to you! You could skip the haloumi croutons and use a plant based milk if you want to make this vegan.

I garnish the soup with a herb oil that you just make by blitzing together herbs and extra virgin olive oil. it just adds an extra bit of flavour but you could just use extra virgin olive oil and garnish with the herbs.

Oh and this is also a great low waste soup as you use the stalks and inner leaves to start the soup off and intensify that cauliflower flavour. As your thickening with a roux you don’t need to worry about it making the soup watery.

Serves 4

Ingredients

800g cauliflower (including soft inner leaves and stalk)

8 sprigs of thyme

2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

2-4 cloves garlic, skin on (up to your personal taste)

1 cup roughly chopped celery

3 Tbs plain or wholegrain flour

1 cup chives

1/2 cup flat leaf parsley

1 Tbs thyme leaves

1 litre stock

1 cup milk of choice ( I used soy but you could use cows or almond, anything mild in flavour)

100g haloumi, cut into 1cm croutons

Directions

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius and line a tray with baking paper.

Cut cauliflower into florets and roughly chop the stalks and leaves into the same size as the celery. Spread the florets on your baking tray along with the garlic and thyme and drizzle over 2 Tbs of the oil. Roast for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, put a large pot on medium high heat. Once hot add the oil, celery, chopped and cauliflower stalks to the pot and turn the heat down to low. Cook slowly until softened, about 5 minutes.

Once vegetables have softened add the flour and cook out on low heat for 1 minute. Slowly stir in the milk and then add the stock slowly. Bring to a simmer and cook for 10-15 minutes, until nice and thick.

Place the thyme leaves, parsley and 3/4 cup of the chives in a nutribullet or mini food proccesor and blend to make a herb oil. Set aside.

Add the roasted cauliflower to the pot (you can keep a few florets aside for garnish if you wish), pick the leaves from the thyme sprigs and squeeze the garlic cloves from their skins – add these to the pot. Blend the soup with a stick blender until well combined and as smooth as you’d like it, I like to leave a little texture there!

Make your croutons: Put a medium fry pan on medium high heat. Add 1/2 Tbs olive oil and once hot add the haloumi, fry for a minute or less each side or until golden. Remove and drain on a paper towel.

Serve the soup drizzled with the herb oil and with the remaining chives sprinkled over top. Add the haloumi croutons to the top too.

HH. x

Note: any leftover oil can be used as a salad dressing or meat marinade or just stirred through pasta. Just keep it in a sealed container in the fridge.