Loaded Cauliflower Soup
Freeze-dried cauliflower, powdered cheese, and enough fat to make it a meal. Low-carb dinner that packs small.
- calories
- 480
- weight
- 3.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 137
- protein
- 18 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 2 min
- cook
- 10 min
- total time
- 12 min
- water
- 450 ml boiled
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Canister stove
- Alcohol / Esbit
- Liquid fuel
- Backpacking
- Basecamp
- Winter / snow
- Car camping
- Vegetarian
- Gluten free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Dump and stir
Ingredients
| Freeze-dried cauliflower | 1 1/2 cups | broken small so it rehydrates fast |
|---|---|---|
| Cheddar cheese powder | 1/4 cup | |
| Powdered cream cheese or full-fat milk powder | 2 tbsp | this is the body of the soup |
| Vegetable bouillon | 1 cube or 1 tsp | |
| Dried minced onion | 1 tbsp | |
| Garlic powder | 1/2 tsp | |
| Olive oil or ghee | 1 tbsp | |
| Salt and black pepper | to taste | |
| Freeze-dried chives | 1 tsp | the topping, such as it is |
Method
- Boil 450 ml of water. Add the cauliflower, onion, bouillon, and garlic powder.
- Simmer five minutes, lid on, then kill the heat and let it sit five more. The cauliflower needs the soak more than the boil.
- Stir in the cheese powder and the cream cheese powder off the heat. Powdered dairy dumped into a rolling boil goes grainy.
- Mash the cauliflower against the side of the pot with your spoon until it thickens. No blender out here.
- Pour the oil over, stir, and scatter the chives on top.
The original is an Instant Pot recipe built on fresh cauliflower, block cream cheese, and an immersion blender. None of that travels. Freeze-dried cauliflower rehydrates to roughly the same texture, powdered cheese and powdered cream cheese carry the dairy without a cooler, and a spoon pressed against the pot wall does what the blender did — coarser, but the soup still reads as soup.
Fat is what keeps this from being hot vegetable water. Cauliflower has almost no calories of its own, so the oil and the cheese powder are doing all the work. Add the powders off the boil and stir them in gradually; dumped in hot they clump and you will be chasing lumps with a titanium spoon.
Packing
Everything dry except the oil goes in one bag. Oil rides in a dropper bottle. Keep the cheese powder from the cauliflower if you are carrying it more than a week; it cakes.
Variations
- A packet of bacon crumbles or a foil pouch of chicken makes it a bigger dinner and drops the vegetarian tag.
- Instant potato flakes, a tablespoon at a time, thicken it faster if the mashing is not getting there.
https://domesticsuperhero.com/web-stories/loaded-cauliflower-soup-in-the-instant-pot-healthy-version