This cream of cauliflower soup with browned butter is not diet food, friends. This is pure comfort in soup form. If you're anything like me, you will fall in love with it. If you're feeling guilty about all the fat, you can leave out the browned butter and the cream cheese, but it won't be as dreamy. Still tasty, just not decadent. Take this recipe and make it your own! This is also a borderline 8 ingredient recipe, so I'm putting it in that category. So there.
Place cauliflower, cream, salt and white pepper into a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil then turn down the heat and let simmer, partially covered, until the cauliflower is very, very tender, about 15 minutes.
Add the cream cheese, brown butter, broth, optional cheese, and the nutmeg and puree, either in a blender or with an immersion blender. You can make it as smooth or as rustic as you like. I wanted it to be The Smoothest, so I used the "soup" setting on my Blendtec.
Taste and adjust seasoning. If the soup is a bit thick, you can thin it with just a bit of water or with broth. If you thin it with broth, adjust the seasonings after adding the broth, because you don't want to the soup to be too salty.
Serve in whatever way you choose, but a garnish of fresh herbs, some fine shreds of Parmesan and a couple of grindings of black pepper is a lovely way to go.
Notes
*If you don't know how to brown butter, here's a Helpful Tutorial! Brown a whole stick to get the 6 tablespoons you need for this recipe. And if that much butter makes you sad, you can also cut the amount in half.**You can leave out the broth if you want a vegetable puree rather than a soup. It would be lovely swooshed on a plate under a big piece of lamb.Nutritional Information based on 8 servings and does not include the garnish.