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I’ve had the recipe for this Creamy Cauliflower and Ham Soup sitting in my drafts folder for well over a year and have made it countless times, but somehow never got around to actually posting it! This Cauliflower and Ham Soup came about from having 3 ham bones in my freezer that I desperately needed to do something with. I’d often used ham bones for pea and ham soup and had heard of cauliflower and ham soup, but had yet to try it. So I decided to try making my own.
I had already planned to make it but I happened to fall sick with a virus just before testing this recipe, so it came in handy as a bowl of this Creamy Cauliflower and Ham Soup made me feel so much better. I couldn’t taste it very well though, so I had to rely on the family’s word and what little I could taste. But as my sickness cleared up and I could taste it more and more over the next few nights, I began to fall in love with this Cauliflower and Ham Soup!
If your ham bones are like mine and you’ve already stripped them of all meat, then add the optional diced ham in. Otherwise you can strip the remaining meat off the ham bone and chop that or use a ham hock instead. This Cauliflower and Ham Soup is cheap and easy to make, especially if you’re using a leftover ham bone and is brilliant on a cold winter night.
If you have trouble fitting your ham bone in your pot, find a joint on the bone where it will be easier to cut through and chop it into 2 pieces with a meat cleaver to get it in. The water you use will be enough to cover your ingredients well. For me I used around 3 litres. You can make this with a slow cooker, pressure cooker or just a large pot on the stove.
I originally did this as a one pot and cooked everything together, but once when I made it some of the ham bone had come off in tiny pieces that I missed when taking the bone out, so when I blended it up with my stick mixer, the bone bits hit the blades and nearly broke it! After that I decided it was best to cook the ham bone first so the liquid could be properly strained afterward and then add the other ingredients.
Creamy Cauliflower and Ham Soup
Equipment
- Instant Pot
Ingredients
- 1 large cauliflower, trimmed and broken up
- 2 sticks celery, sliced
- 1 onion, sliced
- 3 cubes garlic paste or 3 tsp minced garlic
- 150 g butter
- 1 cup thickened cream/heavy whipping cream
- 1 ham bone or ham hock
- 1 tbsp dried herbs thyme, chives and parsley all are good options
- salt
- pepper
- 200 g optional chopped ham
Instructions
- Get your ham bone in your pot, pressure cooker or slow cooker and cover with water (I used 3 litres). Do 2 hours for stovetop or if using a pressure cooker. For a slow cooker do 4-6 hours on high or 6-8 hours on low.
- Remove ham bone and strain the liquid to get out any small pieces of bone that may have come away. If using the meat from your ham bone or a ham hock, strip and chop the meat off the bone.
- Fry onion and garlic in butter until almost soft. Add celery and fry a few minutes more. Add cauliflower broken up into florets and the ham bone stock you’ve made. Bring to the boil and reduce heat to a simmer. Cover and simmer until the vegetables are tender and then puree soup with a stickmixer.
- Add in dried herbs and season well with salt and pepper. Add cream and stir to mix through. Add your stripped ham meat or optional chopped ham and if needed, heat through before serving.
Notes
Nutrition
We loved this, changing only to not purée the vegetables, leaving chunky, and adding chopped carrots
Delicious
Thanks so much for your comment Lynn! Glad you enjoyed the recipe, it’s one of my personal favourites 🙂