The other day I went to my fridge to pull the ingredients to make my weekly batch of Creamy Cauliflower Leek soup and lo and behold I was out of leeks! Not to fret. I subbed in turnips, tweaked a few other things and wow, the result was amazing. Voila! Another version is born. Here are the details if you want to give it a go.

Creamy Cauliflower Turnip Soup

Ingredients List:
3 cups water or broth
1 large cauliflower with leaves and stem
3 shallots
2 medium sized turnips (roughly each the size of a large apple)
thumb sized chunk of peeled fresh ginger
optional pear or apple quarter (omit or use green apple for 21DSD)

Start by adding 3 cups of water or broth to your Instant Pot using the cup markings inside the stainless pot and hitting the sauté button. I recommend homemade chicken bone broth if you are opting for the broth method. Due to suspected gelatin and or oxalate issues I use water, but either liquid works well.
This first step will start the liquid heating while you chop up the veggies so everything will come to pressure more quickly later. Feel free to skip this step but I find it handy.

Wash the cauliflower and chop it in half or quarters. Trim off the very bottom of the stem but otherwise include the stem-base and even a few of the bigger thicker leaves. I just pull off the green parts of the leaves as they tend to get cabbage-y smelling (is that a word?!) during cooking. Add the cauliflower to liquid in the Instant Pot .

Now add in:
3 large shallots, peeled and chopped in half
2 medium sized turnips trimmed and chopped. You can leave the skin on.
Chunk of peeled ginger, thumb sized
Optional 1/4 piece of pear or apple

If you opted to start pre-heating the liquid, now you need to turn off the Instant Pot sauté function.
Lock lid in place, close vent and now hit SOUP… (this is a 30 minute high pressure cycle for those of you with other brands of pressure cookers). This soup can easily be made stove top in a covered stock pot. Just cook covered until the veggies are tender. You may need a little more liquid to account for evaporation.

Once the soup cycle is done, let the soup cool in the fridge until it is a safe temperature to transfer into your blender jar. I am absolutely mad for my Blendtec 725 blender, which is a major game-changer for the creamiest soups!  Their website says to avoid adding ingredients to their jar that are above 115 degrees as ingredients continue to heat as they blend at high speed, though their blender jar is safe up to 176 degrees. Before adding the soup to the jar pull out a little of the liquid and reserve it. You can add it back in little by little until you get to just the right creamy texture. You can also blend with an immersion/stick blender, which is what I used to do in the days before my Blendtec arrived.
If you are not sure how much ginger flavor you want then pull out the ginger chunk and cut it in to quarters and add one in at a time until you reach your ginger sweet spot.
Blend in batches if needed, drizzling in optional olive oil while blending for an even creamier texture. I usually add about 2 T of olive oil per batch. You may not need oil if you opt for homemade broth as it has some of it’s own fat content.

I usually salt the soup when I serve it rather than salting the batch, but that is totally up to you. Smoked sea salt adds amazing flavor. My personal favorite is Alaska Pure Alder Smoked sea salt. A little pinch of that stuff makes almost anything taste better!

I pour the blended soup right into pint size wide mouth mason jars and fill to the 10 oz line and freeze. I use these jars for EVERYTHING! Splurge on a case. You will thank me later! While you are ordering get these white lids, which are far superior to the metal ones that come with the jars. I have bunches of these jars in my freezer stash…go read all about it here!

One version or another of this soup is a regular part of my breakfast and is a great way to get in extra veggies any time of the day!

Shared a little pic of my garden above where I actually grow turnips, though they are usually too small to make it in to my soup. I love them sauteed right in with their greens and a few other garden fresh greens like dino kale and bok choy.  Next year I may add some purple top turnips which grow a bit larger.

For more soup inspiration visit my guest post on the Blendtec website here or
see these other creamy soup versions right here on my blog:
Creamy Zucchini Leek Soup
Creamy Veggie Soup
Butternut Squash Soup