Easy Cheesy Slow-Cooker Cauliflower Soup

Easy cooking is not my strong point.  No, somehow I find a way to complicate even the simplest recipes, which usually means I am in the kitchen much longer than I would like to be.

But it doesn’t help that we avoid processed foods like the plague, meaning I cook mostly from scratch.  And, honestly, no matter how many of them I try, we just don’t like a lot of the quick-and-easy foods that appeal to other families.  Maybe that makes us food snobs, but it is what it is and unless we decide to burn off all our taste buds, it’s not likely to change.

So when I come across an “easy” recipe, I’m immediately suspicious:  Either it’s chock-full of processed junk or it’s bland and tasteless.

But not so where this recipe is concerned!  This soup is delicious, and it’s probably the easiest soup recipe I have ever come across.  My kids love it, so I often throw it together first thing in the morning and it’s usually done by lunchtime with very little effort on my part.  They think it tastes like a cheesy potato soup, but it doesn’t have all the starch and doesn’t require all the potato chopping.  (Though this isn’t a low-cal recipe.  Cheese and half-and-half creaminess ABOUNDS in this soup!)

It is SO simple:

Slice open a couple bags of frozen cauliflower and dump them in your slow cooker.

Add frozen carrots…

…A frozen pepper and onion blend…

…And a frozen mirepoix Cajun vegetable mix.

Then pour in 6 cups of chicken broth, some Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper.

Cook on low for 5 hours, or until the vegetables are tender.

Now here is the most complicated part of this recipe:  Process the soup in SMALL batches in a blender.  But be careful!  The hot liquid and veggies will explode out the top of your blender if you try to blend too much at once.  (Don’t ask me how I know this!!)  You can skip this step completely if you don’t mind larger chunks of vegetables in your soup, or you can use a potato masher to coarsely chop the veggies, so long as they’re very soft.

You can process as much or as little as you like to get the consistency you prefer.  I like a chunkier soup, so I don’t puree it.

Return the processed soup to the slow cooker and stir in shredded cheese and half-and-half.  (LOTS of shredded cheese, by the way.  Four cups of it, in fact.)

Cook for another 30 minutes on high and your soup is done!  We like to dress it up with chopped bacon, green onions, and more shredded cheese, just like we would potato soup.

And it is WONDERFUL.