Roasted Carrot & Cauliflower Soup.

This vegetarian recipe for Roasted Carrot & Cauliflower Soup is perfect for Meatless Monday or any time you are looking for a healthy lunch or dinner.

There has been a warm soup simmering on my stove it seems like every weekend around here. A few of these soups have involved lots of cauliflower - the florets make a great base for pureed soup! BuzzFeed has it right - 27 Reasons Cauliflower Deserves Your Love and Loyalty. It's necessary, because I just heard on the radio that we should expect "lots of nasty wind chills" today and off and on for the next week.

I adapted this soup recipe from a New York Times carrot-cauliflower soup that I randomly found. I love the idea of using coriander and topping the soup with cilantro. It gives each bowl a spicy, earthy flavor. I hadn't realized it before making this soup, but coriander is a spice made from dried cilantro seeds {I used the ground version of the seed}. Coriander also has hints of citrus, so adding lemon and lemon zest to this soup makes perfect sense.

I roasted the carrots and cauliflower in the oven before adding them to the soup base. I love the flavor that roasted veggies add.

Using an online recipe calculator to figure out the nutrition stats, this comes in at just over 200 calories per serving. The stats include 217% of your daily Vitamin A needs, 29% of Vitamin B-6, 125% of Vitamin C, and more. K and I ate this soup with "cheese toast" - lazy man's grilled cheese, a slice of rye with muenster cheese melted on broil in the oven :)

Happy Friday!

Roasted Carrot & Cauliflower Soup
Yields: 6 servings

For the roasted vegetables:
1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 head cauliflower
1 pound carrots {or 6 medium/large carrots)
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt

For the soup base:
1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
4 cloves garlic {minced}
1 yellow onion {chopped}
1 1/2 teaspoons thyme
1 1/2 teaspoons coriander
8 cups vegetable broth
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt 
1/4 teaspoon lemon zest
2 Tablespoons lemon juice

Optional: 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

Topping:
Cilantro leaves {roughly chopped}

How to:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Chop the cauliflower florets and peel and chop the carrots. Toss with 1 Tablespoon olive oil and season with black pepper and salt. Roast for 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.
2. While the vegetables are roasting, finely chop the onion and garlic. Heat 1 Tablespoon olive oil in a dutch oven or large soup pot over medium heat. Saute the garlic for two minutes on medium, being careful not to burn it and stirring often. Add the onion and saute until soft, about 10 minutes.
3. Pour the chicken broth into the soup pot. When the vegetables are done roasting, carefully pour them into the dutch oven and bring everything to a boil. Add coriander and thyme. Turn down the heat and simmer on low for 25 minutes {covered}.
4. Once the soup is done simmering and the vegetables are soft, use an immersion {or regular} blender to puree the soup.
5. After the soup is pureed, stir in the parmesan, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Add more coriander, black pepper, and/or salt if needed. Top each bowl with chopped cilantro leaves.

{Adapted from the New York Times recipe for Lemony Carrot and Cauliflower Soup}