Cauliflower soup with both charred and pickled cauliflower–stellar layering. You will love the amazing depth of flavor in this rich vegan and gluten free roasted cauliflower and white bean chowder. Use the Instant Pot pressure cooker to cut simmer time by a third.

Darkly blistered cauliflower, from the oven or your grill, gets this tasty slurpable vegetable chowder started. Chunky with potatoes and white beans, it’s finished with wilted sharp bitter spinach and a salty lemony cauliflower relish.

The cauliflower is used 3 ways. 1/3 cup is for the pickled relish, 2 slabs are charred, and the remainder gets coarsely chopped and cooked in the broth with the potato.

After the vegetables are tender, blend some of them with the broth, for creamy-chunky chowder-y-ness. Both spinach and parsley add eye-catching color. There’s enough protein from the tender white beans to make it a simple dinner soup.

Roasted Cauliflower and White Bean Chowder notes:

Char the cauliflower slabs under a broiler, or on a grill, high flame.

Be sure to puree a portion of the cooked veggies with the hot broth, then pour it back into the pot. That step turns what would be soup, into chowdery thick and chunky.

Use the pressure cooker to cut the “simmer” time down. Quick release after 6 minutes under pressure.

Keep it easy: For broth, use instant vegetable bouillon dissolved in hot water.

Loosely adapted from a recipe by Amanda Cohen of Dirt Candy, the New York restaurant. Dirt Candy—can you dig that name for a vegetarian restaurant?

Chef Amanda tops her stew with grated cheddar cheese, which would play well with cauliflower and white beans. I left out the cheese garnish to make this soup vegan. If you eat cheese, bring in that salty creamy dimension.

Dirt Candy, the cookbook, illustrated in black and white comic-style graphics, teems with tricks to transform vegetables from ordinary sides to daring enticing meals.

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