loaded faked potato soup ft. cauliflower and white beans
Back when I worked in an office, I used to hang out at the microwaves during lunch, and coworkers would ask about my soup: if I made it, how I made it, and whether they could make it too. Like a living breathing Panera Bread, I would go write down the recipes at my desk after lunch and send them out to anyone who showed interest. Over time, I started to write around the recipes too, and the email gained notoriety as The Soup Newsletter.
an ominous omen for the year that followed
In order to recieve The Newsletter, you first had to know The Newsletter existed—I did not approach anyone with soup content who was not explicitly seeking soup content—and you had to know my shtick well enough to not be surprised. Only the Soup Newsletter wasn’t a shtick. The Soup Newsletter was my true self sending up a flare from the side of the road.
At the time, I’d had this site for seven years. But even though I still forked over my Squarespace renewal fees every fall, the actual project was untouched. My stated excuse for its neglect was being “too busy” to work on it—I traveled a lot back then—but it was, in truth, because I was deeply depressed, and nothing is proven to be less mood-lifting than investing fruitless effort into something nobody but you cares about.
to be fair nobody on this planet cares about BtB as much as I do
The Soup Newsletter asked a lot less of me than a website. Its existence was not intruding on anyone by Putting Itself Out there in delusional confidence. It was wanted and requested. It was safe to be myself in the Soup Newsletter because all the people who read it knew who I was and they were there because they wanted to share soups with me.
The instinct to spread the gospel of what we love is universal. So is the innate fear of rejection that holds us back from doing so. I couldn’t bring myself to log back into my site, but here I was at work, writing my recipes and sending them barely-formatted via company channels. Sharing food content was clearly what I wanted to be doing. So why wasn’t I, you know, doing it?
nothing to argue with here
Which brings us to Faked Potato Soup, which is absolutely the aesthetic of The Newsletter. It has everything some people love about, say, a Wendy’s baked potato—crunchy bacon nubs, neon-orange cheddar strands, random green stuff—and a luxurious chowdery texture that heats you from the inside, only it’s made entirely from cauliflower florets and a lone can of white beans for a low-carb-yet-surprisingly-satisfying weeknight soup. Start to finish, it takes about an hour, less if you start wtih cauliflower pre-floretted. The trick to getting the creamy dreamy texture without much effort or mess is a stick blender, which if you like purées (but don’t have yet) you should add to your winter gift list.
This is a short recipe for a reason, and honestly it shouldn’t be messed with too much. In theory, you could vegan-ize it—roast some shiitakes instead of the bacon, use cashew milk instead of the cream—but then it would not exactly be Faked Potato, and I’m not sure Fake Loaded Faked Potato will have the same luster.
And that is okay. This is my newsletter. This soup is this soup. I am who I am. And we are both proud to be here, hoping we will be enjoyed by others as much as we enjoy ourselves, which is truly the only yardstick by which I’m interested in measuring success in this economy.
Happy soup szn to the world!
RECIPE
Everything you love about a loaded baked potato, only lighter and soupier. Faked Potato Soup is cauliflower and white beans in disguise, simmered in rendered bacon fat with garlic and onion and blended right on the stove until creamy and smooth, served with crispy bacon, fresh herbs, and cheddar.
Effortful time: 20 minutes
Total time: <1 hour
YOU NEED
1 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
6oz. uncured bacon, sliced into 1/2” thick strips (note: if making this vegan or vegetarian, you can either leave this out completely, roast sliced shiitake mushrooms in a small amount of olive oil at 425ºF for 20 minutes, or toast panko for the top)
1 small onion, chopped in half and then across into half-moons
4 cloves garlic, smashed and very roughly chopped
2 heads of cauliflower, outer green parts removed and cut into florets—or sub 32oz pre-chopped cauliflower florets
4 cups quality chicken or vegetable stock
1 can white beans, like navy or cannellini, drained and lightly rinsed
1/2 tsp. salt, plus more to taste (depends a lot on how salty your stock is)
1/3 cup heavy cream; can sub cashew milk
1/2 tsp. dried parsley
Black pepper, to taste
Toppings of your choice: go Wendy’s style with cheddar, hot sauce, and scallions/parsley, or Scandicore with dill and Greek yogurt
MAKE IT
Cook the bacon. Heat the olive oil in a large (5 qt or larger) Dutch oven or heavy pot over medium heat. Add the chopped bacon strips and cook, stirring often. Irender the fat out completely until the bacon is fully crisp, about 10-11 minutes—when the bacon is fully caramelized and has no pink or white visible, it’s done. Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon and set aside.
Cook the aromatics. Leaving all the fat in the pan, turn your heat down to medium-low. Add your onions and garlic to the fat and sauté for 90 seconds, until both are beginning to soften. Pour in a small amount of your stock and deglaze all the nice toasty bacon bits into your garlic and onion mixture.
Build the soup. Add all the cauliflower florets, beans, the rest of your stock, and salt. Give this a good stir to combine. Simmer on medium-low heat for 30 minutes, or until the cauliflower is extremely soft and falls apart when pushed with a spoon. Turn the heat off. Add the cream to the pot and get ready to blend.
Blend the soup. At this point, you have two choices: you can transfer it to a blender (which is not the easiest thing to do), or hit it with an immersion blender right on the stove (which is VERY easy to do). I position my pot so I’m within range of an outlet, then carefully puree on a medium-high speed—the guards on the blender should prevent any scratches to your pot. The beans and cauliflower both contain their own natural thickening agents, and they will emulsify with the cream and cooking fat to create a smooth, chowder-like texture.
Serve it up. Taste for salt and adjust accordingly. Stir in your parsley. Ladle into bowls, scatter the top with some of your reserved bacon (you may want to save some in the fridge separately for topping the leftovers!), grind on some fresh black pepper, and add any other Faked Potato toppings of your choice.