Roasted Cauliflower and Leek Soup with Pesto Mozzarella Toastie Melts

A thick, creamy and warming soup using roasted cauliflower and leeks served up with croutons that are tiny cheese toasties!

This is a sturdy soup that’ll fill you up and keep you motoring all afternoon. The recipe makes enough for 3-4 generous portions, so make some for lunch and you’ll have enough to pop in the fridge or freezer for another day. I used my Optimum Froothie 9400 to whizz this soup up to the perfect consistency.

I particularly love coming up with new things to top my soups with for a bit of extra oomph, and these little mini cheese and pesto toasties are a total winner. My boys are obsessed with cheese toasties, so to have them in miniature form floating on a bowl of soup is heaven for them.

They always dunk their bread straight into their soup, so this saves them the trouble!

I’m the new host of Simple and in Season, so this is my entry into March’s round of recipes. Have you made a seasonal recipe yet this month? Don’t forget to enter it over on my Simple and in Season link page – I can’t wait to see what everyone’s been making!

Roasted Cauliflower and Leek Soup with Pesto Mozzarella Toastie Melts

Ingredients

For the Soup
1 head cauliflower
1 tbsp olive oil
1 pinch sea salt flakes
2 leeks
knob of butter
1 litre vegetable stock

For the Pesto Mozzarella Toastie Melts
4 slices bread
butter/spread
grated mozzarella cheese
pesto
basil leaves, to serve

Method

1. To make the soup: pre-heat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Cut the cauliflower into florets, chuck into a roasting dish with a glug of olive oil and a pinch of sea salt, give it a shake and then roast in the oven for 30 minutes.

2. Chop the leeks and sweat in a pan with a good knob of butter until softened.

3. Put the roasted cauliflower, softened leeks and litre of vegetable stock into a blender and blitz until smooth.

4. To make the mini toastie melts: Spread one side of each slice of bread with butter, then place on top of each other buttered sides touching each other. Spread one non-buttered side of each sandwich with pesto. Heat up your sandwich toaster and place one slice of bread butter-side down, sprinkle mozzarella cheese on top and then top with the other slice of bread pesto face down. Toast until golden and the cheese starts to escape out of the sides.

5. Remove from the sandwich toaster and cut into small squares. Heat the soup through and then scatter with the little toastie croutons and some torn basil leaves.

Disclosure: I am an ambassador for Optimum Froothie and have included affiliate links in this blog post. If anyone decided to purchase one of these blenders after reading my post and clicks on the link I will receive a small percentage of the sales.