Try this delicious, healthy and low carb creamy chicken spinach soup, that uses cauliflower cream sauce so it’s dairy free too! The creamy cauliflower sauce goes great with the chicken and spinach for a healthy meal. Each serving has only 149 calories and 3.4g net carbs.
You might also like this low carb creamy chicken & broccoli soup.
I love creamy soups. My husband, not so much. But this one was for me because I was craving a creamy mushroom type of soup. And since I always have cut up rotisserie chicken in the freezer and some baby spinach on hand, I came up with this low carb creamy chicken & spinach soup.
To make this creamy, I used a cauliflower cream sauce that I loved so much in my chicken pot pie soup. The result was a delicious and nourishing keto spinach soup that was hearty enough for a meal with only 149 calories and 3.4g net carbs.
Recipe ingredients I used.
So the main ingredients in this creamy chicken soup are mushrooms, fresh spinach, cooked chicken breast and cauliflower cream sauce. I also used olive oil to saute with and Better than Bouillon chicken base in this recipe.
The cauliflower cream sauce includes, cauliflower florets, olive oil, sage, thyme, salt, black pepper, garlic cloves and nutritional yeast. It’s a great replacement for heavy cream or flour to thicken soups.
Those are 3 nutrient packed veggies right there and if you use chicken bone broth, you’ll have even more good stuff in there! So the first thing you want to do is make your cauliflower cream sauce.
How to make cauliflower cream sauce.
Step 1: To make the cauliflower cream sauce boil your cauliflower on the stove. When it’s fork tender, drain but reserve the cooking liquid.
Step 2: Add your cauliflower, olive oil, spices and nutritional yeast into a high speed blender along with a cup of the cooking liquid. Blend until it’s smooth and creamy like the pic below.
A note on the nutritional yeast: it is a healthy and flavorful ingredient that gives the sauce a slightly cheesy flavor. You could substitute grated cheese but if you are trying to go dairy free then nutritional yeast is the way to go.
Set the cauliflower sauce aside and start on the rest of the soup.
How to make this keto chicken spinach soup recipe.
Step 3: Heat up a soup pot to medium heat. Add olive oil and mushrooms and sauté until they are brown a bit.
Step 4: Put your garlic in the pan and sauté for a minute more. Then add the bouillon (if using), spinach and chicken broth. Let this simmer for 3-5 minutes.
Step 5: When the spinach is wilted add the chopped chicken and cook for a few minutes so that it’s heated through.
Step 6: Finally pour in your cauliflower cream mixture. Let that simmer for a few minutes so that all the flavors meld. Let cool and serve. Store leftovers in airtight containers. (Please scroll down to view and print the recipe card.)
I like a creamy soup to be thick but if you would like it thinner, add a bit of the reserved liquid if you have any left or some more chicken broth to thin it out.
My secret ingredient for super tasty soup!
A note on the bouillon. I LOVE Better Than Bouillon products because they add so much flavor.
They come in may different flavors and offer organic and and low sodium versions. It’s not necessary to this recipe but I really think it adds flavor so I highly suggest using it.
Other low carb creamy soups to try.
I love soup and I have over 40 soup recipes on this blog. Almost all of them are low carb and healthy but there are a few that aren’t but they are good!
My favorite low carb creamy soups are:
- chicken pot pie soup
- sun-dried tomato and chicken
- cream of mushroom soup
- seafood chowder
- broccoli cheese blender soup
- creamy curry carrot
Now you have a healthy, hearty meal in a bowl. I hope you like this keto chicken spinach soup as it’s pure keto comfort food. And have fun playing around with the cauliflower cream sauce.
As I mentioned before I used it in many of my low carb soup recipes so I’m sure you can come up with some good uses for it yourself. Enjoy!
The nutritional information for 1 serving is 149 calories / 7.2g fat / 5g carbs / 1.6g fiber / 16.5g protein = 3.4g net carbs
Creamy Chicken Spinach Soup Recipe
Try this delicious Paleo Creamy Chicken & Spinach soup. It uses cauliflower cream sauce so it's dairy free and low carb too!
Ingredients
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil
- 8 oz mushrooms, sliced ( about 2 cups)
- 1 ½ cup cooked chicken, chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 2 cups fresh baby spinach, chopped
- 1 Tablespoon Better Than Bouillon (optional but recommended)
- 1 cup chicken broth or water
Cauliflower Cream
- 4 cups cauliflower pieces
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- ¼ teaspoon sage
- ¼ teaspoon thyme
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon pepper
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
- 2 Tablespoons nutritional yeast (can sub grated Parmesan cheese but not Paleo)
- 1 cup of water retained from boiling cauliflower
Instructions
- To make the cauliflower cream sauce, add your cauliflower to a pan and fill with water until almost covering the cauliflower.
- Cover and cook until the cauliflower is fork tender.
- Drain cauliflower but retain the liquid.
- Add to a high speed blender along with 1 cup of the retained liquid, olive oil, spices, nutritional yeast and garlic. Blend until smooth and creamy.
- Set aside and start making the soup.
- Add olive oil and mushrooms to a soup pan.
- Saute mushrooms until they just start to brown.
- Add your garlic and sauté for 1 minute more.
- Then add your bouillon, spinach and chicken broth and let simmer for 5 minutes.
- Next add your chicken and cook for 1 or 2 minutes until heated through.
- Add your cauliflower cream sauce and continue to cook a few more minutes until all the flavors meld together.
- If you wish to it to be thinner, add more chicken broth or water.
Notes
The nutritional information for 1 serving is 149 calories / 7.2g fat / 5g carbs / 1.6g fiber / 16.5g protein = 3.4g net carbs
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 8 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 149Unsaturated Fat: 0g
Denise Shaw says
Am I missing something as I only see two cups of liquid for this soup?
Denise says
Hi Denise,
No you are not missing anything. When you make the cauliflower cream it also adds about 2 cups of thick cream like liquid. Hope that makes sense. Please let me know if you have any other questions and I hope you like it.
Denise
Sally says
This is a wonderful recipe. My husband loves cauliflower and I don’t, but this cauliflower cream was thick and delicious! I used fresh grated Parmesan instead of yeast, and added onions, carrots, and celery for the base soup, along with the spinach, so it was colorful, delicious and healthy.
Denise says
Hi Sally, so glad you liked it! Cauliflower cream is great for making any kind of soup creamy. Thanks for coming back to rate the recipe and sharing your tips. They sound delicious. 🙂
Toni says
I made this soup yesterday, it was wonderful and tasty. I love how versatile this soup is as I did add chopped baby carrots, celery and bacon. I stuck pretty much to the recipe, but did add onion and garlic powder. I will be making this again. thank you for the clever cauliflower cream idea.
Denise says
Hi Toni, so glad you liked it! I use that cauliflower cream for some many soup recipes and even some creamy sauces. Thanks for coming back to comment and share your experience!
H.K. says
I made this last night and it was amazing. Me and my wife are not big fans of cauliflower but when blended to cream it tastes great. I did add some Julienne shredded sundried tomatoes per my wife request and it was just right. Such a great and healthy meal. This will be in our rotation for sure. Thanks.
Denise says
So glad you liked it! Yes the cauliflower cream doesn’t have much or any taste of cauliflower which is great for so many people.
Anna says
Wow,wow! What a great recipe I found. I found it today and I made it today. Never read anywhere about cauliflower sauce so was so curious to meke it.and I made it. It tast so delicious and so warming,I love it,now is going to be one of the best idea’s for soup – cauliflower sauce!
Thank you so much!
Denise says
Hi Anna, so glad you liked it! You made my day. 🙂
Chef Markus Mueller says
Looks delicious! I have never used …or even heard of cauliflower cream to be honest. It’s an interesting idea, especially for those who can’t eat dairy….from a cooks point of view it’s essentially just a thin puree…could do that with any vegetable really! So many recipes ideas now haha! Thanks for sharing his..you learn something new everyday!
lauen says
I wish I had a big bowl of this right now! I love the balance of creamy soup with spinach. The boullion will add the perfect amount of chicken flavor to the stock too.
Julie says
I have a jar of nutritional yeast that I bought to sprinkle on popcorn, but I kind of hate the taste of it like that. I’ve been trying to figure out how to use it….. that cauliflower cream sauce sounds perfect!!
Denise says
It’s perfect to use in this recipe or any that calls for cauliflower cream!
Loreto and Nicoletta Nardelli says
It sounds like a great winter soup, thick creamy, nourishing and comforting.
Amy says
This soup is so cozy and comforting!! I love that you use cauliflower. So many amazing flavors!
Sharon says
This looks like the perfect soup to have to wait out the last few weeks of winter. Creamy and comforting!
Kelly Anthony says
This soup is all of the good things and none of the bad! YUM! Too good to be true 😉
Jenni LeBaron says
We generally stick to a low carb diet and so I love having another option to spice up dinner. My favorite part about this recipe is that it’s creamy without relying on dairy.
Carrie | Clean Eating Kitchen says
Wow, I can’t believe that this is keto!! It looks so creamy and full of flavor, I might cook up a big batch this weekend!
Tammy says
I’m all for creamy soups! It’s a perfect day here for a bowl of this…sounds so delicious and I love the sound of the cauliflower cream. Really creative…saving for later!
Chef and Steward says
This is the most ingenious keto recipe I have seen in a long time. Haven’t ever thought of cauliflower cream.
Anna says
I love how smooth and creamy this soup looks! And what a fantastic use of cauliflower too! Would be perfect to warm up with a bowl of this on a chilly day! Yummo!
Veena Azmanov says
Ah!! You make healthy food so delicious. Love the look of this dish.
Lois Christensen says
I can’t believe you’re using cauliflower to thicken the soup! What a great idea!
Arlene Mobley says
This looks so rich and creamy. I love adding spinach in my soups.
Arpita Patel says
This is delicious and easy to make, so flavoursome!
Denise says
Arpita,
So glad you like it! I liked it as well. Thanks for taking the time to come back and comment. I appreciate it!
Helen @ Fuss Free Flavours says
just the perfect soup for a cold autumnal day – and ideal for that leftover chicken which is in my fridge.
Denise says
Hope you like it Helen!
Marisa Franca says
That soup would certainly perk me up!! I haven’t had a cold in three years and now I have one and feel miserable. That soup would go a long way to making me feel better. It looks delicious and how clever of you to use cauliflower and yeast to make it creamy and tasty. I wouldn’t have to feel guilty about sipping on a high calorie soup.
Denise says
Thanks Marisa!
Veena Azmanov says
This has my name written all over it. I love cauliflower cream soup and I love that you added spinach with chicken. A perfect meal on its own. Sounds so good.
Denise says
Thanks Veena, it’s one of my favorites!
Jolina says
This loos so delicious and hearty! Perfect for days like today, it’s just so dang cold. Love all the flavours going on in the cream. It would be perfect to make a big batch of this to enjoy.
Denise says
thanks Jolina!
Gloria says
This soup sounds delicious. Perfect for the chilly days we are starting to get. I love the Better Than Boullion products, and use them all the time. The cauliflower cream sounds amazing too….and we love cauliflower soup.
Denise says
I eat so much cauliflower these days…so much you can do with it!
Laura Jones says
Do you think you could use raw chicken and put everything except the spinach in a slow cooker, shredding or chopping the chicken when it’s cooked and adding the spinach at the end?
Denise says
Hi Laura, well that depends. A big part of this recipe is the cauliflower cream. I don’t see how it would be creamy unless you pureed the cauliflower somehow and if you put it in the slow cooker, it would not be the same. However it might all taste very good. It’s hard to say. You could try doing it the way you suggested and then maybe add a cream element at the end. Like maybe some heavy cream, cream cheese or something like that. Sorry I’m not much help. I’m really not sure about that.
Janine says
I tried this recipe and it is delicious! I was wondering if you have ever frozen this recipe and any other recipes that use the cauliflower cream? I used chicken that I cooked in the crockpot the day before and I also used your recipe for bone broth which was very good.
Denise says
To be honest I’m not sure if it would be as creamy frozen but I have never tried it. I’m so glad you liked it!
Emily Boronkay says
I just made this and finished my first bowl. So yummy. I threw Cauliflower rice, 4 garlic cloves, and homemade chicken bone broth into my vitamix. I don’t use nutritional yeast so I put about half a can of coconut milk. I then put way more than 2 cups of spinach in because it was going soft and needed to be used. I doubled the amount of sage and thyme. I blended it all until it was hot and added chopped chicken and the salt at the very end.
The garlic is a little overpowering but I’m trying avoid the cold being passed around at school, so it’s perfect. I’m going to add some cayenne because I like spicy. Thank you for a delicious, healthy, paleo recipe easily adapted to my vitamix.
Denise says
Hi Emily,
I have a Vitamix and while I used it everyday I never remember to make soup with it. I can’t wait to try this!
Thanks for taking the time to come back commenting.
Laura says
I used real home made chicken broth. I get a rotisserie chicken a week and use a slow cooker to get broth from bones and scraps. Makes bullion unnecessary. Awesome recipe. It was a little confusing cause it called for garlic in 2 places, but only had it listed in ingredients once. I love garlic so I just added the same amount to creme and first part of soup.
Denise says
Hi Laura, I’m sorry the recipe was confusing. I have it listed twice but the way I listed it for the cauliflower cream is confusing. I highlighted the cream sauce in the recipe card so hopefully it’s easier to read. Your instincts were spot on because I too love garlic and use 2 teaspoons total. Love your idea for making homemade broth. Thanks for sharing it with my readers and for pointing out the confusing recipe. I’m so glad you liked the recipe!
Maximiliane says
I just fixed this soup, after seeing it float around Pinterest! Man, this was SUCH a flavorful soup!!!! I didn’t add any bouillion cube, but just with spices it was VERY flavorful. I didn’t have regular garlic on hand, so I overall put 1/2 tsp. garlic powder in it. For the future I’ll use pulled rotisserie chicken. I think that would give it a nice touch. Thank you for the deliciously creamy soup recipe! 🙂
christy luster says
This is a great recipe!! I subbed the chicken for artichokes & added a dash of Parmesan & hot sauce at the end. This is a wonderful flavored creamy soup with ZERO guilt! Thanks so much for a great post!
Alicia says
Any news on if this freezes well?
Denise says
Hi Alicia, I have to be honest and say that I forgot to do this. However I did freeze my Chicken and Broccoli soup which is almost the same thing and it turned out just fine. The only big difference is broccoli vs. spinach and both are very freezer friendly vegetables. Hope that helps!
Julia says
How long could you store this in the fridge? And is it possible to freeze? I cook for two 🙂
Denise says
Hi Julia,
I wouldn’t keep in the refrigerator more than 3-4 days. As for freezing, I have not tried that but I freeze everything and it usually works out.
Good question. I’ll have to make this again and freeze it and then update everyone.
Thanks for stopping by and let me know if you have any other questions!
Denise
Retta says
Sorry I didn’t read the directions. I know what to do now. 🙂
Denise says
Hi Retta, let me know if you have any other questions. The cauliflower cream is really easy to make and you can use it for lots of dishes.
Retta says
what is cauliflower cream sauce?
Kenzie says
How large is a survey?
Kenzie says
*serving
Denise says
Hi Kenzie, A serving would be similar to cup of soup that you would get in a restaurant. It’s very thick and hearty.
Kevin says
So is that 8 oz 9 oz 10 oz. Cups in foodservice are many different sizes. What is the total yield for the recipe?
Denise says
Hi Kevin, I was referring to the 8oz size. Hope that helps.
Caroline | carolinescooking says
It’s definitely soup season and this looks delicious – healthy and filling too.
Denise says
Thanks Caroline. I agree!
Kristen @ A Mind Full Mom says
So creative to use cauliflower cream in this soup–yum!!
Denise says
Thanks Kristen….I’ve been using alot lately!
Michelle @ A Dish of Daily Life says
I love the idea of cauliflower cream sauce! I am a huge fan of creamy soups too. 🙂 I need to try this! Thanks Denise!
Denise says
I hope you do Michelle! Thanks for stopping by.
Adrienne says
What is the serving size for this recipe?
Denise says
Hi Adrienne, it’s approximately an 8oz serving.