Recipe: Vegan Mushroom Soup with porcini & thyme

A deliciously rich and savoury vegan mushroom soup, with a deep porcini flavour, garlic, fresh herbs and chunks of juicy fresh mushrooms.

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I’ve been blogging a long time now, (10 years in fact!), and my first post of each year is usually along the lines of “whoop whoop, happy new year everyone, how exciting, what are your plans for the year?”, blah blah blah.

But just five days in and 2021 is already pretty different, isn’t it? Lockdown 3.0, the return of home schooling, this time in the bleak mid-winter when those hot summer days in the garden seem a long time ago. But the end is in sight, not long to go. Hang on in there and stay safe.

What we all really need at the moment is a hug, and if you can’t have a real one, what Masterchef’s Gregg Wallace would call “a hug in a bowl” is the next best thing.

This rich and creamy mushroom soup is just that, a deeply comforting and savoury soup-hug. Dried porcini mushrooms and garlic give it a huge flavour boost, and the texture is half-blended, half-not, which gives a smooth creaminess to the soup but with big, juicy chunks of mushroom in every spoonful.

This is a world away from tinned ‘cream of mushroom soup’ (which isn’t vegan in any case) – slightly grey, slightly bland, and with chunks that I was never sure actually originated as a mushroom. That stuff put me off mushroom soup for years, but no more!

Equipment

There’s no fancy equipment needed to make soup, of course, though to get a lovely thick and chunky texture you do need a way of part-blending it.

I use a stick blender which is so quick and easy as you just shove it in the saucepan, pulse a few times and you’re done. They are reasonably priced, you can pick up a basic model like this one* for just over £10 these days, and if you make a lot of homemade soup you won’t regret it.

Mine is this Dualit model* which also has a chopping bowl and whisk, both of which I use a lot.

Alternatively, if you have a blender or food processor you can separate out half the soup, blitz that to a smooth purée then return it to the pan and mix into the chunky half.

Variations on your mushroom soup

You can make a few tweaks to this recipe for variation, such as:

• Make it boozy Add half a glass of white wine or sherry to the pan after the flour has cooked for a minute or two, and let it bubble for 3-4 minutes before adding the stock. This really gives a wow factor if this soup is for a special occasion. (Check your wine/sherry is vegan – Barnivore is brilliant for this).
• Make it herby Put the fresh herbs centre-stage by using 30g fresh parsley, and finely chopping rosemary and thyme leaves (stripped from the stalks) and adding them with the stock.
• Give it a protein boost Instead of the fresh cream, blitz a tin of white beans (cannellini or butter beans) into half the soup, then return it to the rest of the soup in the pan. They will give it a creaminess of their own and a good boost of protein and fibre to make it a meal in itself.

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Freezing your mushroom soup

I have frozen this soup, (in fact my freezer is largely stacked with frozen soups, as you may have guessed from my many soup posts!), so can confirm it is delicious defrosted and blasted in the microwave.

I save empty margarine tubs for a perfect-sized portion of soup which are also easily stacked in the freezer. Just remember to label and date them carefully, or you will never remember what’s in them. (Trust the voice of experience here!).

What else can I make with porcini musrooms?

If you have half a packet of porcini mushrooms left over and are wondering what to do with them, you might like to take a look at:

• Wild Mushroom & Sherry Risotto – I’m a bit of a fan of the porcini/sherry combination.
• Porcini & Chestnut Wreath Roasts – a fairly festive recipe but I like them as a Sunday Lunch centrepiece all year round!
• Porcini & Polenta Sausages – homemade vegan sausages.

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And if you have tried this recipe, please do leave a star rating and comment below which is so helpful for other readers wanting to try the recipe. 👇🏼

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