Vegan Mushroom Soup with porcini

📝 What you need

Ingredients

Dried porcini mushrooms These give such a deep, mushroomy flavour and rich mahogany colour that they really are important to the overall flavour of the soup. Any other dried mushroom will be fine, but don't be tempted to leave them out as they really boost the flavour so much.

Fresh mushrooms You can use any mix of fresh mushrooms for this soup. I tend to include a flat mushroom or two as the dark gills add to the deep brown colour of the soup, and lots of white or chestnut mushrooms to bulk it out. 600g looks like a lot when you're chopping, but they do reduce so much as they cook that you really do need that many!

Fresh thyme or rosemary The stalks of these fresh herbs give as much flavour as the leaves, so I like to throw them in right at the beginning to infuse the onions and mushrooms with their flavour, but do remember to take them out before blitzing, (do this before adding the stock, or they are trickier to find!).

Vegetable stock A good quality stock makes a difference here - if you can find fresh vegetable stock or have some in the freezer that would be ideal, but otherwise a good stock powder (I use Marigold) or cube is fine too.

Dairy-free cream An oat or soya cream is ideal here and really gives the soup its luscious and silky texture. Don't be tempted to skip it, even if you're watching your waistline - a little goes a long way and makes this soup so special.

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

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.

❄️ Freezing

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:

• Creamy Mushroom Risotto without wine - for a speedy weeknight dinner, use the porcini and their soaking juices to pack a mushroomy punch in this delicious risotto.
• Porcini & Chestnut Roasts - a fairly festive recipe but I like them as a Sunday Lunch centrepiece all year round!

🍽 If you liked that...

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