Vegetarian Mushroom Soup
Preparation: 5 mins
Cooking: 15 mins
Difficulty: very easy
Yields: 2 portions
Cost: low
If you want to go straight to the recipe click here
Vegetarian mushroom soup is good for all
CHE’s recipes start with this delicious vegetarian mushroom soup. After all, didn’t it all start with soup?…Or better known as ‘primordial broth’ if you prefer.
Soup (English), zuppa (Italian), sopa (Portuguese), soúpa (Greek), soupe (French), çorba (Turkish), chorba (Persian), ciorbă (Romanian), shorba (North African), shurpa (Russian)… country you go, soup you find. The poorer the country is, the more space it gains on the tables. On the other hand, I don’t know any other substitute for soup in terms of economy, healthiness and practicality; without forgetting the filling effect, which becomes a real weapon for those who fight against extra kilos. They are fantastic solutions for the whole year round: in winter the steaming ones like this vegetarian mushroom soup, in summer the cold ones that come out of the fridge like this one.
Now, since we are in winter, I begin to give you the recipe for a hot one, which in addition to being very tasty, very high in protein and low in calories.
Ingredients for a hearty vegetarian mushroom soup
- 200 grams of mushrooms (champignon or other)
- 1 cup of boiled zucchini or carrots, or potatoes for a more classic version
- 1 tablespoon of onion cut into very fine cubes (or grated)
- 1 heaped tablespoon of wholemeal flour
- 200ml of milk at room temperature (possibly organic): I use 100ml of soy milk without sugar, and 100ml of cow’s milk
- 300ml of vegetable broth at room temperature (it is okay also the cooking water of the vegetables or simple water, abolish the bouillon cubes in general)
- 1.5 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil
- A few sprigs of parsley to serve
- 1 tbsp of grated cheese to serve
Directions for an easy vegetarian mushroom soup
The preparation of the vegetarian mushroom soup is very easy.
Step 1. Clean and cut the mushrooms into thick slices; if you also have dried porcini mushrooms, they are very good.
Don’t forget to soak them first, for about thirty minutes.
Step 2. In a non-stick pan greased with ½ tablespoon of oil, cook the onions over low heat; once they are golden brown, add the mushrooms. After about 5 minutes turn off the heat and start preparing the soup.
Step 3. But first blend the vegetables previously boiled, with 100ml of cooking water, in a food processor.
Step 4. In the meantime, in a pot with high edges, put extravirgin olive oil over a gentle heat, without ever making it reach the smoking point; add the flour and increase a little bit the power, cooking for a few minutes and always continue to stir.
When you feel the smell of the flour, add the liquids (water or broth, milk and mashed veggies) all together, and reduce the heat for another time; all this time keep on stirring so that the lumps do not form.
Then add the sauted mushroom and onion and when it starts boiling, stop stirring and let it cook for 5 minutes over a gentle heat.
Step 5. Season with salt and black pepper. Pour the soups into bowls and decorate with parsley leaves and grated cheese.
Additional tip
Almost all recipes containing 00 flour, heavy cream, butter and other unhealthy ingredients can be replaced with those that offer better nutritional properties. Instead of 00 flour, you might use whole wheat flour, or oat flour or chickpea flour; replace heavy cream with milk, or with unsweetened soya drink; instead of butter, you may certainly use extravirgin olive oil.
Smart combos
Cut stale bread into cubes; as long as it does not have mold, any hardness is fine, but do not exaggerate with the portions: one slice is enough for two. Take a non-stick frying pan and place it on the stove over low heat, add a little oil, there is no need to fry. Put a clove of crushed garlic in the pan, then pour in the bread together with some parsley leaves. As soon as the coutons are ready, serve them over the hot vegetarian mushroom soup, you will see that it will be love, at first sight.
Enjoy your vegetarian mushroom soup and good revolution to all
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Summary
Recipe Name
Vegetarian Mushroom Soup
Author NameBaşak Bartu
Published On
Preparation Time
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Average Rating
Based on 5 Review(s)
we have just been experimenting with dried mushrooms again.
Somehow, i cannot get past the unusual texture, and much prefer fresh…
Any hints on that?
Love to make fresh mushroom soup!
Hi Barbara,
Are they dried porcini? if yes you are more lucky than me, let’s forget the fresh ones; here in Tavira we don’t have even a photo of them 😉
You soak them in lukewarm water, right? Hot water can damage the cell walls and cold water cannot make them re-hydrate with success.
and don’t oversoak them more than 20-30 minutes. After this time use your dried mushrooms as if they were fresh ones. Dry them with a kitchen towel and cook them as usual. And please let me know
Hi Basak,
Well after a mystery small bout of MSG reaction by Rick, and having not eaten out, we have discovered the culprit.
Yes, the dried mixed mushrooms with which we made a delicious soup. Turns out they have 1000 plus more natural glutamate than anything else! So we will stick with fresh. This was a real surprise after dealing with this for over 20 years!
Wow, Barbara sorry to hear that!
How did you understand? It was something light, like “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome” or something worse? Well in any case sorry for Rick. And this is only another case of accumulative type of allergic reaction: you eat one food product your whole life, but one good day your body says “stop eating this or that”.
In fact for a limited number of people MSG has this effect, even it is natural or chemically synthetized.
But for the majority (look at the huge Asiatic populations) there’s no cause-effect reaction.
The correlation between MSG and Umami, for me is very similar to another strange-duo of Ascorbic acid (synthetized in labs) and Vitamin C (naturally ocurring in foods). In both cases the chemical composition is the same, but however our body is capable to understand that they are different. So in dried mushrooms we find glutamate naturally occuring on food, but in a commercial mushroom soup you probably have also MSG (which is monosodiumglutamate), a sodium salt of glutamate.
But natural glutamates come intertwined with different chemicals or fiber, which the body is naturally inclined to regulate. While MSG, comes without those natural components which are useful to our body for their regulation. Look at vit C-ascorbic acid; Vit C is full of bioflavonoids and our body recognise naturally ocurring ascorbing acid by those compounds and use an improved pathway to metabolize it and can have a better bioavailability than the ascorbic acid.
And in the end, I should say that moderation is the key, for anything… we use and abuse food without any consideration (because nobody, no institution says clearly that they may harm us in long term) and one day we realize that something went wrong with our food choices. Sorry but I believe that Rick should avoid for his whole life the glutamate concentrated foods, both natural and MSG. But other ones don’t have any reason to fear about dried mushrooms if they consume them with awareness (but won’t say the same for MSG 🙂 ) I put only 10 grams of dried porcini (when I find it, I mean) and enrich with fresh portobello mushrooms, they work wonderfully.
Wish you a lovely day to both of you