Cream of Mushroom Soup

Nobody will ever guess this rich and luscious Cream of Mushroom Soup recipe is dairy free. It’s also ridiculously easy to make. And it gets even better overnight, so it’s the perfect make-ahead recipe.

Savory, earthy and mellow, it’s a soup for all seasons. I even serve it chilled in the summertime! Served with sprouted toast and a side salad of mache greens, it makes for an incredibly satisfying lunch or light dinner. If I want a bit of a heartier meal, I just add a poached egg on top of the toast. But once the soup is made, you can put together a delicious meal in minutes.

A Healing Cream of Mushroom Soup

This Cream of Mushroom soup is no ordinary soup recipe. It truly offers the best of both worlds! With healing and health benefits in mind, I particularly chose shitake mushrooms for this recipe. Not only do the shitake mushrooms give the mushroom soup a rich, buttery, meaty / umami flavor, but they contribute serious health and healing benefits too…

Superfood Shitake Mushrooms

Did you know shitake mushrooms contain a number of compounds that actually help protect your DNA from aging? Research even suggests the superfood mushrooms have the potential to fight cancer cells. and may even heal chromosome damage caused by anti-cancer treatments.

What’s more, the phytonutrients in shitake mushrooms help keep plaque from building up in blood vessel walls, thus offering cardiovascular benefits too.

Shitake mushrooms are also incredibly satiating and may even help reduce fat deposition, making them an excellent food for weight management.

Read more about the incredible health benefits of shitake mushrooms here! 

Vegan Cream of Mushroom Soup

Most cream of mushroom soups are thickened with cream, wheat, cornstarch, or other fillers. This recipe emulates this same thick creamy texture, but free of the fillers, dairy, and gluten! This soup is so clean, it’s actually paleo, vegan, Whole30, and SCD friendly!

So you might be wondering how we achieved such a clean, thick and creamy soup. Here’s a rundown of the main ingredients!

Main Ingredients

Chickpea Miso or Vegetable Broth

Chickpea miso (or vegetable broth depending on preference) is used as a savory, and flavorful base for this recipe. However, it’s too thin on its own, and needs an extra ingredient to make it thick and creamy. Keep reading…

Pine Nuts or Cashews

In order to thicken the miso or broth, and achieve that traditional creamy texture, its blended with pine nuts or cashews! When blended with liquid, both pine nuts and cashews are excellent cream replacement options.

Shitake Mushrooms

While you could technically use other types of mushrooms, shitake mushrooms are unique in their buttery flavor, and incredible health benefits (listed above). If you have the choice, shitake mushrooms are definitely our suggestion for this recipe!

Leeks and Onions

We love adding in vegetables wherever and whenever we can! Leeks taste delicious in soups, and offer a mild, and slightly sweet onion flavor. The onion in this recipe adds a savory punch that makes it so crave worthy!

Once sauted and pureed, the combination of these two veggies help to bulk up the recipe, and give it an extra burst of flavor.

Minced Garlic and Thyme

Minced garlic is a tried and true go-to for most recipes that just adds that extra something. But thyme is unique in its sweet, earthy, minty flavor that makes this soup taste fresh, and stand out from the rest. If you don’t usually use thyme in your recipes, this soup is a great way to start experimenting!

Enough talking about this Cream of Mushroom Soup, let’s get into the actual recipe!

Cream of Mushroom Soup

Print Recipe

• Author: Ivy Larson
• Prep Time: 10 min.
• Cook Time: 30 min.
• Total Time: 40 min.
• Yield: 4–6 1x
• Cuisine: Soup

Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• 1/2 Cup Chickpea Miso (see note below) mixed with 4 cups warm water OR 4 cups vegetable broth (if you’re avoiding particular foods, try this homemade vegetable broth recipe!)
• 1/3 Cup Pine Nuts (OR raw cashews)
• 3 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil (OR Unrefined Macadamia Oil), divided
• 1 Leek (thoroughly washed and finely chopped)
• 1 Yellow Onion (finely chopped)
• 6 Cloves Garlic (minced)
• 1 Tbsp Fresh Thyme 
• Himalayan Pink Salt (to taste)
• 14 Ounces Fresh Shitake Mushrooms (stems removed and chopped)
• 2 Tbsp Fresh Lemon Juice

Instructions

1. Put the chickpea miso and 4 cups of water in a high-speed blender (or replace the miso and water with vegetable broth). Add the nuts and process until creamy. Set aside. 
2. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a large, heavy pot over medium heat. Add the leek, onion, garlic, and thyme, along with a few pinches of salt, and cook, stirring now and then, until softened but not browned, 8 to 10 minutes.
3. Add the remaining tablespoon of oil and mushrooms to the pot, stir to combine with the leek mixture and cook until the mushrooms begin to release their liquid, 5 to 6 minutes. Add the reserved creamy broth mixture to the pot and turn the heat up to medium-high. Once the soup begins to boil, lower the heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Stir in the lemon juice.
4. Use a hand held stick blender to process the soup until it’s creamy and well blended. (Note: If you do not have a hand held stick blender, allow the soup to cool and then puree in several batches in blender.) Serve warm or cold.

Notes

Be sure to buy a chickpea-based miso, not a soy-based one for this particular soup recipe. I like Miso Master brand organic chickpea miso. Just like soy miso, chickpea miso is sold as a paste in the refrigerated section of natural food stores.

P.S. If you’d like to add more healing shitake mushrooms to your diet, check out these additional recipes on the blog:

• Recipe for Stuffed Peppers with Shitake Mushrooms
• Mushroom Lettuce Wraps
• Mushroom Burger