Saturday, February 25, 2012

RECIPE: Vegan Potato Leek Soup

Nowhere near as delicious as my oma's potato soup, but delicious nonetheless. I wanted to make a flavorful creamy potato soup without any dairy products or commercial broths and came up with this quick and easy recipe. I added a turnip only because I had one on my vegetable bin from my co-op box and didn't know what else to do with it. I'm not keen on turnips, so hiding one in this soup sounded like a good idea! You can obviously leave it out and just use another potato. You can also substitute vegetable or chicken broth for the water, if you like.


Vegan Potato Leek Soup

1 tablespoon olive oil
3 leeks, cleaned* and chopped
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 medium potatoes, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 turnip, optional, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup fresh parsley
salt & pepper

* To clean leeks:
Leeks tend to have a lot of sand or dirt between the layers as they grow, so you'll want to clean them well. Trim roots and tops off leeks. Slice vertically and then horizontally into 1/2" pieces. Rinse in a bowl of cold water to remove sand and dirt from the leeks then drain.

1. Heat olive oil in a stock pot over medium-high heat.
2. Add leeks, onion and garlic and cook until onion starts to become translucent, about 3 minutes.
3. Add potatoes, turnip, parsley to stock pot. Season with salt and pepper and stir to combine. Add enough water to cover the vegetables.
4. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer. Cook until potatoes and turnips are fork tender, about 20 minutes.
5. Working in batches, puree the vegetable mixture in a blender or food processor until smooth. Or use an immersion blender. <<--I need one of these! Return soup to stock pot and taste for seasoning, adding salt and pepper, if necessary. You may also add additional water until the soup is the consistency you prefer.
6. Continue to keep soup warm until serving.

Enjoy! :)


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16 comments:

  1. This looks like a great soup for Lenten season- thanks for sharing. (And I love my immersion blender; it's a big help when making soups!)

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  2. of course, I would make that with a bit of chicken stock...but there goes the whole vegan thing.

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  3. I would likely make it with chicken stock too. :) I love my immersion blender. So handy.

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  4. Sounds so good for a cold winter day and I want an immersion blender too! Here's mine

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  5. This soup sounds like the perfect warming solution on a chilly evening. So versatile too, you could add chicken stock like others have mentioned, but vegetable stock is fine too. Like everyone else, it's difficult to pry my immersion blender from my hands ;)

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  6. I love leek and potato soup, I'm going to try to make your recipe since my mom is butter prejudiced and won't let me use butter often. She does like Olive oil though!

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  7. Looks delicious, nice and hearty! I love the immersion blender, mine gets a workout plenty.

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  8. You're making me drool. And wish I'd written down my Mom's baked potato soup recipe.

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  9. Well it still looks very yummy :) You know, I love potatoes, but rarely eat it in soups or salad... going to have to try.

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  10. @Diane (bookchickdi) Thanks for checking out my Weekend Cooking. :)
    I've got my eye on the Cuisinart SmartStick immersion blender. Which one do you have?

    @caite Well if you're not vegan or looking for a vegetarian meal, by all means use some chicken stock in place of the water. It would add nice flavor to the soup.

    @Beth F Which model immersion blender do you have? I really want to get one.

    @Peggy Ann This soup was just what I needed on Saturday to warm me up--lovely in the middle of winter. I very rarely eat soup mid May-mid Sept unless its gazpacho. ;)

    @Chinoiseries Another home chef with an immersion blender! Which one do you have?

    @Alex Yay! I hope you like the soup! Let me know how it turns out.

    @Carol @ Always Thyme to Cook You know I have to ask... what model immersion blender do you use?

    @Brandy I know what you mean! I wish I had my oma's potato soup recipe, too! My oma used to make it in mid to late summer [on Eastern Long Island probably with the first harvest of local potatoes] and it was lightly tinted green. I'm not sure if it was from leeks, parsley or chives, but it was so pretty and out of this world delicious. Seriously, it was perfect. And I'll never taste it again.. :(

    @nath I love potatoes, too. Especially in soups or stews. So comforting. I hope you [or will it be your sister? haha ] try the recipe! Let me know how it turns out. :)

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  11. This potato soup recipe looks great. I've been looking for soup recipes these days to escape the cold winter weather. I don't normally eat potato soup, but I love that this is one is vegan since I'm following a vegetarian diet. I hope to become vegan eventually. Don't like turnips so I think I'll use another potato, thanks for the tip!

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  12. I adore potato & leek soup! I've just never found a good (read tasty) recipe! I will have to try this :) Thank you!

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  13. That sounds like a comforting soup recipe for winter. I like turnips with potatoes -- a nice bit of zing.

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  14. I love soup during the winter and look forward to trying this one in the coming months. (I'm in NZ)
    LOL about hiding the turnip. That's what I'd be doing if I had a turnip in my vege bin!

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  15. @ilovecooking I figured someone out there would appreciate the vegan-ness of this recipe! I hope you try it.

    @orannia Hope you like this one!

    @Joy Weese Moll If you like turnips, you could certainly add more to your liking. It will make the recipe your own! :)

    @Shelly Munro We actually had two turnips in our co-op box last week. I used one in this soup and the other smaller one... I chopped it raw into my green salad and it wasn't bad at all! Milder than I expected which is good. It took me almost three weeks to eat all of two very large black radishes we got in our co-op.. that was brutal. lol

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  16. Oh, yum! I'll bookmark this for summer and our CSA season -- I always have leftover leeks (often roast them), and we love soup :)

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