Creamy (Vegan!) Mushroom Soup From Wil Yeung Recipe on Food52 (2024)

Wil Yeung, cookbook author and host of the Youtube channel Yeung Man Cooking,
has given us our new template for making lush, creamy soups that happen to be entirely vegan. The first Genius ingredient is cashew cream, aka equal parts water and raw cashews, which you can blend without soaking if you’re using a high-speed blender like a Vitamix.

And the second, maybe more surprising genius ingredient? A thinly sliced potato—and this is crucial—rinsed to get rid of any excess starch, so the soup has loads of body but won’t sneak off and go gluey as you blend.

Here, Wil’s template takes the form of a creamy mushroom soup. As Wil writes on Yeung Man Cooking, “When I was a kid (or a real Yeung man), one of my favorite canned soups was Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup. I remember the earthy and salty flavor with a full-bodied creamy texture being so comforting.”

But to show how riffable Wil’s technique is, I came up with another creamy vegan soup recipe inspired by two specialties of Duarte’s, a 129-year-old tavern in the tiny California fishing village of Pescadero: their famous cream of artichoke and green chile soups, which they often serve swirled together. My version is called , also on Food52.

A few tips:
1. If you’re not using a high-speed blender, Wil recommends soaking the cashews overnight for maximum smoothness.

2. If you’re having any trouble blending the cashews, feel free to add a few tablespoons of water or the broth from the soup pot.

3. Unless you have a boxed stock you know to be delicious, you’re better off using plain water or a quick stock made from Better Than Bouillon.

Recipe adapted from Wil Yeung of Yeung Man Cooking.
—Genius Recipes

Directions

1. Remove the stalks from the mushrooms and set aside, along with half of the mushroom caps. Slice the remaining mushroom caps thinly and set aside.
2. Roughly slice the onion and lightly crush the garlic. Thinly slice the potato, then rinse and drain in cold water to remove the excess starch.
3. Heat up a stockpot over medium heat with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Add the onions and garlic; sauté until softened and golden brown at the edges, about 7 minutes. Add the potato, mushroom stalks, and whole mushroom caps. Season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables have softened, about 4 minutes. When the vegetables are browned, add the vegetable stock. Simmer on medium heat for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat.
4. Add the cashews, stock, salt, pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil into a high-speed blender. Blitz on high until liquefied (don’t worry about any little bits of cashew on the sides of the blender—they’ll blend smooth when you add the rest of the soup). Carefully ladle the soup into the blender with the cashew cream. (If your blender is more than ¾ full, do this in two batches.) Open the center of the blender lid to let steam escape, cover the hole with a folded kitchen towel, and blend the soup on high until smooth.
5. Place the stockpot back onto medium heat. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil and sliced mushroom caps; season with salt and pepper. Sauté until softened, about 3 minutes.
6. Reserve a spoonful of the mushrooms to garnish the soup, then add the soup back into the pot and stir to combine.
7. Ladle the soup into bowls. Finish with the reserved sautéed mushrooms, cracked pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil.

Recipe by: Genius Recipes