

Hungarian mushroom soup has a very special piece of my heart. I first tried it from Molly Katzen’s recipe in the beloved Moosewood cookbook; a mainstay of my childhood. The soup has a distinct taste. It is creamy, seasoned with paprika and dill, and filled with onions and mushrooms. When I was twenty, I moved to Boulder, Colorado, and began working as a bartender and waitress at a restaurant named Turley’s, where Hungarian mushroom soup was on the menu a few times a week.

Turley’s is an exceptional restaurant. Almost everything was made from scratch in the back of the house, and all of these ingredients used are high-quality, highly nutritional, free-range, local, wild, sustainable, organic, fresh, and down right amazing. As a bartender, not only would I shake martinis and tap local craft beers, but I would juice vegetables, squeeze wheatgrass, blend smoothies, and make fresh orange juice at the beginning of each shift. Every day, three soups were made, and once in a while one of them might be Hungarian mushroom. When it was, I frequented the soup station with a ramekin in hand for “quantity control.” There may or my not have been fragments of a steaming biscuit in my other hand.

Since my Boulder days, I have tweaked my beloved soup to be dairy and gluten-free. It’s not exactly the same without the cream and sour cream that the original recipe calls for, but it has taken on a new space in my heart on cold Winter nights, and I feel much lighter after a gigantic bowl. Please try it!

Hungarian Mushroom Soup

1 head of cauliflower

2 bouillon cubes

2-3 C almond milk

1 onion

2 C mushrooms

safflower oil

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

1/4 C dill

1 Tbsp tamari

1 tsp ground pepper

1. Cook the cauliflower in almond milk with bouillon cubes until soft. Blend until smooth.

2. Sauté the onions, mushrooms, paprika, and salt in the safflower oil. Add to cauliflower mixture in a large pot over a burner. Add lemon juice, vinegar, dill, tamari, and pepper. Stir well to combine, and serve.

More vegan soup recipes: Mexican Sweet Potato Soup with Cilantro Tofu “Feta”

Coconut Carrot Soup

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Photo: Jessica Riley-Norton