This creamy mushroom soup, made with just mushrooms, onion, garlic, thyme, and vegetable stock, is easy, healthy, and can be easily made vegan. Finished with a swirl of yogurt and a sprinkle of hazelnuts, it’s supremely comforting too.
This comforting, creamy mushroom soup is easy to make and requires only a few ingredients, ensuring the earthy and rustic charm of mushrooms stands out in a ginormous way. This means you’ll want to carefully select the freshest and most robustly flavored mushrooms you can find, perhaps a mix of less expensive varieties with a small handful of more pricey shiitakes or wild mushrooms. A dollop of yogurt lends this soup a slight tang although the recipe can easily be made vegan by using non-dairy yogurt or vastly more indulgent by using heavy cream.–Angie Zoobkoff
WHAT KIND OF MUSHROOMS SHOULD I USE IN SOUP?
This recipe is so accommodating with which mushrooms you can choose, that you can go wild here (that was a pun, indeed…). You can use all the regular stuff–baby Bellas, cremini, white button, or a mixture. But you can also add in a few specialty mushrooms if you’ve got them. A few shiitakes, a big fat lion’s mane, a handful of chestnuts, or chanterelles will add that much more umami to your bowl.
You can even try reconstituting some fancy dried mushrooms. You’ll get more flavor and more umami. And a really good truffle oil can be used in place of the olive oil if you’re into that fungus among us vibe.
☞ Contents
Creamy Mushroom Soup
Ingredients
- Olive oil
- 1 medium onion chopped
- 2 garlic cloves chopped
- Sea salt
- 28 ounces assorted mushrooms roughly chopped
- 1 1/2 to 3 teaspoons dried thyme
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 4 1/4 cups store bought or homemade vegetable broth
- 2 tablespoons plain yogurt plus more for serving (you can substitute non-dairy yogurt or heavy cream)
- Chopped toasted hazelnuts to serve (optional)
Directions
- In a large saucepan over medium heat, warm a drizzle of oil. Toss in onion and a pinch of salt and cook for 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook until the onion softens, 2 to 5 minutes more.
- Stir in mushrooms, 2 teaspoons thyme, and some pepper. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until mushrooms soften, about 10 minutes. Pour in broth and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low and maintain a gentle simmer for 20 to 25 minutes.
- Remove saucepan from heat, stir in yogurt, and let soup cool slightly. Carefully pour mixture into a blender, working in batches if necessary, and purée until smooth or simply use an immersion blender. Return blended soup to saucepan and warm over low heat. Taste and adjust seasoning if desired, adding more salt, pepper, or thyme.
- Before serving, drizzle soup with a little extra yogurt and olive oil and sprinkle with hazelnuts, if desired.
Show Nutrition
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Recipe Testers’ Reviews
This is an easy and delicious winter soup. I made mine with basic grocery store mushrooms—baby Bellas—but can imagine you could elevate the flavor even more by using a variety of mushrooms. This makes for a light vegetarian lunch or dinner but could also be served as a starter for entertaining company.
An easy weeknight soup with plenty of room for being fancy. Although I would play with the flavor profile when making it again (I’ll use less thyme and more vegetable bouillon powder), the soup makes a creamy comforting bowl with very little fuss.
If I wanted to take more time, I would brown the onion a bit more to develop the flavors or maybe even substitute shallots. I used a mixture of button and cremini (nothing exotic) and a variety of finishes as I served this for 2 subsequent meals. First, I served it with a bit of chopped toasted macadamia nuts and a small drizzle of good EVOO, and a sprinkle of smoked Malden Salt. We felt that was nice but the thyme came through as too dominant.
Reheating it the next day (it didn’t suffer at all being chilled overnight), I used a drizzle of yogurt and a few drops of very special balsamic plus macadamia nuts (hazelnuts would have been just as nice but I used what I had on hand). I liked the slight acid and fruitiness of the balsamic but the thyme still was too strong and reducing it is an easy fix.
If you have yogurt, it does add a nice acidic note, but you also could go with crème frȃiche. I also sauteed a couple of sliced mushrooms to scatter on top with my second servings and that was very nice and easy to do. You could upgrade this to a cocktail party pass around by splashing a little brandy on the slices as you finish them in a pan, topping each serving in a small espresso cup or mug. I always wonder why I don’t make mushroom soup more often when I have it dining out.
This was really tasty and really healthy. It’s a rare thing when you get to tick both those boxes!
The hazelnuts and olive oil made it for me. Without those additions, I doubt I would make it again. (Though you could always substitute cream in place of the yogurt which would, I think, make it even more scrumptious—though more calorific! Also, a scattering of cayenne pepper would be great if you like a bit of heat.
I used organic chestnut mushrooms. It did need good amounts of salt and pepper, so I would suggest tasting before serving. It is vastly improved with toasted hazelnuts and olive oil. I used a peppery extra virgin olive oil which really seemed to work with this soup, making the soup step up to the next level. Often you might choose to not bother with the additional suggestions in a recipe but I really think they should be included.
This soup came along at the perfect time, while the weather was still chilly enough for a hot soup to be most attractive and when the end of winter cough I always get had me craving a hearty soup.
Easy to fix with a lot of flavors. And, as an added advantage, meatless for my Lenten meals. I tried it with the drizzle of olive oil but not the toasted hazelnuts and thought it was completely adequate without the olive oil.
This is a great quick mushroom lovers’ soup. The aromatics are pretty subtle—thyme is perfect in this—leaving very little between you and the earthy mushroom flavor. Using my immersion blender, I processed the soup until it was absolutely, completely smooth. The result was a very creamy but light soup that goes down easily.
Crimini, portobello, and shiitake mushrooms made a gray soup—not so smashing in the aesthetic department. Dollops of yogurt, olive oil, and toasted hazelnuts totally prettied it up nicely.
Originally published September 27, 2021
HUNGRY FOR MORE?
If you make this recipe, snap a photo and hashtag it #LeitesCulinaria. We'd love to see your creations on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
The neighbor’s lawn donated two puffballs for my soup. Together, they were about 7” in diameter. There was enough to make a double recipe.
Easy-peasy to make and on first sampling, it’s quite tasty.
I’m leaving it until tomorrow for the flavours to blend and then I’ll adjust the seasonings if necessary.
Thanks for another GREAT recipe!
BTW I’m on the search for a cream of chestnut soup like I had in Frankfurt. I suspect there were parsnips in it to give a sweetness. If you come across anything like that, please post it.
Wow, Nfonca! Those are enormous!! I’m so happy you were able to use them for this soup and that it turned out so well for you.
We’ll definitely be on the lookout for a cream of chestnut soup recipe. Thanks for the suggestion. It sounds like a lovely combination of flavors.