Vegan Friday: Potato soup

This is not my favorite potato soup recipe. My favorite potato soup recipe came out of the Mother Earth News Almanac and is decidedly not vegan. But this is a pretty good vegan alternative that takes less than 20 minutes to throw together and will warm you up on a cold night.

Ingredients:

4 carrot sticks (about 1 carrot’s worth)
4 celery sticks (about 2 ribs’ worth)
1 small onion
4-5 green onions
Water
Olive oil
2 cups soymilk
1 small pkg. instant potato flakes
1 tbsp. dried parsley
1/2 tsp. each of paprika, dill weed, white pepper and celery salt

1. Chop up the vegetables and layer all but the green onions in a small, microwave-safe dish, with the carrots on bottom and onions on top. Add about a tablespoon each of water and olive oil, cover loosely and microwave for about 7 minutes until the carrot is soft and the onions are clear.

Carrots cook very quickly in the microwave.

2. While the vegetables cook, bring a cup each of water and soymilk to a boil in a large saucepan.

3. Remove from heat, stir in the potato flakes, and add another cup or so of soymilk to make a thick, creamy soup.

You want the little single-meal-size packet of potatoes.

4. Add the spices.

Ignore the depth-of-field issues.

5. Add the green onion to the vegetable mixture and microwave another minute.

6. Stir the vegetables into the soup.

These green onions were old and tired, but the bottoms were still OK for cooking.

7. Serve.

I garnished mine with Bac-Os, which are totally vegan. And totally depressing, but I didn’t have anything better to use when I was cooking at 12:30 a.m.

Makes about two decent-sized bowls. Thanks to the soymilk, you end up with about 10 grams of protein per bowl — not great, but not too bad, either.

NOTE: If you have time to make real mashed potatoes instead of instant, go for it. These Vegan Friday recipes are designed to be as convenient as possible so the idea of reducing your meat intake will seem less intimidating. If you have time to improve the quality with fresh ingredients and extra effort, by all means, do so.

Emily