Vegan potato leek soup features potatoes and leeks cooked with onions, garlic, vegetable broth, and coconut milk. Hearty, creamy, and utterly delicious.
I’m challenging myself this year to cook more vegetarian and vegan meals. Does food taste better with bacon sprinkled on top? Yes, yes it does. But as reducing our meat consumption is one thing we can all do to help save this planet of ours, it’s worth investigating which dishes can be made without animal products and still taste great. This Vegan Potato Leek Soup is a case in point.
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Why Make This Recipe
- Creamy, not gluey: I love the texture of this soup, made velvety with the addition of a bit of coconut milk right at the end. No gloppy potato soup here!
- Total comfort food: This soup is comfort food at its most nurturing, and perfect for chilly days.
- Vegan and delicious: I use vegetable stock instead of chicken stock, and coconut milk instead of cream. Plus a special ingredient that adds depth and savoriness. And this actually might be my favorite potato soup ever!
🥗 Ingredients for Vegan Potato Leek Soup
- Potatoes: For soup, you want a creamy potato rather than a starchy one. Yukon gold potatoes are perfect, as are many thin-skinned potatoes like fingerlings and white potatoes. In France, my potato of choice is the Mona Lisa potato. Potatoes to avoid are traditional baking potatoes, like russet potatoes, which are too starchy for soup and can create a mealy texture.
- Miso Paste: Miso paste is made from fermented soybeans, and a little goes a long way. The paste is similar in consistency to a nut butter and comes in several different varieties from light to dark (often labeled white or sweet up to red or brown). The darker the miso paste, the longer the fermentation, and the more intense the miso flavor. You can often use any miso you like for this recipe, but you may want to use less if you have a dark miso paste.
- Coconut Milk: If you want, you can leave this out of the recipe entirely. The soup will still blend together smoothly without it, but I do enjoy the extra richness it brings to the dish. You can also replace with heavy or light cream if you don't need a vegan version of this dish.
- Vegetable Broth: Similarly, if you don't want a vegan version of this soup, you can easily replace the vegetable broth with chicken broth.
🥣 Step-by-Step Instructions
Start by preparing your vegetables. Peel and chop 3 medium potatoes into ¾-inch chunks. Peel and dice one small onion. Now, peel and chop one clove of garlic.
Cut off the dark green leaves of 3 medium leeks and rinse out any dirt. Now cut into thin slices.
Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add chopped onions, garlic, leeks, and 1.5 teaspoons miso paste. Cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring frequently, until vegetables are softened but not browned and miso is fully incorporated into the vegetables.
Add potatoes and cook for another 2 minutes, stirring frequently.
Add 4 cups of vegetable stock, and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cook for 15-20 minutes, with the pot partly covered, until potatoes are tender. Now blend with an immersion blender until smooth.
After soup is puréed, bring back to a simmer, and add ½ cup coconut milk. If soup is too thick for your liking, add more vegetable broth. Heat soup gently for 5 minutes, to allow the flavors to meld. Season to taste with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. Garnish with a swizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of chopped chives to serve.
🧐 FAQs
This soup will last in the refrigerator for 3 days. After that, freeze any leftovers (see below). Note that soup will thicken up as it cools. If it is still too thick when you reheat it, stir in some broth or water to loosen it up.
Yes, you can freeze this soup. Because this soup is vegan, you don’t have the issue of cream or milk separating when frozen and then thawed. That said, cooked potatoes can also have an issue when frozen and then thawed.
If when you thaw and reheat the soup, you find the texture to be a little off, just give it another whirl with the immersion blender. Note that you should never freeze hot soup. Let it cool to at least room temperature before storing in a freezer bag or freezer-safe container. Even better, cool it completely in the refrigerator before freezing.
Miso paste is delicious in salad dressings, in marinades, in broth or soup, and in a glaze for fish. Mix it with coconut milk and lime juice to make an easy cooking sauce for vegetables, chicken, or fish.
Mix it with butter to serve with grilled or sautéed vegetables. You can even mix it into baked goods to cut their sweetness just a bit and add depth of flavor. In terms of nutritional value, miso is very high in sodium; however, it also is a great source of probiotics since it is a fermented food product.
👩🍳 Expert Tips for Vegan Potato Leek Soup
If you don’t have an immersion blender, you can use a regular blender to purée your soup. However, let the soup cool down a little before blending. Blitzing hot soup in a regular blender can be dangerous!
It can be tricky to remove all the dirt from leeks. When you remove the outside leek layers, check to see if there is dirt between the remaining layers. If so, slice thinly and place leek slices in a bowl of cold water for 5 minutes. Remove leeks with a slotted spoon, trying not to disturb the dirt at the bottom of the bowl. Pat dry before using.
Looking for ideas for how to make this soup into a meal? Try some crusty bread and a side salad. If you want to stay vegan and gluten-free with your meal, try serving with my Kale and Brussels Sprouts Salad with Miso Dressing or my Kale Salad with Cranberries (minus the goat cheese on top). Some simple greens tossed with my Apple Cider Vinegar Salad Dressing or my Meyer Lemon Dijon Vinaigrette would also be delicious with this soup.
If you're interested in other delicious vegan soup recipes, don't miss my Pumpkin Soup without Cream. Still creamy and delicious, with no dairy added! My Spiced Carrot and Lentil Soup would also be a good fit—just replace the tablespoon of butter with olive oil. Or try a Cauliflower Leek Soup, using coconut milk instead of heavy cream.
Other Delicious Vegan Recipes
If you are looking for other vegan recipes, I have quite a few on my website. Some of my favorites are:
If you try this Vegan Potato Leek Soup recipe, I would love to hear from you! Leave a comment below—I read them all, and your feedback is invaluable to me. And please follow along on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook or subscribe to my newsletter. I'd love to inspire you with more delicious, healthy, and seasonal recipes!
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📖 Recipe
Vegan Potato Leek Soup
Vegan potato leek soup features potatoes and leeks cooked with onions, garlic, vegetable broth, and coconut milk, then topped with chives.
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 pound Yukon gold potatoes
- 1 small onion
- 1 garlic clove
- 3 medium-large leeks
- 1 ½ teaspoons white or yellow miso paste
- 4-5 cups vegetable stock
- ½ cup full-fat coconut milk
- Kosher salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- Chopped chives, for garnish
Instructions
- Start by preparing your vegetables. Peel and chop potatoes into ¾-inch chunks.
- Peel and dice onion.
- Peel and chop garlic.
- Cut off the dark green leaves of each leek and rinse out any dirt in its layers. Then slice thinly.
- Heat olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat.
- Add chopped onions, garlic, leeks, and miso paste. Cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring frequently, until vegetables are softened but not browned and miso is fully incorporated into the vegetables.
- Add potatoes and cook for another 2 minutes, stirring frequently.
- Add 4 cups of vegetable stock, and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cook for 15-20 minutes, with the pot partly covered, until potatoes are tender.
- Now blend with an immersion blender until smooth.
- Bring soup back to a simmer, and add coconut milk.
- If soup is too thick for your liking, add as much of the extra cup of vegetable broth as desired. Heat gently for 5 minutes, to allow the flavors to meld.
- Season to taste with salt and pepper.
- Garnish with a swizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of chopped chives to serve.
Notes
If you do not have an immersion blender, you can blend soup in a regular blender. Just let it cool somewhat before you ladle it into the blender—blending very hot liquid can be dangerous!
It can be tricky to remove all the dirt from leeks. When you remove the outside leek layers, check to see if there is dirt between the remaining layers. If so, slice thinly and place leek slices in a bowl of cold water for 5 minutes. Remove leeks with a slotted spoon, trying not to disturb the dirt at the bottom of the bowl. Pat dry before using.
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Nutrition Information:
Yield: 4 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 305Total Fat: 17gSaturated Fat: 7gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 9gCholesterol: 9mgSodium: 646mgCarbohydrates: 30gFiber: 2gSugar: 8gProtein: 10g
Nutrition information is provided as a general reference for users courtesy of the online nutrition calculator Nutritionix.
Instagram Users: Now that you've made this potato leek soup, tag me @vanillabeancuisine or #vanillabeancuisine because I'd love to see your results!
Heidi | The Frugal Girls says
Your soup looks so good, I can almost taste it. And that really was such a smart tip for using an immersion blender. Talk about a totally fabulous kitchen shortcut!
Chef Molly says
Thank you! I love my immersion blender so much!
Jeff the Chef says
Your photographs are absolutely outstanding. You know what really does it for me, regartding this soup? It's that lovely piece of bread you have next to it. I could eat up a soup like this without needing a spoon, by just soaking up bite after bite of bread with it!
Chef Molly says
Aw, thanks Jeff! That's exactly how I ate that bowl of soup by the way. 🙂
Katherine Craven says
Hi Molly, I made this today and we loved it!!
Chef Molly says
So glad to hear that, Katherine! Thanks so much for commenting. Hope all is well with you and your family!
Alexandra says
Delicious! One of my all time favourite soups.
Chef Molly says
Yes, it's definitely on my soup highlight reel! 🙂