One of our favorite soups! Midwestern comfort food made WFPB!
Update: There’s now an adapted version of this recipe on the Vitamix website. And! It’s featured in the Vitamix 100-year Anniversary Cookbook!
This might actually be the best thing we’ve ever made.
It’s creamy and hearty and full of flavor. It somehow warms your soul.
One pot, one blender, one very happy family. Make this creamy wild rice soup tonight, it’s an instant classic.
Experimenting with vegan "creaminess"
Creamy is kind of a difficult texture to create without using cream. But it’s not impossible.
The more you do it, the better you get at making vegan dishes that don’t leave you missing dairy. Since veganizing our household and website, we’ve had to get pretty creative.
To get “creamy” we’ve used tofu as a thickener for our vegan tzatziki and balsamic butternut squash soup. Cashews for our cashew queso and cauliflower soup. And most recently, we’ve been dabbling with Cannellini beans which were featured in our Thanksgiving vegan loaf.
Using some of the things we’ve learned from previous kitchen experiments, we feel like we’ve hit the jackpot recreating this comfort food classic.
Our favorite childhood soup
Lenny and I grew up in neighboring Minneapolis suburbs but didn’t officially meet until adulthood in Chicago. Occasionally we’ll have one of those strange conversations where it’s clear we likely crossed paths. In this case, it would have been at Byerly’s… the local high-end grocery store.
Why would we both be there? Well, both of us were too poor growing up to actually shop for groceries there.
But as a treat, we’d make a special trip for their most delicious, pre-made soup: Chicken Wild Rice.
This soup tastes like childhood. Minnesota is freezing and this soup is the definition of comfort food.
Now that we’re married, and eat mostly plant-based, we took on the challenge of making this soup dairy (and chicken) free.
And I must say, we killed it! So, so, so, so, so, so, so good.
We used our Vitamix to create the perfect texture. We used our memories to create the perfect flavor.
This soup was consumed for both lunch and dinner and we just added wild rice back onto our grocery list. It’s one of those recipes you cannot wait to make again.
Start boiling some broth right now. You’ll have the perfect dinner in under one hour.
Recipe
Creamy Wild Rice Soup
One of the best, vegan soups ever
Cannellini Beans, Cashews, Celery, Mushrooms, Vegetable Broth,Ingredients:
- cashews (raw/unsalted) - 1 cup soaked (125 g)
- celery - 4 ribs chopped
- carrots - 1 cup chopped (128 g)
- onion - 1/2 whole chopped
- garlic - 4-6 cloves chopped
- vegetable broth - 64 oz (2 L)
- wild rice - 1 cup (160 g)
- dried thyme* - to your taste (we use 1 Tbsp. (4.3 g))
- bay leaves - 2 whole
- salt - 2 tsp. (5.69 g) + more to taste
- mushrooms - 8 oz chopped (225 g)
- cannellini (white kidney) beans - 15 oz can (425 g)
Instructions:
PREP
- Soak cashews overnight if possible
- If not, soak in boiling water as soon as you see this, the longer the better
VEGGIES
- Chop celery, carrots, onion, and garlic
- Chop mushrooms, reserve on the side
BROTH
- Reserve 1 cup (8 oz) of broth on the side
- Heat the rest of the vegetable broth in a large pot on medium heat
- Rinse and drain your wild rice
- Add wild rice, thyme, bay leaves, and salt to your hot vegetable broth
- Add your veggies too (celery, carrots, onion & garlic)
- Place lid on pot and set a 30 min timer
CREAM
- Drain soaked cashews and the liquid from the cannellini beans
- Place cashews & beans in Vitamix container
- Add the reserved cup of vegetable broth
- Blend on high for 1 minute until smooth
MIX
- When your timer goes off, add the creamy Vitamix mixture to your pot
- Add the chopped mushrooms
- Replace lid, lower heat, and set timer for 15 more min
- When the timer goes off, check if wild rice is done (should be a bit chewy)
- Remove bay leaves
SERVE
- Serve piping hot out of the pot
- Snap a pic and tag #lifeisNOYOKE
- Enjoy!
Useful tips for Creamy Wild Rice Soup
We like to save time by not sautéing the veggies first. We have done it both ways and to be honest, there is not much of a difference. Save yourself a step and throw 'em in the pot.
We blended white kidney beans, soaked cashews, and vegetable broth to create the creamy base of the soup. It works great for bases to other creamy soups too!
This soup is filling and rich. Before you ladle up a giant bowl, make yourself a mugs-worth. It catches up to you quick!
And if you're feeling up to it, serve it with this easy vegan cornbread.
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I just made this recipe tonight and it tastes amazing! I will definitely be making this again. It’s such a comforting dish. I’ve made wild rice soup before, but never vegan. You honestly can’t even tell this is vegan. Thanks so much for the recipe!
Making it not taste vegan is always my goal, that’s how I know it’s good 😉
I have made the same vegetable soup for the past 8 years or so, I very rarely change it up. I made this soup for the first time two weeks ago and am currently making it for the third time right now. Thank you so much for such a delicious recipe! Your blog is my new favourite site, I’m so happy to have stumbled across it!
Happy you stumbled across us too 🙂
This soup is fantastic. My husband and I both love it and I have made it a number of times. I follow the directions exactly and it is perfect as is. I love that it has protein, no oil and lots of healthy ingredients. Thank you for sharing this.
Nice! This recipe is by far my most detailed in instructions. But there were so many questions when I first posted that I tried to answer them all. Glad it’s helpful!
This was absolutely gorgeous! I don’t know what any of the negative remarks are about. They must have been doing something wrong. This was so good and super easy to make! Thank you for a great winter soup! 5 *****
Our pleasure, JJ. We were surprised the last few comments haven’t been as positive as usual too!
Seriously was so nasty. I’m one of those people that even if something is gross, I can power through it so as not to waste money, couldn’t do it with this. It had zero amount of flavor. All you taste is wild rice and some kind of thing that isn’t pleasant, with a nasty texture. Literally was so excited to make this, only for us to take one bite each and throw it out. So disappointed.
Really sad to hear this as almost every comment (beyond the one calling me a pretentious writer) is not just positive but a glowing recommendation. Can I ask if you were using a high powered blender? Lots of our recipes can be made with any blender, but the base for this soup really is best when using something like a Vitamix.
It seems a waste to throw away the liquid from the cannellini beans. Have you ever tried using it (which is about 1/2 cup) and then adding another 1/2 cup of vegetable broth to make up the 1 cup liquid when creaming the beans and cashews?
That’s a great idea, Janet! We do use the liquid from our cans of chickpeas. A handful of our recipes use aquafaba… my guess is the cannellini liquid has similar properties.
I was planning on making this for dinner tonight as it is one of my favorites but I am out of wild rice. Do you think I could use pearled barley instead?
Apologies for not seeing this sooner. Did you use the barley? Sounds delicious to me!
Your writing and diction make you sound like a couple of pretentious A-holes.
My soup came out really thin. It feels like 64 oz broth was too much? The flavor was also a bit bland. Any thoughts on what went wrong? I followed the recipe exactly.
Hmm, it shouldn’t come out thin (if anything it sometimes is too thick). Perhaps your mushrooms were retaining a bit of water? That’s happened with ours before. If you’re willing to try again, use less broth, you can always add more in towards the end.
If you’re feeling like the taste a bit bland for you it just needs a little more salt! We keep the salt content down in the recipe because we try to cater to the majority of people’s taste, but we always add a little sprinkle on top of each bowl. There’s also a suggestion below to add a splash of sherry on top, that would do the trick too!
I made this soup over the weekend for the first time and had my non vegan roommate give it a try. He loved it! but if I can be completely honest and it’s coming from a good place, I did not like the cream. I was surprised that I would be the one who did not like it since I’ve been vegan for 2 years and i’m used to making recipes using all kind of alternatives and substitutions. For me the flavor of the cannellini beans came through empowering the whole soup. I’m sure it’s what helps make it creamy and delicious but I could not get past the flavor. I would like to make it again trying an alternative for the beans or maybe using another bean. I’m still discovering new flavors and exploring creativity when making recipes. I’ve been a fan for years since I bought my Vitamix and your cashew queso is a hit in my mixers. Continue the good work and sharing your work with the rest of us!!!
I’ve found that Great Northern Beans have a more bland taste that disappears in the soup. You could also increase cashew ratio.
Completely honest is what we like, Karina (although if you told us you didn’t like the cashew queso we might be a bit suspect 😉
Tammy is right, great northern beans are an excellent alternative if the cannellini beans are too strong of a taste for you. I think chickpeas would do the trick too (although I’ve never tried them in this recipe they certainly have a similar texture when blended).
Try it again and let us know. It’s by far our most popular recipe so it’s helpful when people find awesome substitutions and can still enjoy the recipe!
I.Love.This.Soup.
So Good!
I learned a lot about making creamy soup the vegan way!
I shifting into vegan life with your help!
Thank You So Much!
It is our absolute pleasure, so happy to hear it!
Great soup! Perfect creaminess. This blend is going to be the base of many future creamy soups. 🤩
Thanks, Erika! We’ve used the same base several times to experiment with other soups too. Works great every time!
Best soup ever! I even froze the rest and after defrosting it, this yummy soup still tasted the same as when I first made it! Making this for my parents on their next visit for sure. 5 thumbs up!!!
Thanks for this and for sharing this gem of ours — it’s our most popular recipe!
Highly disappointed.
I didn’t like this soup at all.
So sorry to hear that, Judy. If you scroll through the comments you’ll see this is our most popular recipe and universally loved. It would be helpful to know what you didn’t like about the recipe so that I could help you troubleshoot.
Mushroom substitute?
Just skip em! They are for texture and absolutely do not need to be included.
Can you use a food processor instead if you don’t have a Vitamix?
Yes, you should be able to 🙂
My son has nut allergies. Any sub for cashews?
If you scroll thru the comments there are some good ideas. We have never tried the recipe without them so cannot vouch for the success.
This soup is absolutely delicious! So so good! My husband loves it and he is really picky! I was wondering if this soup freezes well. I would like to double the recipe and freeze for another time. Thanks.
It does freeze well. We just add a little more broth when reheating.
My non vegan partner loved this and asked me to add it to the rotation. That rarely happens! Great soup!!
Love it when we’re added to the rotation!
I can’t even believe how amazing this recipe is. It came across my Youtube suggestions and I watched the video and since you mentioned it was one of your top recipes I thought I’d try it, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have. I’m so glad I did! Wow. I will be sharing this with everyone. So creamy and delicious rich umami flavor. (I added a little dulse flakes at the end since I’m vegan I like to add for iodine).
Thank you for this recipe!
Super helpful comment, thank you! Glad you liked the soup — it’s the best