Vegan Chestnut Soup with Mushrooms and Croutons

Chestnuts are immediately associated with the cold time of the year, so autumn and winter. The small stalls selling hot chestnuts can be found especially at Christmas markets. But why not just bring the delicious taste of them home? Maybe even as a starter of your Christmas menu. Because this vegan chestnut soup with mushrooms and croutons is delicious, something special and guaranteed to be wintery. In addition, it is prepared super quickly. Always a plus for a stress-free Christmas.

But not only the chestnuts alone make the soup something special. A dash of apple cider also creates a great aroma. If you don’t want to use alcohol, you can use naturally cloudy apple juice instead. With king oyster mushrooms (or other mushrooms) and pumpernickel croutons we also add two delicious toppings to the soup. But that’s enough talking about the deliciousness. Better get your hands on the saucepan now!

VEGAN CHESTNUT SOUP WITH MUSHROOMS AND CROUTONS

Ingredients for 3 servings (about  2,25 Euros each):

SOUP

• 200 g chestnuts, cooked
• 1 onion
• 1 garlic clove
• 400 ml vegetable stock
• 100 ml apple cider, alternatively: cloudy apple juice
• 100 ml oat cream
• olive oil
• salt + pepper

TOPPINGS

• 150 g mushrooms, e.g. king oyster mushrooms
• 80 g pumpernickel (or any other dark bread)
• 1 tsp thyme, minced
• olive oil

Preparation
1. Finely dice the onion and garlic. Sauté with a generous dash of olive oil in a saucepan at medium temperature for a few minutes. Roughly chop the chestnuts and also add them to the pot. Sweat them briefly as well.

2. Add cider and vegetable stock, cover and simmer gently for about 10 minutes. Remove the lid and let it simmer for another 5 minutes.

3. Dice mushrooms and pumpernickel. First roast the pumpernickel with a dash of olive oil at medium to high temperature until crispy from all sides. This can take a few minutes. Take out the croutons. Then fry the mushrooms in a pan with a little olive oil for 5 minutes at a relatively high temperature. Season with thyme, salt and pepper.

4. Add 2/3 of the oat cream to the soup. Blend it and season with salt and pepper. Serve the soup with the pumpernickel croutons, the thyme mushrooms and the remaining oat cream.