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I can’t wait to share my favorite vegan potato soup recipe. It’s creamy, loaded with robust flavor and oh so comforting. No dairy, no problem.
This Autumn I’m sharing my family’s fav vegan potato soup recipe. It’s super creamy and actually filling. Potato soup is the ultimate comfort food in cooler weather and this gluten-free potato soup is no exception.
Table of Contents
Originally featured in my Autumn Cleanse Guide, this recipe is loved by the Simple Green Smoothies community and will quickly become a staple on your menu as well.
Vegan Potato Soup Ingredients
Here are the superstar ingredients that make this potato soup a cut above the rest:
- Coconut oil: This is my go-to healthy fat for cooking.
- Leeks: A gorgeous vegetable with a mild-onion flavor.
- Golden potatoes: Golden potatoes are the creamiest of the bunch. You can also use them in my Vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie if you have extras.
- Garlic: Use real, whole garlic for the best flavor and nutritional benefits.
- Vegetable Stock: Do you know how easy it is to make your own stock?
- Cauliflower: A not-so-sneaky way to add creaminess and more veggies to my soup.
- Nutritional Yeast: A cheesy flavor without the dairy!
- Kale: Used in crunchy kale croutons to perfectly finish off this dinner.
That’s it! I know soups are known to have lengthy ingredient lists, but not this one! I keep it short, sweet and delicious.
Pro Tip: Depending on the type of vegetable stock you use, your final soup may be more yellow (I’m talking cheddar cheese!) or potato-white. Either is fine. It just depends on what’s in that stock.
Gluten-Free Potato Soup Ingredient Swaps
Soup is a wonderful meal idea since you can swap in/out ingredients for what you have on hand. If leeks are hard to find, use a yellow onion instead. While golden potatoes are usually on-hand at my house, use whatever potatoes you want. Cauliflower can be swapped with broccoli (just don’t be alarmed by the color change).
While I love the creaminess this vegan potato soup brings, sometimes I like to switch it up and leave a few potato chunks in the final product. Or add some chopped carrots for something to chew on.
How to Make Delicious Potato Soup
For a successful potato soup, you’ll need a large pot as well as a heat-safe blender (or immersion blender). I love using a ceramic Dutch Oven to sauté the veggies before simmering them into a soup.
Step 1: Start by heating the coconut oil or cooking oil of your choice in the large soup pot. Add the chopped leek and a pinch of salt to sauté.
Step 2: After the leek softens, add the minced garlic and sauté, stirring constantly. Garlic burns easily, so make sure you continue to stir the garlic while it browns to avoid burning.
Step 3: Since the cauliflower and potatoes will take about the same time to cook, add them both in next along with the vegetable stock. Once the pot is simmering, turn the heat down to keep it on a low simmer until everything is fork-tender. Adding a lid at this stage helps the vegetables soften faster as well as keep the flavors locked in.
Step 4: Remove the soup pot from the stove and on to the fun part! Check that your blender container can handle hot items (my old Vitamix couldn’t but my new one can), or decide if you want to use an immersion blender. The soup will be hot, so be careful. You may need to add a bit more vegetable stock at this step to help the soup blend nicely and still keep a soup-like consistency.
If I want some potato or cauliflower chunks in my soup, I’ll save a few and add them into the pot after I blend. Then I return the pot to the heat and cook for about ten minutes to soften the veggies. Now on to the best part… the kale croutons!
Crunchy Croutons
You can enjoy your beautifully fragrant potato soup at this point, but I strongly suggest giving these simple kale croutons a try. They are that good.
Step 1: While your soup is simmering, tear the kale into large pieces after removing the stems.
Step 2: Mix with melted coconut oil, Dijon mustard and sea salt until all the leaves are well coated. This gets a bit messy but is worth it.
Step 3: Bake at 300°F for 20-25 minutes, or until the kale is crispy. My croutons often firm up a bit more after removing from the oven if I keep them on the baking tray for a few minutes. This way I don’t over-cook them.
Topping this gluten-free potato soup with kale croutons keeps out the often inflammatory gluten but also provides quite a lovely burst of flavor.
Vegan Potato Soup FAQs
My vegan potato soup uses cauliflower to make it cream up during blending without needing any dairy.
No need! They will cook down nicely in the simmering stock mixture, so pre-soaking is an unnecessary step.
I use golden potatoes since they are the creamiest variety in my opinion, as well as cauliflower that creams up nicely when blended. Cauliflower adds another vegetable to your soup without adding any overpowering flavors.
More Autumn Soup Recipes
I love fresh Autumn produce, and what better way to use them than in warm soups? Here are a few of my go-to recipes this season:
- Tortilla Soup: This surprising soup is fun to make and enjoy with the toppings of your choice.
- Vegetable Noodle Soup: My take on a plant-based chicken noodle soup. All the flavor without the meat.
- Creamy Tomato Soup: The perfect soup for kids and adults alike, loaded with veggies.
- Carrot Ginger Soup: Probably my favorite lunch soup!
Don’t forget to rate + review this recipe once you’ve made it!
Vegan Potato Soup
Ingredients
For Vegan Potato Soup:
- 2 tbsps coconut oil
- 2 leeks white part thinly sliced
- 4 gold potatoes chopped
- 4 garlic cloves minced
- 4 cups vegetable stock
- 1 ½ cups cauliflower chopped
- dash sea salt
- dash ground black pepper
- dash nutritional yeast
For Kale Croutons:
- 2 cups kale tough stems removed
- 1 tbsp coconut oil
- 1 tsp Dijon mustard
- ¼ tsp sea salt
Instructions
- Heat coconut oil in a large pot, Add the leek and a pinch of salt.
- Once the leeks start to soften, add the garlic and sauté for 1 minute.
- Add the vegetable stock, potatoes and cauliflower and bring to a simmer.
- Cook until cauliflower and potatoes are tender. While the soup is cooking, prepare the Kale Croutons.
- Remove soup from heat and puree using an immersion blender or standard blender (Use caution when blending-soup will be hot!). If soup is a little too thick, add a little more vegetable stock.
- Ladle into bowls and top with Kale Croutons. Season with salt, pepper and nutritional yeast.
For Kale Croutons:
- Tear kale into large pieces.
- Mix with remaining ingredients.
- Bake at 300°F for 20-25 minutes or until kale is crispy.
Equipment
- dutch oven
- heat-safe blender
Notes
- To keep sodium levels lower, use low-sodium vegetable stock (or make your own!).
- Swap leek with 1 yellow onion.
- To create a chunkier soup, dice 1 extra potato and 2 carrots. Add to the large pot after blending and simmer the soup for 10 more minutes, or until vegetables are tender to your liking.
Yikes. Very, very bland. I shocked it with smoked paprika, cumin, tripled the garlic and subbed EVOO for the coconut oil. It was pretty though, I’ll give it that. And smooth as a politician at a fund raiser. The emersion blends is so fly.
This soup is delish! I love that it’s thick, creamy, flavorful and filling without being heavy. The leek I had was HUGE, so I wish the leek ingredient also provided a measured by cups or about 1 cup for example. I was worried it would be too much leek. I wasn’t sure about the kale croutons but WOW – bumped it from good to great!
Comfort is right! This soup is like a big, warm hug in a bowl. I love that it’s thick, creamy, and filling without being dense because it’s chock-full of good-for-you veggies with nothing icky added. And while it’s an extra step, the kale croutons are non-negotiable—so good!!
Good base soup for toppings! Soup is tasty but love that it can be changed up so easily with different toppings as well.
The kale croutons were fabulous even by themselves!!! Soup was wonderful and I will make if often.
I loved this Vegan Potato Soup recipe. .It was easy to make and I was thrilled that I was able to use russet potatoes I grew in grow bags right here at home. The kale croutons were fabulous. In fact, I snacked on so many of them before I ever put them on the soup! I’ll remember to make a double batch of those kale croutons the next time I make this recipe. I used my trusty Vitamix 5200 to blend it. Amazing soup!
Didn’t do the croutons, the soup is very nice on its own. Simple instructions and can be adapted according to number of servings quite easily.
It’s super so easy to make and I love it. I add black cumin seeds with perfect flavors I really enjoy soup with my kale chips.
Quite enjoy this one except for
The kale croutons. Super easy to make!
My family and I really liked it. Very easy to cook.
I didn’t like the taste of mine, we’re we only supposed to add the white parts of the leek? Recipe unclear, I added the whole leek.
The white part is the bottom part below the green leaves. I’m sorry it didn’t taste good using the whole leek. We appreciate the feedback.
Hi Cristina – I’m sorry you didn’t like the flavor of the Potato Soup. 🙁 Def feel free to add some extra seasonings or flavors that might make it more palatable.
I would recommend using the white and lighter green parts of the leeks for your soup, however many people use the darker parts too.
Delish! Made chunky but just cooked extra potatoes along with other ingredients then scooped out before puréeing. Prefer kale chips served alongside so they remain crispy.
Very bland, the yeast and salt & pepper helped. Recipe not clear as to whether to peel potato’s or leave skin on. Bad start.
This was so good! Delicious. I halved the recipe because there is only one of me, thinking it would be two servings. It’s so good – I’ll probably finish it today! I posted my finished creation on Tik Tok! Thank you.
Love this soup and the kale chips. I was a bit hesitant in the cauliflower because some cauliflower stuff is NOT good to me but this was great. Mine wound up a tiny bit spicey because I put 2 habaneros in my veggie stock when I made that. But I like spicey so all was good. It added just an extra flavor to the overall soup. It was super creamy with lots of flavor.
The soup was delicious! Even the pickiest eater in my house liked it.
This creamy potato soup recipe is so good! Creamy and yummy and simple to make. And the kale croutons are a nice touch of crunch. Definitely want to make this again!