Creamy celeriac soup with wild mushrooms
Delicious and easy to make celeriac soup with mushrooms, which is perfect for serving as a Christmas dinner party and is heartwarming and delicious.
Celeriac soup with mushrooms
I so love celeriac. And if I take a look at the amount of celeriac soup recipes it is quite a lot so take your pick of some of my favorite soup recipes. Celeriac is one of those root vegetables that is so ugly but also so delicious. And the combination with mushrooms is one of my favorites. You can use wild mushrooms which I think add a lot of flavor or use any mushrooms you like. There is no wrong mushroom as far as I’m concerned (not taking about any psychedelic ones obviously!)
Preparing the soup
Now the good thing is that you can prepare almost all of the soup in advance if you’re planning to make this for Christmas dinner. I would leave the baking of the mushrooms till the last minute as that will be better in terms of looks and flavor.
First you have to rehydrate the dried mushrooms we’re using for this recipe. I’ve used porcini mushrooms as I love the flavor of those. You add about 15-20 grams of the dried mushrooms to a small bowl and add 100 ml of hot water (about 1/3 of a cup). Leave to stand for about 5-10 minutes while you prepare the rest.
You start the cooking by cleaning the celery root and chopping it in cubes. Chop the onions and all other vegetables needed for the soup including the mushrooms. Place a large pot on medium heat and add some olive oil.
Start by frying the onion until translucent and then add the vegetables.
For this recipe I’ve used almond milk but you can use any kind of milk you like. If you like coconut you might even try coconut milk although I wouldn’t recommend it in this case. I would stick to the more neutral flavors like almond or oat milk. Also at this point you add the vegetable broth. You can use chicken stock if you want but since this is a vegetarian soup you might want to keep it that way.
Blending
Cooking the soup doesn’t take a very long time. Despite it’s appearances I find that celeriac is quite a soft vegetable so it takes about 20 minutes to cook through. After ten minutes you add the porcini and the rosemary to the soup. I like to use an immersion blender for smoothing the soup but you can use a food processor if you prefer. Before you do, make sure to remove the rosemary sprigs as that will be too heavy if blended in the soup. Once the soup is blended add black pepper or white pepper, a little bit of lemon juice if needed and a pinch of salt to your taste. If you find that the soup is too thick you could add more vegetable stock or milk until it has the desired consistency. If you want to serve the soup at a later moment than now is the time to store the soup in an airtight container till you’re ready to serve.
Which mushrooms to use
Now as I mentioned you can use wild mushrooms for the celeriac soup with mushrooms, but in this case I chose shiitake mushrooms, chestnut mushrooms and some enoki mushrooms as well. I would have loved to use chanterelle mushrooms but they weren’t available while making the soup. You can use pale button mushrooms or whatever you have available and like. I place a frying pan on the stove on medium heat and add a bit piece of butter to the pan. I love baking mushrooms in butter, but of course if you don’t you can use coconut oil (unflavored) or olive oil as well. I add some garlic to the pan and fresh thyme sprigs and add the mushrooms to the pan. I bake them until browned and cooked through. You add the sautéed mushrooms at the last minute.
Serving
When you’re ready to serve the celeriac soup with mushrooms you divide the soup over soup bowls and add the hot soup. Now you divide the mushrooms over the bowls and you finish with some fresh herbs on top. I’ve used garden cress but you can use any cress you like.
Variations
This is already quite a creamy soup but if you want to add some more creaminess you could substitute some of the milk for some double cream if you want. Also one thing to know is that the soup is relatively grey/brownish due to the porcini that is blended along with the vegetables. If you want a prettier soup adding more cream after blending is totally fine. Adding more cream will make a silky soup. Another addition would be to add some sour cream on top while serving.
To make the celeriac soup with mushrooms a bit fancier you could add some drops of truffle oil.
Check the recipe card for full details!
Love celeriac soup?
Celeriac soup with mushrooms
Equipment
- Stick blender
Ingredients
- 20 gr dried porcini mushrooms
- 5 tbsp olive oil
- 4 shallots finely chopped
- 600 gr celeriac peeled and cut into large chunks
- 1 leek white part only, cut into rings
- 1,2 liter vegetable stock
- 800 ml almond milk
- 2 sprigs rosemary
- 500 gr mixed mushrooms porcini, cantharelle etc. cleaned and cut into pieces
- butter
- 2 sprigs thyme leaves only
- Preparations: (can be done a day ahead, start 1/2 day before the dinner)
- Soak the porcini in 100 ml hot water. Heat 3 tbsp of oliveoil on medium fire and fry the onions untill glazed (about 5 minutes). Add celeriac and leeks and fry for another 5 minutes.
- Pour the hot stock and the almond milk into the pan and bring to the boil. Boil for 10 minutes.
- Add the soaked porcini and the rosemary and boil for another 10 minutes. Remove the rosemary and puree the soup in a blender or with a stickblender. Add salt and pepper to taste.
- Finish:
- Start 10 minutes before serving. Heat the rest of the oliveoil with the butter and bake the mushrooms on medium fire for about 8 minutes. Add a little salt, freshly ground pepper and fresh thyme leaves. In the meantime make sure you heat the soup through and through. Divide over 8 bowls. Put the mushrooms on top and a little bit of garnish.
Nutrition Information per portion
Disclaimer
The nutritional values above are calculated per portion. The details are based on standard nutritional tables and do not constitute a professional nutritional advice.
I don’t mean to be sanctimonious but when I read the introductory comment about long to travel the world collecting recipes to share, my heart sank. I just thought I would look to see other’s mushroom and celeriac soup recipes having made one using my own ideas (and it is really nice). Air travel is one of the greatest contributors to global greenhouse emissions. As much as I would like to travel the world continually I can’t since I have children and I care about their future and that of all the world’s children. We really have to take stock and travel much much less frequently, at least by plane ( living in Australia there is not a lot of choice except to reduce – once every 5 years for a long period is much better than 5 times per year for a week or two).
He Kath,
You’re right and while I might want to travel the world continuously I don’t.. 🙂 Living in Europe means I can also take the train to any other country in Europe so that doesn’t require any flying. Having said that I will still occasionally fly to a far away destination. But that is definitely not five times a year!
Is this celeriac and mushroom soup suitable for freezing?
He Jason, Yes you can freeze the soup but I would skip step 6 and do that after defrosting and reheating, to keep it fresh!