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a bowl of vegan potato corn chowder, topped with chopped scallions

Vegan Potato Corn Chowder

Creamy, chunky, and packed with flavor, whip up some Vegan Potato Corn Chowder any day of the week for an easy, convenient dinner.
5 from 13 votes
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Author: Sarah Sullivan

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Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons vegan butter
  • 1 medium white or yellow onion diced
  • 2 medium carrots peeled and diced
  • 2 stalks celery diced
  • 2 cloves garlic minced
  • 1 1/2 pounds Yukon gold potatoes about 4-5 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped
  • 3-4 ears fresh sweet corn
  • 4 cups vegetable broth
  • 1 cup cashew cream recipe follows; see notes for substitutions
  • 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme or 2 sprigs fresh thyme
  • 2 bay leaves
  • salt and black pepper to taste
  • 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Cashew Cream

  • 1/2 cup raw cashews soaked 4+ hours or overnight
  • 2/3 cup water

Garnish

  • fresh scallions or chives chopped
  • crumbled tofu or tempeh bacon
  • smoked paprika

Instructions

Prepare the Corn

  • Remove the husks and silk from the corn. Slice the corn kernels off the cob. Use a spoon or the back of your knife to thoroughly scrape all the extra pulp and juice out. This contains lots of flavor, so save it for your soup!

Start Cooking the Soup

  • Melt the vegan butter in a heavy soup pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the onion, celery, and carrot and sauté for 3-5 minutes, until the onion is translucent.
  • Add in the garlic and sauté for another minute.
  • Add in the potatoes and fresh corn, along with any extra pulp and juice from the corn cobs. Pour in the vegetable broth and add fresh or dried thyme and bay leaves. Stir to combine.
  • Bring to a low boil, then reduce heat to low/medium-low to establish a gentle simmer. Simmer for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent anything from sticking to the bottom of the pot.

Make the Cashew Cream

  • As the soup simmers, it's a good time to prepare your cashew cream. Simply drain your soaked cashews and add to a blender along with fresh water. Blend until completely smooth. (See the notes for alternatives if you prefer not to use cashew cream.)

Blend the Soup

  • After about 15-20 minutes of simmering, or whenever the potatoes are fork-tender, it's time to add the cashew cream and blend a portion of the soup. This step is important to achieve that thick and creamy chowder consistency.
    You can use a high-speed blender or an immersion blender for this step. A high-speed blender will give you a bit of a smoother and more velvety texture, so that is my personal preference, but the immersion blender is a bit easier.
  • High-speed blender: Ladle about 3 cups of the soup into your blender along with the cashew cream. Make sure you're scooping in a good amount of the potatoes and corn, since blending these is what's going to add a lot of richness and body to the soup.
    Start blending on the lowest speed. Gradually increase the speed and blend until this mixture is as smooth as possible — this usually takes me at least a few minutes. Pour this mixture back into the pot of soup and stir to combine.
    Important: Please exercise extreme caution when blending hot liquids! Steam can cause the pressure in the blender to rapidly expand and blow the lid off. If your blender lid has a vent, I recommend leaving that open and then covering with a clean kitchen towel, so pressure can escape as you blend.
    If you are working with a smaller blender pitcher, you may wish to blend in smaller batches, as you don't want the pitcher full when blending hot liquids.
  • Immersion blender: Add the prepared cashew cream into the soup. Then use your immersion blender to blend the soup partially. As you blend, the soup will become thicker thanks to the potatoes and cashew cream. I like to leave the soup fairly chunky, but feel free to blend to your preferred level of texture.
  • Bring the soup back up to a gentle simmer over low/medium-low heat. Simmer for another 5 minutes to thicken slightly.
  • Taste and adjust salt and black pepper to preference. You'll need more or less salt based on the kind of vegetable broth you used. Typically I use regular vegetable broth from a carton, and I add about 1 teaspoon fine sea salt. If using a chicken-style veggie bouillon, you'll generally need to add less.
  • To brighten everything up a bit and balance out the sweetness of the corn, stir in fresh lemon juice just before serving. Serve soup topped with fresh sliced chives or scallions. Tofu or tempeh bacon crumbles are a great addition too.

Storage & Reheating

  • Refrigerator: Store leftover soup in an airtight container for up to 5 days in the fridge.
  • Freezer: Soup can be stored in the freezer for up to 3 months, but generally the flavor is best within the first month. Make sure to use a freezer-safe container, and allow the soup to cool first before freezing. Freezing alters the texture of this soup slightly; the potatoes may break down a little, but it will still be delicious.
  • Reheating: Reheat in the microwave, or on the stove over medium heat. The soup has a tendency to thicken in the fridge, so you may wish to add an extra splash of water when reheating to thin the consistency to your preference.

Notes

Cashew Cream Alternatives:
  • Full-fat canned coconut milk. If you don't mind the flavor of coconut, this can work. I actually think the flavor is quite complementary to the other ingredients but it will not be quite as savory.
  • Tahini. Whisk 1/3 cup tahini with 1/2 cup of water until it's a fluffy, pourable consistency. This is a trick I use in my Lemon Chickpea and Orzo soup to thicken it and add a more luscious mouthfeel.
  • Store-bought nondairy cream. Country Crock, Silk, and Califia Farms make a few options. I personally have not tested these in the recipe. If you have success with one of them, let me know!
  • Sunflower seed cream. An equivalent volume of raw sunflower seeds can be substituted in for the raw cashews in the cashew cream recipe. Sunflower seeds only need to soak for about 30 minutes prior to blending.
Safely blending hot liquids: Always leave plenty of head space in the pitcher when bending hot liquids. Always start blending on the lowest speed, and gradually increase speed. If your blender lid has a vent, open it slightly and cover with a clean kitchen towel. This will allow steam to escape so pressure doesn't build up in the blender.
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