Mushroom Soup with Buckwheat Groats

A thick and warming winter soup packed full of nutritious ingredients and a flavoursome broth.

Prep Time15

Cook Time45

Total Time1

Course: lunch

Cuisine: Eastern European

Keyword: mushroom soup

Servings:

1 tbsp This is an affiliate link.olive oil
1 onion
1 carrot
22g / 1/4 cup dried porcini or mixed mushrooms
1 tbsp butter
300g / 2½ cups button mushrooms
1-2 cloves garlic
85g / 1/2 cup This is an affiliate link.roasted buckwheat groats or pearl barley
1½ litres / 6 cups This is an affiliate link.vegetable stock
1 tsp soup seasoning mix of your choice
salt to taste
3 leaves kale stalk removed

Soak the dried porcini mushrooms in 1 cup/250 ml boiling water for 30 minutes. Dice the carrot and chop the onion. Slice the mushrooms and set aside till needed.
In a medium pot, heat the olive oil and sauté the onion and carrot for 7-10 minutes over low heat. Then add the sliced mushrooms, 1 tbsp of butter and a pinch of salt, turn up the heat to medium and cook the mushrooms until golden on the outside, then add the minced garlic. (Cooking mushrooms till they are golden will contribute to the flavour of your soup.)
While the mushrooms are cooking, remove the reconstituted dry mushrooms from the water and keep the liquid. Strain the liquid to get remove the sediment. Chop up the mushrooms and add to the pot together with the vegetable stock and the liquid you saved.
Then add the roasted buckwheat groats or barley and a soup seasoning mix. Bring to a boil and cook for 15 minutes or 25 minutes of using pearl barley. Add the chopped kale and cook for 5 minutes longer. Add more salt to taste before serving.

A variety of mushrooms adds some character to the soup, but there is room to experiment with varieties. Dried porcini mushrooms are essential for building deep, earthy flavour in this soup, so are the ones to keep.
Use roasted buckwheat (the brown variety with a nutty taste and firm bite), which you'll find in Eastern European markets or online. If you'd prefer to substitute barley, wild rice, or brown rice, just follow the cooking times on their respective packages. Standard unroasted buckwheat works too, though the texture will be softer.
The kale can easily be swapped for fresh or frozen spinach if that's what you have on hand.
I've built this recipe with vegetable stock to keep it plant-based, but chicken stock makes an excellent substitute if you're not cooking for vegetarians or vegans.