How do you make your favorite comfort food even more comforting? Turn it into soup! Soup is pretty much always super cozy and comforting, and a surprising number of dishes can be turned into soup (without being gross). I did this with cabbage rolls, enchiladas, lasagna, and even cheeseburgers. All turned out delicious! So when I saw mac & cheese soup on the menu of a local lunch place, I knew right away that I had to create a vegan version.
Vegan Mac & Cheese
But wait. Regular old vegan mac & cheese in and of itself sounds like a challenge to create. It’s really not though. I have two go-to methods for making vegan mac & cheese. Method number 1 involves making dairy-free cheese out of cashews, like I did with here. Method number 2 involves making a roux out of coconut milk and seasoning it up to taste cheesy, like in this recipe. The coconut milk option seemed to make a lot more sense for a vegan mac & cheese soup, so that’s what I went with.
How to Make Vegan Mac & Cheese Soup
Cook your pasta before getting started, so that it’s ready to be added to the soup when you need it. Now heat up up a bit of oil in a pot. Add some onion and cook it for a few minutes to soften it up. Now add some garlic and cook it for about a minute, until it becomes very fragrant. Stir in some flour to form a thick paste with the oil. Continue stirring and cooking for about a minute. Now it’s time to add that coconut milk. You’ll want to slowly whisk it in to prevent the flour from forming any big clumps. Once you’ve added the coconut milk, you can add some more non-dairy milk (anything unflavored and unsweetened), along with some seasonings: bouillon, nutritional yeast, and hot sauce.
Let the mixture simmer for about 10 minutes. It should thicken up during this time. I like to add some broccoli during the last few minutes of simmering. The pasta goes in last.
Take the soup off of the burner and season it with some salt, if needed.
Grab a bowl and dig in!
I recommend serving your vegan mac & cheese soup right away. The pasta will absorb the sauce as it sits, and before long it will cease to be soup, and will just be vegan mac & cheese. Is this soup spicy? The Cholula gives it a slight kick. It also adds a lot of flavor (and even makes the soup taste cheesy), so I don’t recommend skipping it. If you must omit it or cut back, consider adding a splash of vinegar or lemon juice to balance the flavor. Does this soup taste like coconut? Not to me! However, if you are super sensitive to the taste of coconut, you might be able to taste it. You can substitute a different non-dairy milk if needed, but the soup probably won’t be as rich and creamy (since coconut milk is pretty high in fat). Not into broccoli? Feel free to skip it or substitute your favorite veggies. Cauliflower or peas would work nicely.
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