Soups
Vegetable Dumpling Soup
Prep
20 minutes
Cook
40 minutes
Yield
5
🥟 Transform simple ingredients into the ultimate comfort food with this vegetable dumpling soup! Fluffy, homemade dumplings cook right in this delicious veggie soup.
Nothing says comfort food more than a big bowl of vegetable dumpling soup. It’s healthy, it’s warming, it’s easy (yes, dumplings can be easy), and it’ll become one of your winter go-to recipes.
Dumplings are a broad classification for a cute bundle of joy made with pieces of dough wrapped around a filling. Fillings are typically meat, fish, or cheese, but can also be fruits or sweets. Dumplings can be made in a variety of ways, such as baking, boiling, or steaming. For this recipe, we’re going to make not only vegan dumplings but also dumplings that can be easily added to your vegetable soup. They’re delicious!
❤️ Why You’ll Love This Vegetable Dumpling Soup
- Quick: This recipe has a prep time of only 20 minutes.
- Comforting: If you’re looking for the ultimate comfort food… this is it!
- Nutrient-Dense: Full of veggies and healthy goodness that will keep your body in tip-top shape.
- Versatile: Use the veggies you have available on hand or need to use up in your fridge.
🍲 Ingredients
Dumplings – These fluffy pillows of goodness are the star of this vegetable dumpling soup. Made with simple pantry staples like flour and baking powder, they cook right in the broth, absorbing all the delicious flavors while creating a satisfying texture contrast to the vegetables. They’re surprisingly easy to make and transform a simple vegetable soup into a complete, hearty meal.
Vegetables – The foundation of any good vegetable dumpling soup starts with aromatic vegetables like celery, carrots, and onions. These classic soup ingredients create a flavorful base, but the beauty of this recipe is its flexibility. You can use whatever vegetables you have on hand, making this soup perfect for using up your produce and minimizing food waste.
👩🍳 How to Make Vegetable Dumpling Soup
🪄 Tips and Tricks
- Simmering: Let the vegetable soup base simmer for a long time to develop the flavor; don’t rush this step.
- Quality Herbs: Use fresh, high-quality herbs in your dumplings for the best flavor.
- Sweat It Out: By sweating your veggies on a lower heat instead of blasting them on high, you’ll really bring out their flavor in your soup.
🗒 Substitutions
- Vegetables: Use whatever veggies you have in the fridge – broccoli, squash, kale, mushrooms all work beautifully.
- Herbs: No fresh herbs? Use dried (about 1/3 the amount) in a pinch.
- Flour: For gluten-free dumplings, try a 1:1 gluten-free flour blend with a bit of xanthan gum.
- Vegan Butter: Coconut oil or olive oil can be used as a substitute if needed.
🗒 Best served with
- Warming Caesar Salad (with a twist)
- Roasted Beet Salad and Feta with Pistachios
- Quick and Easy Focaccia Bread
- Apple Caprese Sandwich
👝 How to Store Leftovers
Leftovers can be stored in the fridge for up to two days. When you’re ready to eat, gently warm it on the stove until it’s warm. The dumplings may break down a bit and change in consistency, but they’ll generally still be delicious and stay intact.
🤔 Common Questions
It may sound complicated, and generally when you hear the word “dumpling,” you think of rolling out a complex dough, adding fillings, and shaping them into these beautiful crimped balls or pockets. However, soup dumplings are different and so easy, less messy, and delicious in their own way.
No, properly cooked dumplings should be light, fluffy, and fully cooked in the center – like a soft bread. If they’re doughy, they likely need more cooking time.
This can happen if the soup is boiling too vigorously. Keep it at a gentle simmer when adding the dumplings, and avoid stirring too much while they cook.
There are so many variations of dumplings that are made differently, crimped differently, etc., so yes, dumplings can be different than soup dumplings. It depends on the culture, and so much more.
Not all dumplings are vegan, and different cultures prepare them differently. However, it is very easy to make soup dumplings vegan with a few simple ingredients, such as flour, baking powder, seasoning, and olive oil.
Absolutely! White beans, chickpeas, or even crumbled tofu would make excellent protein additions that keep the soup vegan.
Vegetable Dumpling Soup
Ingredients
For the dumplings:
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp fresh thyme
- 1/4 tsp cracked pepper
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 cup warm water
For the soup:
- 1 tbsp. olive oil
- 1 medium-sized white onion finely chopped
- 2 celery stalks finely chopped
- 2 medium-sized carrots finely chopped
- 5 stems of green onion finely chopped
- 1 tbsp. vegan butter
- 1 tbsp all-purpose flour heaped
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 1 tsp fresh cracked pepper
- 1 tsp fresh thyme
- 1 tbsp. vegetable stock paste mixed with 1 1/2 cups boiling water
- 7 cups boiling water
Instructions
- Start by making the dough. Combine your flour, baking powder, sea salt and herbs. Create a well in the center of your flour mixture and pour oil and warm water into the middle. Using a spatula fold together until sticky and well combined. It will be wet and sticky but this is what you’re looking for. Form into a ball and place a tea towel on top and let it rest while you make your soup.
- To a large pot add your olive oil and heat on medium heat for 1 minute before adding onions. Cook the onions for 7-8 minutes or until translucent. To the pot add your carrots, celery and green onion. Cook them for 7-8 minutes while stirring often to avoid burning. Scrape any brown bits that develop at the base of the pot with a wooden spoon.
- To the pot, add your vegan butter and let it melt. Add your flour and stir till everything is coated. Now season with salt and pepper and add your fresh thyme. Give everything one more stir to ensure everything is well coated with flour. Increase heat to high and add 1 tbsp of vegetable stock paste + 1 1/2 cups of boiling water to the pot. Stir and scrape any loose bits from the bottom of the pan. Once your water has almost reduced and the rest of the water and bring soup to a boil. Cook till the vegetables are tender.
- Grab your dough mixture and using a tbsp. begin scooping little balls and dropping them into the soup. It’s not an overly fancy or particular process, just make sure you’re using a tbsp. Cook for around 5 minutes before removing from heat.
- Serve with fresh dill and your favourite vegan sour cream!
Video
This soup is very light and wholesome! I enjoyed making it for this year’s autumn soups in our house. It’s relatively easy to throw together and doesn’t take very long at all. I did add vegan chicken seasoning into the soup and a little into the dumplings themselves to punch up that flavor. I also am not the biggest fan of celery so I used a little celery salt as a sub and added some bok choy and spinach I had instead. I did also make a smaller portion of this with potatoes as it is a lighter soup and it was still delicious. Highly recommend!
Thank you so much for the love!!!
The dumplings were delicious, and the flavor of the soup was great! However, I wish it had been more hearty. My family was a little disappointed and still hungry. Next time I’ll probably add some potatoes and kidney beans.
Sounds good!
I made this while I was feeling sick and wanted something warm and comforting, and it did not disappoint! In all honesty, I only used this recipe for the dumplings and then went ahead and made my own soup, but it was delicious none the less. The dumplings are so simple to make and have so much flavor from the thyme!! I loved it so so much, thank you for sharing this recipe!
thank you so much, kennie! I really love this recipe!!!
Hi, when do you add in the 7 cups of water?
Please reference step 3 in the detailed recipe instructions we’ve provided.
Hey, this recipe looks amazing and would love to make it tomorrow. I was wondering what step do you add the rest of the water in? All I’ve read is that you wait til the water has evaporated.. nothing about adding broth in. Thank you in advance!
water and veg stock paste OR vegetable broth would replace the water
This vegetable soup with dumplings was so delicious! Much better than ones I’ve been making, and I used less vegetable bouillon. thanks
wonderful!! this makes me so happy!
Even in the heat of the long Texas summer, I crave this soup. It is perfect — not a single tweak needed. Today is the seventh time in a year that I’ve made it.
I can’t thank you enough, Maria.
thank you so much for your support! I love this recipe so much too!
I cooked the veggies in a pan with the butter, flour and the spices then dumped it in with Chicken broth and the dumplings in a slow cooker for a couple and it turned out great! Will be making this again!
AMAZING!!! What a tip! Thank you!
Super satisfying dumpling soup.
thank you so much kate
Omg, this was SO good!! I purged the freezer and added froz corn, okra and green beans and added leftover leeks and did 3-4 cloves of minced garlic. This was like a gumbo, so filling and great tasting! Ty for posting this, it’ll be one of our favorite soups!
love that for you so much!!!