Vegan Cheesy Smoky Chipotle Potato Cabbage Soup - Rawmazing Raw and Cooked Vegan Recipes (2024)

Susan|December 10, 2015

I had an interesting experience this morning. I tried a new vegan egg product that some people have been raving about. It’s a little out of my wheel house as I try to stay with real, whole food. Food that hasn’t been processed. I believe that a whole food, plant based diet is the optimal diet for us. Any time you start trying to make a whole out of parts (think soy protein isolates which are used in so many processed soy vegan products and are not healthy for us), you have seriously alteredfood’s relationship to the body.

When I took T. Collin Campbell’s Plant Based Nutrition Certification program, this was the one of the most important thing that I learned. You see, when you start taking food apart, molecularly, the body doesn’t recognize it as food anymore. And it doesn’t respond to it as it would in it’s whole form. So processed food really is the enemy. Even if it is vegan processed food.

Back to the eggs. It would be an understatement if I said I was disappointed. They looked fantastic. Just like scrambled eggs. But the taste…nothing like I remember. Even tossed with beautifully sautéed mushrooms, I found it not to my liking at all. My tastebuds are geared towards real food and all I tasted was fake.

I understand the argument for processed vegan food. They are said to be “transitional” foods for people who are starting on their vegan journey but don’t want to give up their animal based foods. They want chicken substitutions, and meat substitutions, etc. So these products fill a void. Unfortunately, not in a healthy way.

My wish is that people would concentrate on eating real, whole plant based food. The wonderful thing is that the further along you get on your journey, the more you adapt. You no longer miss the heavily salted, heavy processed food. You crave healthy, whole food. When you have an arsenal of good recipes, you don’t need the processed stuff any more.

So you make a cashew cheese sauce. Does it taste like a traditional cheese sauce? No. But it still tastes great. Just in a different way.

Which is how this whole recipe started. I was in the kitchen, making a chipotle cheese spread. I like to have one on hand to satisfy my snacking urges. A couple of crackers with a great cashew cheese spread goes a very long way when you are having a snack attack. I also love to have it on hand to add to potatoes, or pour over other veggies.

At the same time I was making this chipotle cheese spread, I had a huge pot of potato cabbage soup going on the stove. I was so happy with my mushroom miso cleansing soup, I decided to make another version, this time with potatoes and fennel.

The soup was done and tasting delicious. The chipotle spread was done and tasting delicious. And then it happened. I looked at the soup, then back at the spread. Back to the soup and then back to the spread again. I couldn’t resist. I dropped a spoonful of the spread into my bowl of hot soup and oh boy. It was perfection.

So today I am actually bringing you three recipes. The soup, the sauce, and the soup with sauce!

What are your favorite combinations? What are your favorite recipes to keep the snack monster at bay? I would love to hear!