
My mum simplified the recipe she learned from her mother, and made it vegan. I simplified it a bit more. The basic version for vegan peanut butter soup is just three ingredients. It’s perfect for bulk cooking and freezing. You can add extra things either whilst you’re cooking it or when you’re about to serve or reheat it. Enjoy!
Table of Contents
Ingredients
I rarely measure ingredients. Here’s a rough guide of what I use, but this recipe is very forgiving, so feel free to use what you want and modify as you like. 🙂
- Onions, diced
(I use Tesco Micro Chopped Shallot And Red Onion 180G, £1.50) - 1 tin of tomatoes
(I use Essential Waitrose Peeled Plum Tomatoes 4 x 400g, £1.75) - 1 or 2 heaped tablespoons of smooth or crunchy peanut butter
(I use Meridian Natural Peanut Butter Crunchy No Salt 1kg, £6.99) - Turmeric, optional
- Black pepper, optional
- Spinach, choi sum, chard or other greens, optional
How to make vegan peanut butter soup with just three ingredients
- Put the onions, with some water, into a tall container. Blend with a stick blender.
I use a container that has a lid, so that I can store the finished soup in the same container and do less washing up.
You can use a food processor instead of a stick blender. - Put the blended onions in a saucepan to boil, then turn the stove down to the lowest heat possible and leave to simmer.
- If you’re adding seasonings, you can do that now.
- Stir occasionally to make sure it’s not sticking to the bottom of the pot. You can add extra water if necessary.
- Put the peanut butter and tomatoes into your tall container. Blend with a stick blender.
- Pour the blended peanut butter and tomatoes into the saucepan
- Stir occasionally and leave on the fire for an hour or so. You will need to watch the pan more when you’ve added the peanut butter, because the ingredients will be more likely to stick to the pan.
- Once the oil starts to appear on the surface, it’s done. But also, if it’s been bubbling away on the fire for one or two hours it’s done, even if you don’t see any oil.
- If you’re adding greens, stir them in now
With thanks to Mum and Rudy <3
Optional extras
You can add other ingredients to this or eat it with other things.
It’s great over plain rice or baked sweet potatoes, with sweetcorn, petit pois, broccoli, and salad leaves.
You can include red lentils or black eye beans along with the onions.
If you’re used to eating salt, toasted nori or other seaweeds are nice to add when serving.
My mum seasons hers with cayenne pepper.
Adaptations
Onions: If you have the energy and time, you could use whole onions and blend or chop them yourself.
Tomatoes: If you don’t have the energy or equipment for blending, you could use chopped tomatoes for a different texture or, use tomato puree (not whole food) and smooth peanut butter.
Peanut butter: You can get cheaper peanut butters, they may have added oil, sugar, salt. You can make peanut butter yourself by blending roasted peanuts. Soaking them first makes it easier.
Inspiration and ideas
I looked for good recipes online. They are all much more complex than this, and most of them aren’t vegan. I do like Naija Vegan’s recipe, except I would saute the onions in water, not oil.
You could use this recipe as inspiration or a guide for quantities.
