This humble cabbage, sweet onion and porcini mushroom soup is as simple, honest, and delicious as it gets. Served hot and slurpy with flecks of wild rice, it’s the kind of soup that comforts and fortifies body and soul. Fit this into your autumn and winter lunch or dinner repertoire for a nourishing, earthy boost.
No doubt your inbox is full of beautiful, festive food. Snow-white cakes, glistening with sugared cranberries; pops of vivid orange from all of those Hasselback squashes, drifts of icing sugared candies and cookies. I just love pinning and dreaming at this time of year, and wishing I had time to make everything that takes my fancy. And believe me, a lot takes my fancy.
But sometimes beauty isn’t everything. This is just such a time. What this soup lacks in looks (and it is fairly beastly-looking) it more than makes up for in taste, simplicity and pure comfort. 
Built on a stock made of ordinary brown onions, slowly magicked from pungent to perfume, this simple melange of humble white cabbage, dried porcini mushrooms and just a palmful of wild rice is truly as good as it gets for a wintry soup. 
I’ve kept it very basic but any hard vegetables would be welcome: carrots, parsnips, squash, salsify spring to mind. You could also use toasted buckwheat, brown rice or quinoa instead of the wild rice. I happened to have an open packet of a Waitrose red Camargue and wild rice mix, but I’ll use buckwheat another time for extra silky-bodied texture. You can even ditch the dried porcini if it isn’t a store cupboard staple for you.
You’ll also see some little fripperies – crispbreads and dinky little butter-fried figs. I’ve recently been experimenting with my beloved Scandinavian Multi-Seed Crispbread recipe and hit on a version that loves both soup and a cheeseboard. I’ll post it very soon as I think a little package of these with some homemade chutney would make a great gift for fellow food lovers.
cranberry-hazelnut crispbreads by kelliesfoodtoglow.com – recipe coming soon!
So, I’m sorry that I’ve ruined the look of your inbox with my brown ol’ soup. But I’m also not sorry because it is mighty delicious and has a gorgeous, comforting texture. It truly is beautiful on the inside, which is what counts, right?
In and amongst the fancy food, mince pies and cocktails, real meals need to be eaten. Make this up and pop it into the freezer for that time – for it will come – when you can’t face another fancy meal. I was going to say fancy feast, but that’s a cat food brand so I will assume you’ve never fancied that. 🙂
What’s taking your fancy foodwise on Pinterest, Facebook or your inbox? What will you just have to make?
Sweet Onion, Cabbage and Wild Rice Soup
This humble cabbage, sweet onion and porcini mushroom soup is as simple, honest, and delicious as it gets. Served hot and slurpy with flecks of wild rice, it’s the kind of soup that comforts and fortifies body and soul. Fit this into your autumn and winter lunch or dinner repertoire for a nourishing, earthy boost. xx
40g unsalted butter (or 40ml -more- olive oil)
40ml olive oil
500-600g brown onions (4 fat onions), peeled, halved, thinly sliced
2 bay leaves
1.7 litre (7 & 1/4 cups) light vegetable stock (I like Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillon)
3 tbsp wild rice or wild rice mix (or any grain/pseudo-grain you like)
10g dried porcini mushroom or other flavourful wild mushrooms, torn or chopped
350g cabbage (about a quarter of a cabbage, any kind), thinly sliced
Method
Heat the fats in a lidded pan over a low-medium flame, and add the onions, the bay leaves, and a good pinch of salt (salt keeps the onions from burning). Cook slowly for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add the stock, rice and porcini. Simmer for 25 minutes, then add the cabbage. Bring back up to a simmer and cook for about five more minutes. If you are using buckwheat, cook for 15 minutes before adding the cabbage.
Serve with crispbreads, wholegrain bread or just as it is.
Soft food diet: Blend until smooth.
RIPE FOR PINNING!
This is totally delicious – healthy french onion soup. Great work!!!
Thanks, taster-in-chief xx
I totally have to try this! I love Soups but never tried to make one with cabbage! Now I will ! Thanks for sharing!
I really hope that you do because cabbage in winter soups is really good!
I love that you love the humble cabbage as much as I do. It does magic things for flavoring a soup, doesn’t it! What a great idea to top with some butter-fried figs too! And I’ll definitely try the cabbage/buckwheat combo in this soup. Now I’m anxiously waiting for your cracker recipe too! Thinking I could use them to go with a cheese platter of baked brie topped with blackberry jam.
Thanks so much, Katie. Cabbage so unprepossessing but I absolutely adore it, especially in soups like this. My Polish-English friend Ren gave it her seal of approval over on Instagram, too. I had thought it might be quite east European but didn’t like to say so. I will post the crackers very soon. We basically inhaled half a batch with cheeses, crudites and chutney for a lazy rather unhealthy dinner last week! 😉
Thanks, Katie for loving my humble soup. I was surprised (I don’t know why though) at how well it turned out. A proper keeper. Oh, crispbread is up later today 🙂
Made it for lunch today for guests and it got approval all around. Today is grocery day, so had just 1/4 cabbage and 1 very large onion left. Perfect for this soup. And I used buckwheat instead of wild rice. This is definitely a keeper and such a warming meal for cold weather. Thanks for the much needed inspiration!
Suprising how such simple and everyday ingredients make such a delicious soup.. 🙂
I know what you mean. This is definitely a case of more than the sum of its parts. It’s hearty and pretty tasty. My husband said he could eat it all winter 😉
This looks delicious and easy to make, I love making french onion soup, this looks like a healthier alternative 🙂
That’s what my husband thought, too! I hadn’t really made the French onion soup connection(!) but it really is a healthier version. Let me know here or on Instagram (I’m food_to_glow) if you make it 🙂
Looks like a lovely soup, Kellie. My mother in law makes a wonderful sauerkraut soup for the holidays that this sort of reminds me of, though this version looks much healthier and more straightforward. I’m not much of a fan of mushrooms but am coming around to some of the wilder ones, and might just be willing to brave them for this soup!
Heartwarming and delicious! I love the rustic bowls too. This makes me want to be in a cottage in the Highlands next to a roaring fire.
Hi! I can’t seem to find US measurements on this! Just wanted to fyi! I’ll look up the butter measurement and that should be it! One question: what are brown onions? will regular red onions do instead? thanks!
Hi Juhi. I didn’t have a recipe card plug in when writing up this recipe. I apologise. More recent recipes have that option. As for the onion, brown onion refers to the skin colour, which is more a deep gold in actual fact. Red onion is absolutely fine, but it will change the colour of the dish from how it’s shown here. It will still taste great though. Or I hope you think so 😊