Vegetarian Lotus Root with Chestnuts and Carrots Chinese Soup
Soup Name: Vegetarian Lotus Root with Chestnuts and Carrots Chinese Soup
Traditional Chinese Name: 蓮藕栗子素湯 (Lián’ǒu lìzǐ sù tāng)
Nature: Cooling
This is a great, earthy, slightly nutty light soup great for the whole family and vegetarian friendly!
I’m using dried mushrooms to replace pork bones and trying to honour the flavour profile of the lotus roots and carrots. Slightly sweet, slightly earthy, that hint of nuttiness, but in a light broth that’s savory and smooth.
You can explore more vegetarian substitutes for meats in Chinese soups and get creative!
What’s involved?
Prep time: 15 mins
Cook time: 2 hour and 30 mins
Total time: 2 hour and 45 mins
Serves: 8 bowls
Ingredients
2-3 lotus roots, peeled & sliced
1 fresh carrot, cut into large pieces
- 5-6 dried shiitake mushrooms
- 5 slices of dried Chinese yam
Cooking Instructions
- Pre-soak your dried Chinese shiitake mushrooms in a bowl for 2 hours until they soften
- Remove the stems from the mushrooms
- Prepare your soup water on high heat with the 2 L of cold water in your thermal soup pot
- In a shallow pan, add 1 tablespoon of cooking oil and on medium heat, pan fry the mushrooms with a bit of salt until fragrant and slightly browned on both sides
- Wash & peel the lotus root, cutting into large pieces
- Wash, peel, and cut carrot into large cubes
- Wash, peel, and cut corn into large pieces
- When the water boils, add all the ingredients together
- Boil on medium to high heat for 30 minutes
- You can continue to boil on low heat for another 2 hours or put into your thermal pot
- Serve and enjoy!
Any benefits?
- A neutral soup ideal for the whole family
- Better for dryer, cooler weather as chestnuts are known to be a little bit wet and warming in nature
- A versatile soup where you can change it up a bit and add other vegetables such as Chinese Yam, chayotes, or potatoes
- Be sure to buy good quality Chinese dried mushrooms
For videos, visit us on YouTube.
- All the Q&As (from all 5 channels consolidated)
- Exclusive content for members
- Meet other soup-ies!
- Get the down-loadables
- Explore the library of knowledge
- Start small. Start simple. Repeat.
- The ultimate Parent’s Guide to Making Chinese soups for children – learn TCM concepts, which informs soup design, and base recipes, along with an ingredient tracker.
Your new site is harder to navigate. I like the search function before where we can search certain ingredients and you’ll provide related recipes. Now it’s localized to seasons:
I totally agree with this comment. The older format was definitely more user friendly! Nonetheless, thank you for the content and for sharing the recipes!
Thanks guys! I will think about this migration. It’s been a lot of work!! Realizing it’s not easy to keep up with the different type of trends in technology to keep this site SEO friendly. I may need some outside help with this! Thank you for your continued support! Lisa
Thanks, Jessica. Great feedback. Let me think on this! There’s still the search function on the top right… it’s just porting these recipes have been painful… I may need outside help! And the site’s been hacked a few times, so getting security into this is also a pain, hence the new layout. Appreciate the feedback for sure!! Thank you!
Hi do you use chestnuts or water chestnuts? I can’t see it in the picture
Dear Michelle, oh my apologies! I’m using normal chestnuts for this recipe. The nice pairing is usually roots with chestnuts. They are both earthy tones and generally come together with eliminating dampness in the body! Thanks for pointing this out! Lisa