Tuscan Mushroom and Gnocchi Soup

This soup is so easy to put together, has so many simple but special ingredients, and has sooo much flavor bursting out of every corner. The best way I can describe it is to tell you to imagine that your favorite mushroom soup and your favorite Tuscan pasta had a food baby. Today's soup is that baby!

Let's start with the mushrooms. We're going to use 2 kinds of mushrooms, 2 different ways for this soup. First, we'll use some dried shiitake mushrooms to make a quick mushroom broth. All we need to do is let the dried mushrooms rehydrate in some boiling water, and let them steep for about an hour. That's it! The mushrooms infuse their savory umami flavor into the water, and it really helps to deepen the mushroomy flavor in our soup. Now, these mushrooms will be wet and soggy after they soak, so we're going to go ahead and discard them when we're finished.

For our second set of mushrooms, we'll saute some baby bella mushrooms in a little butter along with some onions. We'll wait until they start to caramelize and brown, then we'll add in some garlic and some chopped sun dried tomatoes to the party.

Once our veggies are nice and fragrant, we'll use some white wine to deglaze our pan and add a little depth of flavor to our soup. Cook the wine until it's mostly evaporated, add a little flour to the veggies to help thicken our soup and give it a little body, then it's time to add back our mushroom broth along with some vegetable broth to really start to build our soup.

Once we let everything simmer together for a few minutes so the flavors start to meld, we'll add in some uncooked gnocchi straight to our soup. I like to use the shelf stable gnocchi that you can buy in a package in the pasta aisle, but you can oftentimes find prepared gnocchi in the freezer section, as well. Either way, we're going to let our gnocchi cook right in our soup liquid. Once our little potato pasta nuggets start floating to the top of our pot, it's time to add in our finishing ingredients: a can of evaporated milk for creaminess, a couple handfuls of baby spinach for freshness, and a sprinkle of freshly grated parmesan cheese for richness.

This soup is so hearty, so comforting, and so darn delicious. The mushrooms add a savory aspect to the soup. The sun dried tomatoes add an almost herbaceous flavor to the soup. The milk and cheese add a creamy richness to the soup. And, that pillowy gnocchi is the ultimate carb that really makes this soup feel like a full meal.

This soup is proof that we don't need meat to have a stick to your ribs, hearty soup. You won't even miss the meat. I'd call this a total Meatless Monday win!

Ok, everyone. It's time to switch gears over to holiday mode, so we have a couple of festive recipes coming up next!

Until then, enjoy! And, let's eat!