Slow Cooker Hot and Sour Cabbage Soup with Shiitake Mushrooms

Categories : easy peasy, lent, main dishes, potatoes & vegetables, Recipes, Slow Cooker @en, soups & salads, vegetarian or vegan

A throw-it-all-in slow cooker recipe (the best kind) for hot and sour soup with green cabbage and fresh shiitake mushrooms. This one is on repeat around here these days.

Slow Cooker Hot and Sour Cabbage Soup with Shiitake Mushrooms www.thefoodiecorner.gr Photo description: One bowl of soup on a marble surface. A bit further away is a tiny bowl of chilli flakes, with some of the flakes scattered on the marble.

It’s like two days before Christmas and I’m posting cabbage soup. Weird? Well, I’ve never been one to keep up with seasonal posts. Whether it’s Christmas mains or summer fruit desserts, I’m usually too late. I’ve kind of accepted it now and don’t get all frazzled about it like I used to.

Anyway, so what about this soup? Well, it’s delicious, but more about that in a minute. The idea came about after I developed and photographed another recipe for a collaboration. They have common ingredients and I had some left over, so this was my way to use them up. The other recipe is coming soon, as it was decided that I would post it after the holidays – so stay tuned!

Slow Cooker Hot and Sour Cabbage Soup with Shiitake Mushrooms www.thefoodiecorner.gr Photo description: A close, ¾ view of a bowl of soup with a spoon in it, the backlighting making the surface of the liquid slightly shiny.

Back to the deliciousness of this soup. Have you tried hot and sour soup? Mrs D and I used to order it years ago from a Chinese restaurant that delivered food. It was seriously intense in a clear-your-sinuses kind of way, and we absolutely loved it.

This slow cooker hot and sour soup is by no means the authentic Chinese one, but it does remind me of those lovely dinners all that time ago. This is a much simpler dish, with ingredients that are (fairly) easy to find even in Greek supermarkets, and a method that is by far my favourite. The chuck it all in and go method. Slow cookers for the win, right? The soup is fiery but not to the extent you can’t eat it (for some it might even be considered mild, my tolerance levels have dropped in recent years). The flavour explodes in your mouth with every spoonful. It’s warming and comforting, not to mention nutritious and easy. All the wins.

Slow Cooker Hot and Sour Cabbage Soup with Shiitake Mushrooms www.thefoodiecorner.gr Photo description: Three bowls of soup on a marble surface. Beside one of the bowls are three spoons.

Comfort food is what I’m needing these days, everything is so completely up in the air. I am not the most Christmassy person out there even during “normal” times, but this year feels especially strange. Or maybe that’s just an excuse because I couldn’t get my act together to create something festive for my poor neglected blog. Either way, I’m rolling with it and not beating myself up.

So, if your Christmas this year is a weird one and you don’t particularly feel like the usual things, give yourself permission to do whatever it is you DO feel like. Whether it’s hot and sour cabbage soup with mushrooms or way too much chocolate, roll with it. We’re all trying to get through this madness.

Slow Cooker Hot and Sour Cabbage Soup with Shiitake Mushrooms www.thefoodiecorner.gr Photo description: One bowl of soup on a marble surface. Visible inside the soup are the vegetables and a couple of whole mushrooms.

Ingredients

700 gr green cabbage, sliced fairly thinly

200 gr fresh shiitake mushrooms, roughly chopped

70 gr red bell pepper, sliced

2 garlic cloves, minced

60 ml (1/4 cup) apple vinegar

45 ml (3 Tbs) soy sauce

30 ml (2 Tbs) virgin (untoasted) sesame oil (or other neutral vegetable oil)

30 ml (2 Tbs) tomato paste

15 ml (1 Tbs) fresh ginger, grated

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp flakey sea salt

1/4 tsp white pepper

1/4 tsp chilli flakes

500 ml hot mushroom stock

500 ml hot water

Step 1

Chuck it all in the slow cooker and cook on high for 6-7 hours or until the cabbage is soft enough for you.

Step 2

That’s what the instructions should look like here. Instead, it seems SEO wants a more detailed description (food blogger problems, lol). So here goes:

Step 3

Put the cabbage, mushrooms, red pepper and garlic into the slow cooker insert. Pour in the apple vinegar, soy sauce and sesame oil. Add the tomato paste, ginger, sugar, salt, pepper and chilli flakes. Pour the mushroom stock and water all over everything and cook on high for 6-7 hours. At some point you want to give everything a good stir. The soup is ready when the cabbage is soft enough for you.