• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • All Recipes
  • About
Occasionally Eggs

Occasionally Eggs

Healthy Vegetarian Recipes for Every Season

  • Cookbook
  • Contact
Soups and Stews

Vegetarian Borscht

September 9, 2020 by Alexandra Daum
A healthier vegan borscht, packed with winter vegetables and plenty of fresh dill. The veggies are shredded in a food processor to speed things up here.
Jump to Recipe
A bowl of red beet borscht topped with dill and yogurt.

I grew up in a region of Canada that’s host to a lot of people with eastern European ancestry – Ukrainian, mostly, so there was always borscht and pierogi around. Though my dad’s family was also German speaking, we think they were probably from Prussia and so also carried these kinds of foods with them. (I don’t really know, and most of my food education was really German from my mom, with some Italian and Indian in the mix – immigrants make friends with immigrants, you know?)

Since beets, carrots, and potatoes are all stars of the harsh Manitoba gardening season, borscht, or red beet soup, was a mainstay. Not vegetarian then, but this plant based version is really excellent. I know beets are kind of love it or lump it, and if you really hate that earthy sweetness that beets have, this isn’t the recipe for you. Try my chocolate beet muffins instead.

It’s a lighter soup that works well anytime from autumn to spring, whenever you might see beets growing in gardens, but I think it’s best in autumn when the main crop potatoes are ready. New potatoes shouldn’t be shredded up into soup.

I typically serve this with sourdough rye bread to make a meal, but if you want something more protein-focused, try this wintery lentil borscht, which also features red cabbage. If you’ve never had borscht, it is a slightly sour soup and has a distinct earthy/sour flavour that isn’t for everyone – but if you like beets, you’ll love it.

A bowl of red beet borscht topped with dill and yogurt.

Ingredients

  • Beets
  • Carrots
  • Potatoes
  • Onion (white or red, it doesn’t matter)
  • Garlic
  • Olive oil
  • A can of tomatoes
  • Vegetable stock
  • Salt and pepper
  • Mustard
  • Apple cider vinegar (optional)
  • Fresh dill
Borscht ingredients as a flat lay.

Method

Grate the vegetables using the grating attachment on a food processor or with the large side of a box grater. If using a processor, the garlic can be added with everything else. If not, mince the garlic instead.

Shredded vegetables in a food processor.

Heat a large pot over medium heat and add the olive oil. Once the pot is hot, add all of the grated vegetables and cook, stirring occasionally, for a few minutes. You’ll see the veg starts to sweat and the volume will decrease. Don’t worry if it sticks a bit to the bottom of the pot, the stock will lift any of that when it’s added.

Once the vegetables have cooked down slightly, stir in the tomatoes, vegetable stock, salt, and pepper. Increase the heat to bring the soup to a rolling boil, then lower the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes, covered.

Check to make sure the vegetables are cooked through, then remove from the heat and add the mustard and dill. Taste and season as needed, then serve with extra dill and a spoonful of (vegan) yogurt.

A bowl of red beet borscht topped with dill and yogurt.

Tips and Notes

I know mustard might seem like a strange thing to add. It plays a large role in my lentil potato stew, as well, and it’s a bit surprising but very tasty. Mustard is a bit hot and a bit sour, so it adds to the sharpness of the soup, while also adding a bit of kick.

If you have a food processor with a grating attachment, it makes very short work of the vegetables and I highly recommend it. Grating all of this by hand takes ages and increases the prep time significantly, but it’s certainly possible, and easier with extra hands if you have someone around to cook with.

Vinegar is optional depending on how sour you like your borscht. I always add it but Graham doesn’t like it so much. If you’re vegan, I suggest a plain mild yogurt like an oat or lupine based version. Coconut is a no-go.

As with any soup, I can’t stress enough how important it is to season to taste. Most of the time homemade soup is lacking salt and that’s all it needs. I write recipes to publish with less salt than I actually use to account for your tastes rather than mine – I generally use about double what’s written for savoury recipes. Season to taste.

Potatoes, beets, and carrots in a large colander.

Substitutions

The vegetables, apart from the beets, can be a bit flexible here. Add parsnips, or celeriac, cabbage, chard, whatever you like that’s in season. I like the heartiness the potatoes add but do often switch carrot for parsnip especially moving further into winter.

If you don’t have vegetable stock on hand, feel free to use water and season appropriately. It’s also possible to use dried dill, or even dill seed, but certainly use fresh if you can. Frozen or freeze dried are good options too.

An equal amount of fresh tomatoes can be subbed in for canned – my plants just don’t do well enough here to think of putting my hard-won garden tomatoes into a soup! If you’re in that transitional period between summer and autumn and have an abundance, though, it’s very nice to use fresh tomatoes here.

More Beet Recipes

Beets and Greens Tart
Winter Salad with Beets, Orange, and Pomegranate
Roasted Beet Lentil Salad
Double Chocolate Beetroot Cake

Two bowls of borscht topped with yogurt and dill.

Let’s connect! For more OE, follow along on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest, purchase the Occasionally Eggs cookbook, or subscribe for new posts via email. If you make this recipe, I’d love to see! Tag your instagram versions with @occasionallyeggs.

Yield: 8

Vegetarian Borscht

Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 40 minutes
4.75 from 8 votes

Ingredients

Metric – American
  • 3 medium beets
  • 2 medium carrots
  • 2 medium potatoes
  • ½ a large onion
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 400 ml canned tomatoes
  • 2 litres 8 cups vegetable stock
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt
  • ½ teaspoon black pepper
  • 1 teaspoon dijon mustard
  • 10 grams fresh dill, plus extra for serving
  • 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar optional
  • Yogurt for serving

Instructions

  • Prepare your vegetables as needed, then run the beets, carrots, potatoes, onion, and garlic through the shredding attachment on a food processor. Alternatively, shred on the large side of a box grater and mince the garlic.
  • Heat a large pot over medium heat and add the olive oil. Once it’s hot, add the shredded vegetables and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the volume is reduced and the vegetables are sweating and starting to brown.
  • Add the canned tomatoes, vegetable stock, salt, and pepper. Cover and bring the soup to a rolling boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for about 20 minutes.
  • Check that the vegetables are cooked through, then remove from the heat and add the mustard, dill, and vinegar (if using). Taste and season as needed.
  • Serve immediately, topped with yogurt (vegan if needed) and extra dill. Borscht freezes very well, up to a month in a sealed container, and can also be eaten cold if preferred.

Notes

• This is a rough amount of vegetables needed because it’s not necessary to be specific in terms of grams – a little more or less doesn’t matter. Potatoes and onion should be roughly fist sized, carrots and beets about the same but often longer so it’s hard to tell.

Nutrition

Serving: 1bowl Calories: 91kcal Carbohydrates: 20g Protein: 4g Fat: 1g Sodium: 773mg Fiber: 4g Sugar: 9g
© Alexandra Daum
Course: Soups and Stews
Cuisine: European
Print

Newsletter

Sign up for weekly updates and subscriber-only recipes.

This post was originally published in 2014. It has been updated with improvements to the recipe and text and new photos were added as of September 2020.

More Soups and Stews:

A bowl of tomato soup with rough croutons and pesto added.Roasted Tomato, Zucchini, and Eggplant Soup
Woman's hands holding a bowl of cabbage soup.Cabbage Lentil Soup
A bowl of chickpea vegetable soup with bread.Chickpea Soup
A bowl of soup on a plate with bread and lime pieces.End of Summer Spicy Black Bean Soup

Previous Post: « Easy Overnight Dark Rye Bread
Next Post: Vegan Gluten Free Banana Bread »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Comments

  1. Alexandra Daum says

    November 1, 2015 at 9:00 pm

    Hi there! I'm really glad to hear you made (and liked!) the recipe, and that you used garden veggies! That's a great suggestion, thank you. I might update the recipe to reflect that if I can find some time. It freezes really well 🙂 Thank you!

    Reply
  2. BarnOwlBaker says

    October 31, 2015 at 4:31 am

    Hi! I just made this soup last night, using almost everything fresh from our last garden harvest. It is delicious and even tastes like it's healthy for you. Topped it with a swirl of Greek yogurt. Thank you for the inspiration to make a grated veggie soup! One suggestion I have is to give a rough idea of how many veggies to grate in your food processor to make 1 cup of each – I over did the quantity for a few veggies as I didn't realize how quickly 1 cup appears! This recipe makes a lot of soup and I will freeze some for later. I am really enjoying your other recipe ideas too! Great blog!

    Reply

About Alexandra
Recipes
FAQ
Contact
Work With Me
Site Credits

STAY IN CONTACT
get weekly updates, exclusive recipes, and more

   

Get the cookbook

© 2022 Occasionally Eggs | Images and text may not be used without permission | Privacy Policy