This French sorrel soup recipe is creamy, “comfort-food delicious. Our family members all voted it to be a 5 star recipe. Hoping you’ll love it too!
So we found this recipe for Polish Sorrel Soup and changed it according to our preferences and available ingredients, and recommend that you do the same. It’s easy to substitute with other ingredients that will also taste good because this basic recipe has “good bones” around which you can easily adapt.
You can find lots of information about the many wonderful sorrel benefits to health here on our gardening website, or about growing French sorrel in general.
For another delicious greens soup, try our Tuscan sausage potato soup with white beans and kale. (Vegetarian sausage or meat are optional).
Sorrel Soup – a Favorite Spring Greens Soup
When making our sorrel soup, if our sorrel plants are in blossom, we include those as well. They’re mildly tasty plus add great nutrition and additional fiber and greens flavor. They have a little less zesty flavor than the leaves but still add a nice tough.
Substitutes for Sorrel
Don’t have sorrel (or enough sorrel for this dish)? No problem! This recipe is also delicious with other greens.
Sorrel Substitutes With Similarly Pleasant Hints of Tart, Spicy or Bitter
These greens have some similar tart, flavors that work well as sorrel substitutes.
- Lemon balm
- Mustard
- Rhubarb
- Wood sorrel – wild sorrel you can find in woodlands and meadows (and maybe in your yard)!
Greens to Substitute for Sorrel in This Recipe
Familiar and unique leaves to try. Give it a nibble of any these that you haven’t already eaten and if you like it, use them it in small quantities your first time. For more edible leaves of vegetables and fruits here.
- Amaranth leaves
- Avocado leaves
- Chard
- Hibiscus leaves
- Kale
- Spinach
- Squash leaves
These leafy green sorrel substitutes aren’t included because they taste like sorrel, but rather because they lend well to the entire recipe, and imbue it differently but also delightfully. To use the greens in this list you may want to add some lemon juice, lemon peel or lemon balm herb to provide a hint of citrusy tang.
A Note on the Quantities of this Recipe
We love to double recipes in order to make “planned-overs” that we can enjoy for several days throughout the week.
But feel free to scale back on this and reduce to half. (But you’re probably going to want lots of leftover on this dish!
Just remember that greens cook way down, so while one pound or 16-20 cups of sorrel (or other greens) sounds like a lot, it cooks down to a very small amount.
Creamy French Sorrel Soup Recipe
Ingredients
- 12 cups Vegetable broth (or bouillon)
- 2 large carrot peeled and sliced
- 1 cup arugula (or fresh parsley)
- 6 medium potatoes cubed
- 2 each bay leaf
- 2 tablespoon butter
- 1 pound sorrel (~16-20 cups; it will cook WAY DOWN)
- 2 cups sour cream (sub w/ half & half
- 2 tablespoon all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tablespoon salt (or to taste)
- 1 teaspoon black pepper fresh ground,(to taste)
- 2 tablespoons Fresh dill (or parsley or marjoram) chopped, for garnish
- 4 large hard-boiled eggs cut into quarters, slices or strips with an egg slicer.
Instructions
- Gather the ingredients.
- Boil: In a large soup pot, add the broth (or water and bouillon)
- Add cubed carrots and potatoes and bay leaf, return to a boil, then cover and reduce heat to a low simmer. Check at about 10 minutes, continue cooking if needed, until tender.
- While veggies and broth are cooking, melt butter in a dutch oven or large sauté plan. Add the garlic scapes (or garlic) and green onions (or onions). Sauté on medium heat for 5-10 minutes (until mostly tender).
- Add the chopped, washed sorrel to the garlic/onion mix and sauté all for 5-10 minutes until sorrel is wilted and tender but not overcooked.
- Stir in chopped parsley then transfer the sorrel and sauteed herbs to the soup pot, bring to a boil, then reduce to a low simmer.
- Add sour cream to the empty (but seasoned) sauté pan and add the flour, using a fork or whisk to blend the sour cream with the flour.
- Temper by adding a few ladles of hot soup to the sour cream flour mix, whisking constantly until smooth.
- Transfer tempered sour cream mixture to the soup pot, stir in well. Season with salt and pepper.
- Simmer until thickened but do not boil. Taste and adjust the seasonings.
- Dish soup into serving bowls and garnish with chopped dill, parsley or marjoram and hard-boiled egg quarters.