Creamy Vegan Southwest Soup in the Instant Pot

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This plant based soup has a spicy creamy fire roasted tomato broth with black beans, vegan chicken and other veggies. I make this recipe in my Instant Pot but you could easily make it on the stove top just by bringing all of the ingredients to a simmer. Cashews are blended up to make this soup creamy. I use lots of spices like cumin, smoked paprika, chili powder and oregano to give this vegan soup recipe lots of flavor. Heres the full ingredients for this recipe:

Ingredients for Vegan Southwest soup:

FOR THE SOUP

• 1 onion diced
• 3 garlic minced
• 1 bell pepper diced
• 8 oz vegan chicken pieces I use Tofurkey brand
• 14 oz can fire roasted tomatoes
• two 15 oz cans black beans drained and rinsed
• 2 tsp cumin
• 2 tsp chili powder
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• one  cup frozen corn
• 2 cups veggie broth
• 2 cups water

FOR THE CASHEW CREAM

• 3/4 cup raw cashews- see below for substitutions
• 3/4 cup water or plain plant milk
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp arrowroot starch or corn starch, or flour, for thickening

Steps:

• 1. Set the instant pot to “sauté” and wait for it to heat up. Heat up a tbsp of oil, or just water sauté. Once the IP has heated up, add the onions, bell peppers and garlic and stir. Cook them for a couple minutes to release the flavors, stirring frequently.
• 2. Add the rest of the ingredients from vegan chicken to water and stir.
• 3. Put on the lid and set the valve to “sealing”. Press “cancel” to shut off sauté mode. Then press the “manual” button (or “pressure cook”) and set the time to 3 minutes.
• 4. When the timer is done, do a 10 minute natural release then release the rest of the pressure. Put the IP back on “sauté”.
• 5. Combine all of the ingredients for the cashew cream in a blender and blend on high until completely smooth. Pour the cashew cream into the soup and stir. Let it simmer for 2 more minutes then press “cancel” to shut off the instant pot. It will thicken as it cools. Serve warm topped with vegan cheese, cilantro, avocado or green onions.

Recipe notes and substitutions:

• To substitute the cashews, you could use 1/2 block of tofu, white beans, sunflower seeds, or tahini
• In this recipe I use the Tofurkey brand chicken pieces. I buy them at whole foods for about $4. You could use any other brand of vegan chicken. Other substitutions you could use are tempeh, tofu cubes, mushrooms, or just take out the vegan meat all together and add more veggies.
• Other veggies you could substitute/ add are jalepenos, zucchini, sweet potato, spinach, and/or other colors of bell peppers.