This easy vegan corn chowder recipe is one of our all-time favorite soups! Smoky, sweet & creamy, it's destined for your regular meal rotation.
It’s hard for me to pick favorites, but I’ll come out and say it: this vegan corn chowder recipe is one of my favorite soups on the blog. I don’t care what temperature it might be outside – I could eat a bowl of this creamy, smoky corn chowder anytime.
Vegan Corn Chowder Recipe Ingredients
This vegan corn chowder recipe uses veggies and spices to get a delicious creamy texture and smoky flavor without any meat or dairy. Here’s what’s in it:
- Onion, garlic, and celery make up its aromatic base.
- Sweet corn is the star of the show! It contributes to the creamy texture, adds essential sweetness, and dots the soup with crispy kernels.
- Potatoes thicken the soup’s creamy base and add chunky texture.
- Red bell pepper adds great veggie flavor and deepens the golden color.
- Light coconut milk works with the corn and potato to perfect the creamy texture. If you’re not vegan, you can swap in whole milk to make this a vegetarian corn chowder.
- Sherry vinegar brightens it up!
- And smoked paprika and celery salt add rich, smoky flavor without any meat!
How to Make the Best Vegan Corn Chowder
Great veggie ingredients are the base of this soup, but these steps are essential for making it smoky, satisfying, and delicious:
- After you slice the kernels off cobs of fresh sweet corn, use the back of your knife to scrape the juices off the cob. Add this starchy, milky liquid to the chowder to make it extra creamy and rich.
- Blend half the soup, and leave the rest chunky. Because of the starches in fresh corn and potatoes, these vegetables blend into a luscious creamy broth. I like to blend part of the chowder to create this creamy base and leave the rest chunky for texture.
- Don’t forget to garnish. Save a few raw corn kernels and pieces of diced red pepper to sprinkle over bowls of chowder. They’ll create the perfect crispy contrast to the creamy soup. For extra smoky flavor, try topping it with coconut bacon or tempeh bacon bits!
More Favorite Soup Recipes
If you love this plant-based corn chowder, try one of these delicious soup recipes next:
- Yellow Split Pea Soup
- Butternut Squash SoupÂ
- Many-Veggie Vegetable Soup
- Carrot Ginger Soup
- French Onion Soup
- Creamy Potato Soup
Or find more of my favorite soups here!
Vegan Corn Chowder
- 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 ribs celery, chopped
- 1 Yukon gold potato, chopped
- 4 ears fresh sweet corn, husked
- 1 red pepper, diced
- ½ teaspoon celery salt
- ½ teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1 tablespoon sherry vinegar, or white wine vinegar
- 2 cups vegetable broth
- 1 (14-ounce) can light coconut milk (or 1¾ cups whole milk)
- Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- Chopped chives, for garnish
- Reserve some corn kernels and diced red pepper for garnish (optional)
- Heat the olive oil in a large dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion and a few pinches of salt.
- Cook until soft, then add the garlic, celery, and potatoes.
- Slice the kernels off the corn, then use the back of your knife to scrape the juices off of the corn cob and add to the pot. Add the red pepper, celery salt, paprika, a pinch of salt, black pepper, and stir. Cook until the potatoes are slightly softened, about 5 minutes, then add the sherry vinegar, vegetable broth, and coconut milk.
- Cover and simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 15 more minutes. Let cool slightly, then transfer half the soup to a blender. Blend until creamy then return it back to the pot and stir.
- Taste and adjust seasonings and serve with chopped chives.
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Jeanine, this soup is just gorgeous! Now I’m really looking forward to getting some corn at the farmers’ market this summer 🙂
Omg this.looks.AMAZING.
Drooling and am now hungry thanks.
hehe love your work!
xx
Yum!! This looks so fresh yet comforting 🙂 Love anything with coconut milk…
Your recipe looks great.
Anyway on the Sunshine sweet corn website I was not able to find if their corn is GMO free ? any informations ?
🙂
It is, let me see if I can get a more specific link with info for you…
Hi Marie, here’s the area on their site that talks about it being GMO free: http://sunshinesweetcorn.com/growing-sweet-corn/sweet-corn-varieties
they also said:
– The growers use non-GMO seeds
– Typically when you hear about GMO corn they are talking about dent corn (as opposed to sweet corn) which is used for animal feed, ethanol and other food manufacturing (corn flour, oil, chips, etc).
This soup is perfect for spring! Light and colorful, what a great way to celebrate the new season!
Juju Sprinkles
http://www.jujusprinkles.com
Looks Delicious!
Creamy corn is the best! My grandmother always made this, and I can’t wait to try this recipe out. So yummy!
This looks so so good!! Yummy and those fresh veggies!! Want!
this looks divine! Your pictures amaze me 🙂 inspiring blog!
thank you!
no matter what the weather, I love soups and especially chowders. I will try this corn chowder recipe — looks very flavorful.
This looks absolutely scrumptious.
I’ve always been a fan of Panera Bread’s summer corn chowder. However, I think I’ll stick to this much healthier recipe going forward. Thanks for sharing!
Happy Wednesday 🙂
http://www.lovecompassionatelee.com/
Wow this sounds wonderful (as usual). I always love your soup recipes!
This is gorgeous! I love that it’s vegan and the use of paprika to create that smokey flavor is awesome.
I know, I LOVE smoked paprika!
Oh this is love… I can just tell. I’ve been wanting to make a vegan corn chowder for awhile now (funny enough), and you just took all the work out of it for me! Yay! Cannot wait to devour this one.
Ha, hope you like it 🙂
Oh my gosh! This chowder looks amazing! It looks so beautiful & light!
The perfect spring soup! I cant wait to give this a try! My husband is a big corn chowder fan!
This is perfect! I had wanted to make a corn chowder this week but could not find a recipe I liked. It’s like you read my mind (+ you made it vegan). What do you think about adding zucchini to this? I have some and love it with corn but I’m worried it might make the soup too watery.
It might make it too watery, I’m not sure. This one’s pretty good exactly how it is 🙂 Let me know if you give it a try!
you could always add some precooked zucchini at the end or as topping for your dish and not dilute the flavor by cooking it with to soup itself
Loving these vegan options! Yay! I usually have to avoid chowders because they’re always packed with cream. This is a great workaround!
I know me too – I can’t really have heavy cream so I’m always missing out on soups! But that’s why I love to make them so much…
I love corn chowder! I have to try this one out, LOVE that it is vegan.
That looks delicious! Love that there is no actual cream!