Last Updated on September 29, 2022 by Aaron von Frank
Lion’s mane mushrooms are a gourmet and medicinal mushroom with proven brain-boosting benefits. Here’s a simple, delicious lion’s mane soup recipe you can make with fresh or dehydrated lion’s manes.
We’ve previously written all about how to grow, forage, and use lion’s mane mushrooms (including our vegetarian lion’s mane mushroom “crab cake” recipe). So we won’t spend any more time detailing those topics…
In this article, we’ll detail a simple lion’s mane soup recipe you can make using your choice of fresh or dried lion’s mane mushrooms. This is a delicious savory soup that can be eaten as a stand-alone meal or a side.
The inspiration for this recipe came from our desire to come up with baby-led weaning recipes that would get both lion’s mane mushrooms and broccoli into Sebastian, our baby. Both ingredients present some choking hazards, so a soup seemed like a good solution.
Thankfully, Sebastian loves his lion’s mane soup and so do his parents!
A bowl of lion’s mane mushroom soup garnished with cheddar cheese, garlic chive leaves, garlic chive flowers, and rosemary flowers. Delish!
Brain boosting lion’s mane mushrooms
Lion’s mane mushrooms (Hericium erinaceus) look like giant land-dwelling white coral. They offer a delicious umami flavor and texture that’s commonly compared to crab meat.
A gorgeous lion’s mane mushroom specimen. Lion’s manes are parasitic and saprobic fungi, eating and decomposing sick, dying, or dead hardwood trees.
Like many mushrooms, lion’s manes also have unique medicinal benefits, which is one of the reasons we eat them and want our baby to as well. Specifically, they have traditionally been used for their brain health benefits, something that modern science has validated over the past couple of decades.
For instance, a 2019 study found lion’s mane extract prevented oxidative brain damage, further validating its use in helping prevent and treat neurodegenerative diseases. And as a 2017 review concluded:
“Because of its anti-inflammatory properties and promotion of nerve growth factor gene expression and neurite (axon or dendrite) outgrowth, H. erinaceus [lion’s mane mushroom] mycelium shows great promise for the treatment of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.”
Since I have a grandfather who died of Alzheimer’s, I want to do everything possible to prevent a similar outcome in myself and Sebastian. Regularly including lion’s mane mushrooms in our diet seems like a good place to start!
Sebastian happily eating a spoon full of brain medicine, aka lion’s mane mushroom soup.
Lion’s mane mushroom soup preparation tips
Below are a few preparation tips to consider in order to help you make this recipe perfect for your tastes:
1. Dehydrated powdered or fresh lion’s mane mushrooms?
Lion’s mane mushrooms are a cool season mushroom we find in the fall and winter. They can grow quite large – the biggest lion’s mane we’ve ever found was about 10 pounds.
To store them for future use while using minimal space, our preferred method is dehydrating lion’s manes in our Excalibur dehydrator, then pulverizing them into a powder in a blender. Since mushrooms are 92% water, a fresh lion’s mane would take up our entire freezer. Dried and powdered, it can be stored in a single large canning jar in our cupboard.
Dehydrated, powdered lion’s mane mushrooms being added to the soup.
(*You can also buy powdered lion’s mane mushrooms if you don’t have your own.)
We utilize this storage method for many of the mushrooms we find in large quantities: maitakes, chanterelles, bicolor boletes, etc. We then use our powdered mushrooms throughout the year in soups and sauces to give them wonderful umami flavors and a nutritional boost.
If you happen to have a fresh lion’s mane mushroom, no worries! This recipe will still work perfectly fine for you.
2. Mushroom, broccoli, and potato ratios
The primary ingredients in this lion’s mane soup recipe are mushrooms, broccoli, and white potatoes. Each serves a purpose:
- mushrooms add a wonderful flavor and brain health benefits;
- broccoli adds a veggie balance, green color, and plenty of health benefits of its own;
- potatoes are the soup’s thickener and starch/carbohydrate.
We wanted a really mushroom- and broccoli-forward soup, which is what you’ll get using our recipe below. However, you can modify the ratios to your tastes as desired: less mushrooms, more broccoli, etc.
Having a good immersion blender (like this Bamix) makes preparing soups and sauces on the stove a breeze without having to transfer them to a blender.
Recipe: Lion’s mane mushroom, broccoli, and potato soup
Lion's mane mushroom, broccoli, and potato soup
A delicious, savory simple-to-make soup featuring lion's manes and broccoli and thickened with potatoes.
Ingredients
- 1 cup powdered dried lion's mane mushrooms (if using fresh lion's mane, use ~5-6 cups fresh chopped mushrooms)
- 1.5 cups white or yellow onions, diced
- 4 medium-sized potatoes, chopped (~4 cups when chopped)
- 7 cups chopped broccoli
- 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 4 tbsp diced garlic cloves
- 1/2 tbsp sea salt, or to taste
- 10 twists from a black pepper cracker, or to taste
- 3 cups chicken or veggie broth (or stock)
- 2 cups whole organic grass milk
- juice from half a lemon (about 1/8th cup)
- garnish with cheddar cheese, chives, and seasonal edible flowers
Instructions
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Place diced onions and potatoes in soup pot with olive oil. Cook on medium heat until onions are translucent. Stir regularly to keep the potatoes from sticking to the bottom of the pan - you can also add a little extra olive oil or butter here if necessary.
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Add other primary ingredients EXCEPT for lemon juice (lion's mane mushrooms, chopped broccoli, diced garlic cloves, sea salt, black pepper, veggie or chicken broth, and milk). Bring to boil. Then turn down to low and let simmer for 30-45 mins, stirring occasionally. Blend until smooth using an immersion blender (easiest) or food processor (be careful with hot soup!). Here at the end is a good time to add your lemon juice, to keep its flavor nice and bright.
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Once blended and scooped into bowls, garnish with fresh-grated cheese (we used cheddar) and seasonal flowers (we used garlic chive and rosemary flowers).
We hope you and your family enjoy this lion’s mane soup recipe as much as we do. Your brain will thank you for each bite!
KIGI,
Other fun fungi recipes you’ll love:
- Lion’s mane mushroom crab cakes | Recipe preview web story
- Lion’s mane mushroom chowder
- Lion’s mane mac & cheese
- Fried chicken of the woods “chicken fingers”
- Black trumpet mushroom pasta
- Cauliflower mushroom duck egg quiche
- Reishi mushroom mimosa flower sparkling cordial
- Fried indigo milk cap (Lactarius indigo) with barbecue sauce
… and more foraging and mushroom articles from Tyrant Farms.
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5 Comments
Donna
April 26, 2023 at 8:13 pmWonderful! I had never cooked with Lion’s Mane mushrooms, but this recipe made a delicious, hearty soup. I used kale instead of broccoli, and added a few herbs. Otherwise, followed your recipe and am very happy with the result. Thank you!
Aaron von Frank
April 27, 2023 at 11:00 amWonderful! So glad you enjoyed our lion’s mane soup recipe. 🙂
Niko
June 1, 2022 at 1:49 amThe base of the soup is okay, but it needs more flavor. I added a lot more salt and pepper than it suggests (veggie broth instead of water might work great as well). I also added the juice from half a lemon which made it infinitely better.
Aaron von Frank
June 1, 2022 at 11:34 amThanks for the modification tips, Niko! Glad you enjoyed the lion’s mane soup.
April Gordon
November 15, 2020 at 3:23 pmMy family enjoys foraging edible mushrooms. Yesterday we found a lion’s mane in the woods nearby and went online for a recipe to use it. We discovered your broccoli and lion’s mane soup and cooked a modified version of it. It was delicious! We made three changes: we didn’t have broccoli so used cauliflower, we used two rather than four potatoes, and stirred grated cheddar cheese into the soup rather than using it as a topping. We look forward to making this with broccoli next time and trying your lion’s mane “crab” cakes.