Easy Vichysoisse

August 10, 2024 (Last Updated: August 7, 2024)

Delicious Easy Vichysoisse, hang on, vichy-what?! This elegant, chilled leek and potato soup takes peasant cooking to a new level. It’s a classic appetizer with a bold pedigree and even bolder flavors. Best of all, it’s super-easy. Let’s find out more.

Easy Soups

It’s no secret that I love soup. I started counting how many soup recipes I’ve already shared on this site, and gave up after reaching fifty. I don’t think I was even half way through! Safe to say, it’s a LOT of recipes! Soups are great because they’re just so comforting and usually, they’re also easy to make. Whether you like them chunky or smooth, it’s still just throw everything in a pot, and off you go.

Cold Soups in Summer

But as the summer draws on and the weather starts getting hotter and hotter, I realized something. Almost all my soup recipes are for hot soup — and that’s the last thing you want to eat in the summer. I’ve been collecting cold soup recipes for a while now, and it seems like it’s time to start sharing! From classic Spanish gazpacho, to Japanese hiyajiro (cold miso soup), it seems that every culture has at least one recipe for a cool, refreshing soup on a hot summer’s day. Vichysoisse, a chilled soup made from leeks and potatoes, has become one of my favorites, due to its versatility and ease of preparation. It’s a classic recipe with humble origins and a beautiful back story.

Where Does Vichysoisse Originate?

You probably think Vichysoisse soup is French, and you’re not exactly wrong. But you’re not exactly right, either!

Vichysoisse as we know it today was first created and served in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New York, in the early twentieth century. But it was developed by the hotel’s head chef Louis Félix Diat, who had emigrated to the States from Bourbonnais, near Vichy in France. The soup was much celebrated in America as an elegant and luxurious appetizer; however much later in life, Diat confessed to its origins in a posthumously published book:

“I suspect that some of the fins becs [connoisseurs] who order it would be much surprised to learn of its humble origins as my mother’s simple leek and potato soup. Casting about one day for a new cold soup, I remembered how maman used to cool our breakfast soup on a warm morning, by adding cold milk to it. A cup of cream, an extra straining, and a sprinkle of chives, et voila, I had my new soup.”

It goes to show how even the simplest dishes can be elevated by the use of good quality, seasonal ingredients, and a skilled chef, who is unafraid to let them shine. And, of course, I just love the idea of this fancy chef passing off his mother’s simple countryside recipe as haute cuisine to the old-time snobs of New York City!

Cleaning Leeks

It’s always important to wash vegetables properly, of course — no one wants to bite into a mouthful of grit. But it’s especially important with leeks. With all those layers, I often find they can get a lot of dirt and earth trapped inside. It’s not enough to give them a quick rinse before chopping; you’ll need to be more thorough. I do it like this:

Remove the tough green ends and cut off the roots. Rinse the whole thing under running water.
Slice the leeks lengthwise, then into ½ inch slices across the grain. Put the chopped leeks into a large bowl of cold water, and slosh them around really well, so any trapped earth is dislodged and falls to the bottom of the bowl.
Remove the leeks from the water with a slotted spoon and transfer to a colander. Rinse again, under running water through the colander.

For this recipe, you don’t need to worry about drying the leeks too thoroughly, just shake them off a little.

Blending the Soup

You’ll notice in the recipe that I suggest leaving the soup to cool down to room temperature before blending. This is for three reasons:

You’ll be able to judge the seasoning better when the soup isn’t hot. Flavors don’t “pop” so much when very hot or very cold, and it can be easy to over season.
We’re adding dairy to the mix. The classic recipe uses cream; I’ve swapped this for buttermilk (see below). But both can curdle at high temperatures, and if you pour them straight into the hot soup, you might end up with unpleasant sour lumps. Much better to wait for the soup to cool before adding dairy products.
To get this soup really smooth, I suggest using a jug blender rather than an immersion blender. Although jug blenders these days have all sorts of vent lids to let off steam, I will never forget the time when my lid exploded off the blender and covered the kitchen in scalding soup! Luckily no one was hurt, but I don’t blend hot soups any more.

If you only have an immersion blender, you can still make Vichysoisse. Blend as thoroughly as you can, and pass the soup through a sieve. You can skip the sieving if you want; the soup will still be nice. But I personally think part of what makes it very special is the ultra-smooth texture.

Ingredients Notes and Substitutions

As I mentioned above, the classic Vichysoisse recipe uses cream. You can do this too if you want, just a straight 1-to-1 swap, although note that the recipe gets a lot richer, and you may find you want to decrease the portion size. I decided to use buttermilk instead because I love the tartness and acidity it brings to the recipe. I think it makes it much more refreshing, which is what you need on a hot summer’s day! It’s also substantially healthier, being much lower in saturated fat and calories.

Feel free, too, to experiment with the toppings. Serving Vichysoisse just scattered with chives is the classic recipe, and I do think the chives are important. But anything that goes with leeks and potatoes will be nice here. I used shredded chicken and avocado in this recipe, but you could also try:

Shredded prosciutto or jamón
Diced hard-boiled eggs
The green ends of the leeks, julienned and fried until crispy
Fried or roasted baby potatoes

Storage Notes

Because it’s a chilled, make-in-advance recipe, it stores wonderfully in the fridge. Don’t add any toppings until right before serving, but the soup itself should keep very well for at least four days.

Freezing is not recommended, though; the texture changes quite substantially, with the dairy becoming gritty and the liquid separating out.

And More…

Vichysoisse makes an elegant appetizer, but you can also eat it for lunch. The protein from the buttermilk fills you nicely without needing to add any heavy carbs that weigh you down in the hot weather.

I’ve also served this soup in shot glasses, as finger food for a fancy party. I love the idea of keeping the story going, from its humble peasant beginnings in central France, to early twentieth century luxury, to upstart pretensions, one hundred years later. I bet Louis Félix Diat is looking down and nodding approvingly!

And like any soup, you can elevate this dish even more by adding a spoonful of salad, sauce or salsa, in place of the sour cream. This soup would go well with any of these:

A spoonful of Yuca con Mojo for a garlic tang
Some Homemade Pesto for an Italian flair
Yogurt and Dill Sauce (and you could throw in one of the peanut chicken kebabs while you’re there, for a real fusion recipe!)
Sriracha Yogurt Sauce, to spice it up

PS – if you’re looking for more chilled soups, check out this one which first got me started:

Easy Cucumber Gazpacho

Conclusion

From a French peasant village to living it up at the Ritz, Easy Vichysoisse chilled soup has got it going on! Are you going to use cream or buttermilk? And will you invent an even more elevated way to serve it and keep Louis Félix Diat’s spirit alive? Give a try and let me know in the comments how you got on.