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This Ukrainian-style vegan borscht is super hearty and great for you, whether you have it hot in the winter, or serve it cold in the summer. See why my younger daughter Ozlem can’t wait for me to make her borscht again and again!
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Growing up as some kind of Eastern European Jewish mutt with Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, and Hungarian roots, my mom and dad naturally swore by bottled borscht. As a kid, I sorta couldn’t stand the stuff, but now, on a hot summer’s day, with a little tofu sour cream and some radishes and cucumbers, perhaps some fresh mint leaves, it suffices.
But why just settle for “good enough” bottled borscht, usually loaded with sugar and lacking a lot of the depth real Ukrainian borscht has to offer?!?
Rock this stuff as part of your Shabbat dinner with vegan pierogis and vegan challah (or my apple and pomagrasnate siked round challah if it’s Rosh Hashanah), and you will be super glad you did!
Packed with beets, cabbage, and potatoes, and seasoned with dill and lemon juice, this borscht delivers tons of nourishment and bangin’ flavor in every spoonful. Go ahead. Grab your apron and let's bring this comforting Eastern European soup to life in your kitchen!
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😍Why you’ll adore this vegan borscht recipe
⏱️ Simple and Fast to Make: With just about 8 minutes of hands-on prep time, and an overall time of under 1 hour, where the soup is basically taking care of itself, this recipe is a quick, hearty meal that you will love dearly.
✊ Vegan AF & GF: Not only is this one of my vegan Jewish recipes, but if you are looking for gluten-free vegan recipes that everyone you serve will love, you’ve found what the heck you are looking for, m’deary.
🍋 Bright and Balanced: The nuanced flavor of the beets is brought to life in this recipe from the carefully balanced use of fresh lemon juice, balanced by a tiny bit of natural maple syrup. No refined sugar or vinegar in this bad boy.
✅ Tested and Approved Worldwide: Like all my vegan recipes, this Ukrainian soup’s been rigorously tested by a massive team of recipe testers of all skill levels from all around the world.
🧅 Vegan Borscht Ingredients
Beet
I wrote this recipe using raw red beets, giving it its iconic red color and earthy, dare I say, slightly soil-like sweetness.
Some places in Europe that I’ve cooked in eat a ton more beets than here in the USA, and because of that, a lot of European supermarkets carry pre-cooked beets. You can totally use those in this soup, but don’t cut the cooking time, because you will still want the carrots, potatoes, and other firm ingredients to cook through.
While you can make the recipe using yellow beets instead, the soup obviously will not have its characteristic ruby red color.
Caraway Seeds (Optional)
These seeds add a warm, slightly nutty flavor, reminiscent of rye bread. If you don’t have caraway, fennel seeds provide a sorta similar taste, although they are quite a bit less slender.
Maple Syrup
I like a small (really—no need to go crazy here!) amount of natural sweetener to balance the acidity of lemon juice in the recipe, and to give the flavor of the beets and carrots greater depth. If you don’t have maple syrup, agave nectar, coconut sugar, or brown sugar can all be used instead.
The liquid
Don’t have vegetable stock on hand? You can 100% just make this with plain water, or water with a vegan bouillon cube in it. Just keep in mind bouillon paste and cubes tend to have some salt in them, so you may want to adjust the amount of salt you add to the soup yourself to offset that.
Acid
No, no. We aren't putting LSD in this soup. ...I mean, I'm not gonna stop you. But what I’m referring to here is something tart to balance the sweetness of the beets and maple syrup. I like to use lemon juice for that, but you can 100% make it using apple cider vinegar, rice vinegar, or regular ol’ white vinegar instead.
Fresh herbs
In my opinion, there’s nothing optional about using fresh herbs in borscht. I mean, especially the dill. Don’t even try to use dried parsley or dill instead of the fresh stuff in this recipe.
Optional Garnishes
I am all in on team vegan sour cream when serving the soup. I also like to garnish it with a little fresh herbs, to contrast the otherwise heavily cooked flavors of the soup and make it pop.
When serving the borscht chilled, I like to add some thinly sliced cucumbers and radishes to brighten up the flavors of the soup too. This is how my parents always served it, and now I see they were right, about this and lots of other stuff I was too dumb and stubborn to understand earlier in life. Well, you live, you learn, I guess, right?
*See the recipe card at the bottom of the page for exact quantities, nutritional info, and detailed cooking directions.
🤯Variations
Zeleny Borshch
A traditional Ukrainian green borscht is made with sorrel and/or spinach in place of the beets, which makes a powerhouse soup to enjoy in the spring or summer.
Mushroom borscht
A hearty variation popular in Western Ukraine, mushroom borscht is amazing made with dried porcini, the same ones I like to use in my mushroom gravy and in powdered for in my vegan brown gravy too. Add a few bay leaves to the stock too, but just remember to remove them before you blend some of the soup.
Borscht with Vegan Sausage
Either add pan-fried vegan sausage or crumbled bits of applewood smoked vegan breakfast sausage to this soup if you want to add some yummy, meaty protein to your meal.
📖 How to make vegan borscht
Nail this hearty soup on your first shot by following these step-by-step photos with helpful tips. Or scroll down to the bottom of this page for the easy-to-print recipe card.
Step One
Sauté-braham Lincoln:
Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat for 90 seconds. When the oil is hot, add the diced onions, celery, and carrots, and cook for 4 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onions soften and become translucent.
Step Two
Nobody Beets the Wiz:
Add the diced beets, minced garlic cloves, caraway seeds (if using), maple syrup, thyme, black pepper, and coriander. Stir and sauté for 3–4 minutes over medium heat until the spices are fragrant and the veggies begin to soften.
Step Three
Stock Options:
Pour in 6 cups of unsalted vegetable broth or water, and cover the pot with a lid. Bring the soup to a boil, then lower to medium-low heat and cook for 12 minutes, allowing the beets to soften further.
✅ Optionally, you can add a bay leaf here, but just make sure to remove it before you blend some of the soup.
Step Four
I thought You Were Against Violence? You are Killing Mr. Potato Head:
Add the diced potatoes, shredded red cabbage, lemon juice, minced parsley, minced dill, and salt. Cook over medium heat for 8–10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the potatoes are fork-tender and the cabbage is softened.
Step Five
Blend Me Your Ears and I’ll Sing You a Song:
Remove 3 cups of the soup and puree it in a blender until smooth.
Step Six
Pour De Force:
Stir the pureed soup back into the pot.
Step Seven
You’ve Been Borscht:
Serve this delicious soup hot with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkle of fresh dill, or chill it and garnish with sliced radishes, cucumbers, and more fresh herbs.
💡 Serving Ideas
Free from chametz, borscht is a great alternative to vegan matzo ball soup for Pesach!
Just line up the other usuaul suspects like charoset, vegan potato kugel, tzimmes, and you are good to go. Maybe throw in the obligatory vegan flourless chocolate cake, like if you want my wife and I to show face at your seder...
Other times of the year, borscht goes pretty perfectly with a couple of hot blintzes. You can make my vegan cheese blintzes, or my gluten-free vegan blintzes filled with kasha and fried onions.
👉Top tips
- Uniform Vegetable Sizes: To the best of your ability, cut all vegetables into uniform, bite-sized pieces to ensure even cooking.
- Balance Sweetness and Acidity: Not all beets will taste the same. So after it’s cooked, taste the soup and see if you think it needs a little extra maple syrup or lemon juice according to your taste.
- Proper Blending Technique: When pureeing a portion of the soup, let it cool slightly before blending to avoid pressure build-up in the blender, which might cause you to have annoying, hard-to-clean beet stains on your kitchen ceiling! Blend until smooth, then stir it back into the pot to achieve a creamy consistency without losing the integrity of the remaining vegetable chunks. If all you have to blend with is a food processor, try not to add too much of the liquid part of the soup so that it doesn't leak out and make a mess on ya.
🤷♀️ Recipe FAQs
Vegan borscht is awesome with grilled sourdough bread or even some vegan garlic bread. It’s also lovely with other vegetable sides, like Turkish green beans, maple roasted Brussels sprouts and carrots.
To maintain the vibrant color of vegan borscht, add a small amount of acid, such as lemon juice (as we do in this recipe) or vinegar, during cooking, and avoid overcooking the beets, as prolonged heat can dull their natural color.
Borscht is claimed by about a zillion Eastern European countries. It's hard to say who made it first, but you will find variations of it in Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, and Romania.
Russian borscht is often made with the addition of tomato paste. Sometimes the soup isn't even vegetarian, being made with beef broth.
'Borscht' is pronounced as 'borsht,' with a silent 'c,' and rhymes with 'forced.'
You can add the chopped beet leaves right into the soup! Once, my family and I were traveling in Greece, cooking all of our meals on a campfire, and we were DYING for some sautéed greens. Swiss chard, kale, ANYTHING. Beet greens were all that were available where we were, and we really learned to love them with some garlic, olive oil, and a bay leaf or two.
They are also pretty killer brushed with korean bbq sauce and briefly grilled.
💛 Refrigerating:
This vegetarian red borscht gets even better the next day! Store borscht soup in an airtight container in the refrigerator. It will keep well for up to 5 days, and the flavors will deepen as it sits.
🧊 Freezing:
Let the borscht cool completely before transferring it to freezer-safe containers. Leave a little room at the top to allow for expansion during freezing. It can be stored in the freezer for up to 3 months.
💪 Thawing:
Thaw frozen borscht in the refrigerator overnight. If you're in a rush, you can place the container in a bowl of cold water to speed up the process.
🔥 Stovetop Reheating:
Pour the desired amount of borscht into a soup pot and heat over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for 5–6 minutes until fully heated through. If the soup has thickened during storage, add a splash of water or vegetable stock to reach your preferred consistency.
✌️You'll love these Jewish vegan recipes too
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Hate gluten with all of your heart? Learn how to make insanely good wheat-free vegan dishes in this hyper-fun masterclass with Chef Adam Sobel
Vegan Borscht Recipe (Ukrainian Beet Soup)
Ingredients
- 4 teaspoons olive oil
- 1 ½ cups yellow onion diced (1 cm.)
- 1 cup celery diced (1 cm.)
- 1 cup carrot scrubbed and diced (1 cm.)
- 1 ½ cups beet peeled and diced (1 cm.)
- 2 teaspoons garlic minced
- 1 ½ teaspoons caraway seeds optional
- 2 tablespoons maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon thyme dried
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ¾ teaspoon ground coriander
- 6 cups unsalted vegetable stock or water
- 1 cup russet potato peeled and diced
- 1 cup cabbage shredded
- 3 tablespoons lemon juice
- ¼ cup minced fresh parsley
- ⅓ cup minced fresh dill
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt or to taste
Optional Hot Borscht Garnishes:
- Vegan sour cream
- Fresh dill
- Fresh parsley leaves
Optional Cold Borscht Garnishes:
- Vegan sour cream
- Fresh dill
- Thinly sliced radishes and cucumbers
Instructions
- In a soup pot over a medium-high flame, heat the olive oil. After 90 seconds, when the oil is hot, stir in the onions, celery, and carrot, and sauté for 4 minutes, stirring regularly until the onions start to sweat and soften.
- Stir in the beet, garlic, caraway seeds, maple syrup, thyme, black pepper, and coriander, and continue to sauté, stirring regularly, for another 3 minutes.
- Stir in the water or vegetable stock and place a lid over the pot. Bring the pot up to a boil and then lower the flame to medium and allow the soup to cook for 12 minutes to soften the beets.
- Add the cut potatoes, cabbage, lemon juice, parsley, dill, and salt and continue to cook for 8–10 minutes or until the potatoes are fork-tender.
- Before serving, remove 3 cups of the soup and puree it in a blender.
- Stir back in the pureed soup to thicken the body of the borscht.
- Serve it either hot, or chill it and serve cold garnished with vegan sour cream, sliced red radishes, and sliced cucumber.
Notes
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jaimie epstein says
ohhhmmmmggggg! this is heaven! my only regret is that i made it so thick that it didn't last as long as i'd hoped. can't wait to make the chill version for summer! &, yes, to the pierogi addition--labor-intensive but fun project & the carb-loving friend i made them for was super happy!
Linda says
I never made Borscht before, and I was a bit nervous about the beets staining everything! But after I made it, I’m so glad I did! The color is a vibrant magenta and the chunks of delicious veggies swimming in it were full of flavor. I used an immersion blender—only because I look for any and every excuse to use it, and it worked well! Thank you, Chef Sobel! Very tasty!
Adam Sobel says
Super-glad you loved it, Linda! ❤️
hg says
Nice warm soup to have on a cold winter day.
Enjoyed it very much, and was simple to make.
Ann Carille says
Can leftover soup be frozen?
Adam Sobel says
Yes!
Lyndsey says
An easy, hearty, and comforting dish for wintertime! I enjoyed this soup but would probably make some adjustments the next time I make it to suit my general preferences. I diced the veg pretty small, and next time I’d likely use larger chunks (still puree some). I also found it a little sweet so could use less maple syrup. I might also add a little less liquid for a thicker consistency. I ate this alongside the pierogies - definitely a fun Sunday project!
Katie says
The borscht is so good! The recipe is easy to follow, and the borscht is tasty, hearty and filling. It's also had a beautiful rich red color. The day I made this it was -26 degrees without the windchill.