How to Make the Dixie Stampede Creamy Vegetable Soup Recipe
Dolly Parton’s Stampede used to be Dixie Stampede. This creamy vegetable soup was first served in Dolly’s first restaurant, opened in her hometown of Pigeon Forge, TN in 1987. Dolly’s Stampede is a dinner and show restaurant in a vein like national staple Medieval Times. The Stampede dinner theater format allows you to meet your competitors and their horses, then while you eat your meal, they will perform feats of daring on horseback that you have never seen before.
Your magnificent riders and live animal performances are unique in North America, creating a beautiful opportunity for young and old alike to experience something completely new, while enjoying a delicious four-course meal. And starting with the original, one of the staples of Dolly Parton’s Stampede Theatre, whether in its original home of Pigeon Forge, TN or its expanded experience in Branson, Missouri, is the delicious creamy vegetable soup.
Whenever your family chooses to first encounter Dolly’s Stampede, you’ll be delighted by this wonderful soup in your first course, a creamy, vegetable and chicken broth cradling sweet corn, peas, beans, and carrots in its depths. When you re-create this soup in your home kitchen, you’ll remember the good times you had on your vacation in the Ozarks or in the Great Smoky Mountains. The rich flavors will satisfy everyone at the table and get them ready for their next course. The best part of all is that the soup is simple to make, and only takes a few minutes to get ready. The ingredients are staples that are probably already in your cupboard or freezer.
Ingredients
- ½ cup frozen peas
- ½ cup whole kernel sweet corn
- ½ cup canned green beans
- ½ cup carrots peeled & grated
- 3 tablespoons margarine or butter
- 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 quart chicken broth
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon onion powder
- 1½ cups heavy whipping cream
Directions
- Blanch each of the vegetables until tender-crisp. They should have some firmness and structure before the next part.
- Chop the carrot shreds and green beans into small pieces. This can be efficiently done by a food processor in only a few quick pulses.
- Melt butter in a 3- to 4-quart saucepan over medium heat. When the butter has melted and foamed out, add the flour one tablespoon at a time and whisk just until the raw and floury smell goes away. You want a light blonde roux, not any darker than that.
- Immediately upon removal of the roux from the heat, slowly stream in the broth while whisking to fully incorporate the roux. Once there’s a standing liquid in the pot that hasn’t been absorbed by the roux, pour in the rest of the broth, and whisk once more to evenly distribute the paste.
- Add all the vegetables and stir to combine. Season with garlic and onion powder.
- Return soup to the heat and bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer before the next step.
- Once the soup is at a bare simmer, add the heavy cream and stir to evenly distribute it in the broth.
- Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve garnished with chopped parsley.
The soup is fantastic by itself, but we love it with hot, fresh buttermilk drop biscuits, which have a craggy, loose texture that will absorb the flavorful broth. Leftover, it keeps in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 days or in the freezer for 2-3 months.
FAQ
Side Dishes
This soup goes wonderfully with many side dishes. It can also be a fantastic side dish itself, going with chicken or beef. We recommend preparing it with fluffy biscuits, either cut or drop. If you want to go with the experience you find at Dolly’s Stampede, cornbread cannot be beaten with this delicious, creamy vegetable soup recipe’s savory flavors.
Frozen Vegetables
One of the staples of the American kitchen, modern frozen vegetables were invented by adventurer Clarence Birdseye in 1924 with his flash-chill process. With flash-freezing, vegetables are not only frozen at the peak of their ripeness, but the crystals of ice that are formed are so small that they don’t damage the cell walls of the food, avoiding the kind of damage that would render older types of pre-frozen food almost totally inedible due to the unappealing, mushy texture.
We prefer frozen vegetables over canned if you have to choose between the two, because frozen veggies retain more of their structure and flavor and make it so that you can easily get exactly the amount you need and put the rest back, rather than needing to use an entire package at once. Frozen green beans are much more flavorful than canned beans and retain their fresh crispness.
Why a bare simmer?
A “bare simmer,” around 185 to 205 degrees F, is a low-temperature simmer. When a liquid is barely simmering, a bubble will rise to the surface and burst every 2-3 seconds but there will not be continuous bubbles.
It’s important that you reduce the heat from a rolling boil to a bare simmer before adding cream to the soup because the heat of a boil will denature the protein of the cream and make it stick together in large clumps, resulting in a grainy soup. The protein will still denature in the lower-temperature soup, but it will do so more gradually and create a smooth, velvety texture.
Dolly Parton
It’s hardly necessary to introduce the business mind behind Dolly’s Stampede. A legendary artist in the country and pop scenes, Dolly Parton first came on the scene with “Just Because I’m a Woman” in 1968, a single off her debut album, 1967’s Hello, I’m Dolly. She has composed over 3,000 songs, many of which like “Jolene,” “I Will Always Love You,” and the title song from the film 9 to 5, are beloved classics. Parton began her career as a songwriter as an 18-year-old with nothing more than her high school diploma and a burning ambition to be one of the greatest musicians the music world has ever seen.
In the nearly six decades since her debut, she has more than made good on that ambitious belief in herself, bringing prosperity and fame to her humble mining hometown of Pigeon Forge, turning it into a major tourist destination with her Dollywood resort and theme park. In 1988 she opened a quartet of restaurants in Pigeon Forge, bringing together family dining with the pageantry of American history, an unforgettable combination.
Besides her business interests, Parton is a tireless philanthropist, bringing her advocacy and hard work to many causes she believes in.
