Dolly Parton's Stampede Soup Starts With These Nearly Forgotten Canned Vegetables

If you visit Dolly Parton's Stampede, her dinner theater show in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee (near Dollywood), or Branson, Missouri, chances are your four-course dinner will start with a creamy vegetable soup. It's Stampede Soup, and it leans on a type of canned mixed vegetables that used to be ubiquitous, yet is now hard to find. These cans mix together carrots, peas, corn, green beans, lima beans, celery, and potatoes, and one of the main brands is Veg-All.

Veg-All used to be a big deal: It started canning in 1926, and by the '40s, it was widely popular. It was billed as a convenient option that didn't need scrubbing, peeling, or chopping, yet that ease of use didn't give it eternal popularity: While Veg-All and similar brands are still around, they're far less popular. A likely explanation is that the heat used in the canning process breaks down some vegetables' cell walls, making veggies like carrots and green beans come out soft or mushy (broccoli fares even worse, turning into an inedible slurry). Tin rationing during World War II also didn't help the canned vegetable industry. Then there was the advent of home freezers around the same time, which proved a better way to preserve vegetables without sacrificing freshness. Despite this, Stampede Soup still calls for this vegetable mix, served up as a nostalgic, comforting dish. And it's relatively affordable, too: A 29-ounce can of Veg-All gives you seven veggies for just under $3 at a store like Walmart.

Stampede Soup isn't tough to make: It starts with a roux of butter and flour, followed by chicken broth and the canned mixed vegetables, which cook together until thickened before being finished off with cream. Punch up the roux's flavor by adding seasonings like dried onion or garlic. A bay leaf or herbs like thyme also work well — just make sure to add them along with the chicken broth. Alternatively, you can take the easy route and buy a powdered mix for the soup from the Dolly Parton Stampede's online store.

As for Parton's connection to Stampede Soup, it's arguably less personal than chicken and dumplings or her three-ingredient cornbread, which were childhood foods for Parton. It's the house soup at the Dolly Parton Stampede since it opened in 1988 (it was formerly named the Dixie Stampede, until it was changed in 2018 due to shifting attitudes about the word), and appears to be the creation of the theater-slash-restaurant rather than, say, Parton's mother or grandmother. That said, it still fits with Parton's down-home approach to cooking, with an unfussy, comforting style. In 2006, Parton published the recipe in her cookbook "Dolly's Dixie Fixin's", alongside dishes from her family and from Dollywood, although there are also plenty of copycat recipes around. It's also the kind of soup that lends itself to additions: pasta or rice can pad it out and make it more of an entree, or you can add sausage or chicken for extra heft. The main point is that it's hearty, warming, and comforting.