3 Tried and True Substitutes for Cream of Mushroom soup in a can

After reading and writing about the ubiquitous Cream of Mushroom soup, here’s the bottom line.

Mushroom soup is delicious, and you don’t need the soup in a can to make a good soup. Here are three tried and true substitutes for the famous Campbell’s concoction.

 

One more thing. A basic white sauce will stand in every time. It’s the baseline sauce for the good life-if you can master it, then substitute it, you can live without the Campbell’s soup in any recipe.

 

 This is a recipe for Homemade Southern Living Soup. It’s much richer than the mock version, but the mock one is also pretty good as a stand alone recipe.

NUMBER ONE: Recipe for Homemade Sthrn Living Soup: Much richer than the Mock version, but the mock one is pretty good as a stand alone dish. If you have company coming or don’t particularly care about the calorie count, this is delicious.

 1 can of  Cream of Mushroom = 1 ¼ cup of this:

 Homemade:

 

½ cup butter-divided

3 8 oz packages fresh mushrooms chopped

1/3 cup all purpose flour

2 cups whipping cream

1 8oz package cream cheese

2 1 oz container homestyle chicken stock (Knorr was used to test)

 Directions: Melt 3 Tbsp butter in a Dutch oven over medium heat; add the mushrooms and saute 10 minutes or until liquid evaporates. Transfer to a bowl

 

2. Reduce heat to medium. Melt remaining 5 tbsp butter in Dutch oven. Whisk in flour until smooth; whisk 1 more minute. Gradually whisk in cream and other ingredients.

 

3. Cook, whisking constantly 2 minutes or until melted and smooth. Remove from heat, stir in reserved mushrooms. Serve or cool. Freezes well; thaw and heat and serve.

 

 

 
NUMBER 2:  Here’s your basic white sauce. If you master this, you won’t care about the Campbell’s soup can anymore. *I use a Vita-Mix blender. My older one leaked, but still worked fine if you didn’t mind a small amount of seepage. But I bought a second-hand Vita-Mix blender recently, and it is wonderful! Any good blender should do the trick.

The white Sauce: 1 1/3 cups Lowfat milk-soy milk

¼ cup all purpose flour-GF

¼ cup Light butter

½ tsp salt-opt

 

*Place ingredient in blender (Vita-Mix) in order listed above. Secure the lid and start speed on low (1 on VM). Quickly increase the speed to High and blend for about 5 minutes. For Cheese Sauce:May add ½ to ¾ cup of good low-fat cheese.

NUMBER 3: MLJ’s Mock Cream of Mushroom soup-This is the best recipe I’ve found for a stand- alone soup. If I was going to make a dish using a substitute for the Campbell’s soup, I’d use the white sauce. But if you want a simple yet hearty mushroom soup, this one fits the bill. As always with good recipes, there’s some secret ingredient that makes it stand apart. In this recipe, the secret is… add a touch of Angostura bitters at the end.

Mock Cream of Mushroom soup:

1 pound fresh mushrooms, sliced

½ to ¾ cup onion, chopped fine

¼ cup + 2 tbsp of butter light

¼ cup GF Flour

3 cups chicken broth

1 cup soy milk/1/2 cup half and half or cream*

1 tsp salt (opt)

¼ tsp white pepper

½ cup dry sherry

¼ tsp Angostura bitters

 Saute mushrooms and onion in butter in a saucepan on low for 10 minutes or until mixture is tender. Add the flour, stirring until smooth. Cook 1 minute, stir constantly. Gradually add the broth; cook on medium heat, stir constantly, until mix is thickened and bubbling.

Reduce heat to low; stir in remaining ingredients. Cook until heated through, stir frequently. Serve.

Yield: 1 ½ quarts

 **I use a mix of soy milk, but you can use organic cream or half and half to make it, depending on your allergy level.

 

5 Things to know about Campbell's Soup

Talking about Cream of Mushroom soup made me a bit curious. So I found out the following about the iconic Campbell’s Soup brand that we have come to know and love.

 

1.       In 1869, Joseph Campbell, who had been a fruit merchant, teamed with a man named Abraham Anderson, who manufactured tin ice boxes, to form what became the Campbell’s Soup Company in Camden, New Jersey.  Joseph soon amicably ended the partnership with Anderson and teamed with businessman Arthur Dorrance to sell a popular product called Beefsteak Ketchup Sauce.  This was nothing like our modern ketchup, as it was made with ingredients such as cinnamon, mace, cloves, pepper, mustard and vinegar with a variety of bases including soy, oyster or lobster. At the turn of the century, this was a kitchen staple.

2.       In 1893, the US Supreme Court designated the tomato a vegetable for trade purposes! Technically, the tomato still remains a fruit.

3.       Joseph Campbell retired in 1894 (after the infamous tomato fruit decision!) and died in 1900. No Campbell family members were involved in the company after his retirement.

4.       In 1894, Arthur Dorrance hired his nephew, rather reluctantly, we are told. Dr. John T. Dorrance was a chemist who developed the formula still used for commercially condensed soup.

By removing the water and reducing the volume, the price of soup went from 34 cents to 10 cents a can. The five original varieties included Tomato; Consommé; Vegetable, Chicken and Oxtail.

5.       A Slip of the Tongue: Amos & Andy promoted a new brand with lackluster sales in 1934. Amos misread the copy for “Chicken with Noodles” and instead said, “Chicken Noodle Soup.” Within days, the company received large orders for the new soup. One shift in verbiage made the difference!

GF Cooks and the Cream of Mushroom Soup Dilemma

 

 

Ah, yes! We Americans love our Cream of Mushroom soup. It’s the gloppy substance that we have come to know so well.  We rely on it to “complete” us. But there’s a love/hate relationship that lies within us regarding this ultimate American shortcut. We love our foods smothered in this creamy concoction, yet the foods we love are often unrecognizable after being covered with this soupy stuff.

The kind of food we would devour in days of yore is now found in a can. This is one of the signature ingredients in most tasty dishes that are all too easy to prepare. And my heart sinks when I see the ingredient list and the first thing to jump out of the page is the line: “1 can of Cream of Mushroom soup.” I say this knowing that if you are GF you can’t have this. It’s got wheat in it.

In my case, it’s a double whammy because I can’t have the milk either. So…what do you do? You pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and try like mad to find a suitable substitute for the elusive pimpernel known as Cream of Mushroom Soup.

 I remember many times watching my grandmother standing over a stove wearing an apron and stirring. And stirring. She was making a white sauce. That is the type of food that takes patience and a bit of skill to prepare. And if you are gluten-free, that is exactly what you need to replace the glorious flavor found in Cream of Mushroom soup.

 

The Vita-Mix blender does come in handy. You can whip up a white sauce fairly fast. And it does taste pretty good. Or I will "cheat" at times and use the rotation method where I simply eat off my GF diet. That can only take you so far.

 

 

 

You must be inventive and there are ways and ways to get round this. I have tried healthy organic versions of Cream of Mushroom that end up in the deep-6 file (the trash) PDQ. And then there are some cases where substitutes will work. Mayonnaise is a wonderful blend, but it’s just not the same as the cream of mushroom soup. Damn it, that goopy stuff does taste good! That’s why people like us… (by us I’m talking about lazy Americans who really don’t like to cook), use this substance. It takes a lot of the guesswork and complicated measuring out of the cooking process. You just dump it in and mix it around whatever you happen to be cooking and….voila! Supper is ready!

I still use this canned goop in some recipes. That is because I can’t find adequate substitutes that taste good and are quick and easy. So the good ol’ Cream of Mushroom soup is still in some of the holiday dishes and staples found in my upcoming cookbook. If you are severely allergic to wheat, as are those with celiac disease, then you cannot use Cream of Mushroom soup. But don’t despair. There are plenty of alternatives listed and the white sauce is better than the creamy glop. You may have to invest in a very good blender, but it will be well worth it in the end.