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.