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Cream of mushroom soup is a common ingredient in recipes as cooler weather approaches. This healthy comfort food in a bowl deserves its place along with the casseroles (like my favorite green bean casserole) soups, and stews of the season.
Will the Real Cream of Mushroom Soup Please Stand Up?
Unfortunately, most store-bought cream of mushroom soup has a variety of problematic ingredients. Offenders include:
- Vegetable oil: chemically processed, high in polyunsaturated fatty acids, and potentially harmful on a cellular level
- Modified food starch: A highly processed starch that contains maltodextrin (often used as a name to hide the presence of MSG)
- Monosodium glutamate: A food additive and excitotoxin that may interfere with natural neurotransmitter production
- Soy protein concentrate: This is why I’m not a fan of soy
- Other bad ingredients: such as soy lecithin, yeast extract, and “flavoring”
In addition, despite the “cream” on the label, canned soup has very little actual cream. Cream is the ninth ingredient on the list, after vegetable oil, processed flour, MSG, and other questionable items. And it isn’t even real cream! It is actually “dehydrated cream” containing milk and soy lecithin as a thickener.
Certainly, these ingredients are probably cheaper and much better for the bottom line of the companies producing processed foods, but they certainly aren’t better for us, the consumer!
No Time for Homemade?
Update: Since I wrote this post I found one premade mushroom soup I do love, and that’s Kettle and Fire’s Mushroom Bisque. It is made with their amazing bone broth, is non-GMO, and is made with all real-food ingredients I would use in my own kitchen. It is dairy-based, so opt for the homemade version below if that is an issue for you.
A Better Cream of Mushroom Soup (& It’s Easy!)
Like most foods, homemade not only tastes better, but it is typically healthier too. Cream of mushroom soup is no exception! This simple DIY version works as a substitute in recipes or is delicious on its own.
Unlike the processed canned version, it only has 10 ingredients total (including spices). Bonus: They are all real food ingredients that you can order at a grocery store. (No need to contact your friendly local industrial products salesman to get the soy protein concentrate or MSG!).
I typically make several batches of this and keep in the refrigerator. I also freeze it for easy meal prep at Thanksgiving or for when I used to get a pregnancy craving for something with mushrooms in it. 🙂
If you use cream of mushroom (or cream of anything) soup in recipes for your family, consider taking 20 extra minutes to make your own. I promise you will be hooked!
Homemade Cream of Mushroom Soup
Servings
Ingredients
- 1 lb fresh mushrooms
- 1 onion
- 2 cloves garlic
- ¼ cup butter (or coconut oil)
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ tsp black pepper
- 2 TBSP arrowroot powder
- 1 quart chicken broth
- ½ cup heavy cream (or heavy coconut milk, optional)
- ½ cup sour cream (optional)
Instructions
- Chop mushrooms and onion and mince garlic.
- Melt butter or coconut oil in a large pan and add chopped mushrooms and onion.
- Saute until translucent and cooked.
- Add garlic and saute an additional 2 minutes.
- Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and arrowroot and stir.
- Add broth and simmer about 10 minutes until it starts to thicken.
- Add cream and sour cream and stir in until smooth.
- Serve as a soup or use as cream of mushroom soup in recipes.
Nutrition
Notes
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How do you use cream of mushroom soup?
I’ve never made cream of mushroom soup from scratch before. I looked around at online gluten free recipes and finally settled on this one partly because I have arrowroot powder while other recipes called for rice flour, which I didn’t have. I added a couple teaspoons of Worcestershire sauce like one reviewer suggested, which gave it a wonderful undertone of richness. I didn’t add sour cream because I didn’t have any on hand. I doubled the recipe but not completely. Twice as much mushrooms, onions, butter, arrowroot, s/p, and heavy cream. 1.5 the amount of garlic. After adding 1 quart of chicken stock, I decided to stop there as adding another quart seemed like not a good idea though I knew I could always add more later if desired. It never quite thickened as it was supposed to, but the end result was just fine. My husband loved it! Two things I’d do differently. One is chop my mushroom slices a bit smaller. I suppose you could puree it if desired. Secondly, I forgot to slowly add chicken stock to the rue while stirring to ensure the rue would incorporate well. As a result, there were globs of the arrowroot that never fully dissolved but remained as gummy globs. I’ve had this happen with other gluten free substitutes that I’ve tried with my cream of tomato soup recipe. I’ll most definitely be making this again! Delicious!
This recipe is delicious!!! So easy to make and tastes great! I like it plain as soup but have also used it successfully in recipes that call for canned cream of mushroom soup, such as Salisbury steak in the crockpot. YUMMY! Will be keeping this recipe and using it for years to come!
How small do you chop the mushrooms? And is there a preferred type of mushroom to use?
I just made this soup and LOVE It! Thank you Katie! I used ghee and mushrooms from Costco. Blended in my magic bullet afterwards and did not add any cream, it doesn’t need it. Really great flavor and thickness.
Do you think I could sub yogurt for the sour cream?
I haven’t tried it but let us know if you do and how it works.