Make Your Own – Cream of Whatever Soup

You ever notice how a lot of recipes call for a good ole can of what I like to call Cream of Whatever Soup. In most cases, it honestly doesn’t matter whether you use Cream of Mushroom, Cream of Chicken, Cream of Celery or some other variation. It’s basically the soupy consistency and flavor that is needed for recipe. Well I found a wonderful blog called Once a Month Meals that posted a way to make your own Cream of Whatever.

Some of you might be thinking, but Cream of Mushroom soup is pretty cheap. Why would I want to spend my time making my own? First of all, you will save money by making it yourself. Second of all, you are making a cooking staple without all the added preservatives and unneeded chemicals and GMO’s. Third of all, it only took me an hour and a half. I did it after the kids went to bed one night.

I’ll walk you through what I did. There are several meals I planned for this month that require a Cream of Whatever in the recipe. So I decided to make a large batch of Cream of Whatever so I have enough for the month. According to Once a Month Meals, the recipe will make 1 “can” or 1.5 cups. Having this in mind, I just did 5 times the amount of everything called for in the recipe.

I used 8 oz of mushrooms. I found that when I was chopping my mushrooms, 2 of them made 1/2 cup. So to have 2.5 cups for my large batch I used 16 mushrooms which was exactly (1) 8 oz package.

I did NOT use 5 times the amount of onion. If you have read my previous posts, you know I don’t care TOO much for onion. I’m glad I went with my instinct on this one. I used 1/2 an onion and it was PERFECT for even this large batch!

The recipe calls for 2 cloves minced garlic. If you times this by 5, you need 10 cloves (or 5 tsp of minced garlic from a jar).

Here are these ingredients ready to sauté.

After I took this picture, I realized that I should cook this in a smaller skillet so I switched it out. Sorry it’s a bit blurry! We’ll call it an action picture! 🙂

When this was done sautéing, I took it off the heat and put on my biggest skillet with the butter. I used 2 1/2 sticks for my large batch.

Once the butter was melted, I added 1 1/4 cup flour and whisked like a mad woman!

 I let this cook and thicken for about 2 minutes. I stirred frequently to avoid sticking or burning on the bottom of my skillet. Next I added 5 cups of milk (which felt like a lot but it was fine) and 3 3/4 chicken broth. For my chicken broth I used my Homemade Chicken Broth but you can easily buy broth from the store. Then add your sautéed mixture that you set aside earlier. Then bring it to a boil.

It took a good 10 minutes for all this liquid to come to a boil, but once it started bubbling, I turned it to a medium heat and stirred frequently to avoid sticking. In total, it probably cooked for a good 15-20 minutes but my large batch has a LOT of liquid! It won’t take you that long in a small batch. Once the color of the soup started turning a bit darker and the liquid got thicker (not super thick though) I seasoned with salt and pepper and started trying my homemade concoction.

I finally got the right amount of salt and pepper and the taste was fantastic! The soup was so yummy I almost wanted to eat it as is! But then I remembered I needed it for future recipes and the fact that it was 10:30 at night. Not a good time for another meal! 🙂

Now the question was how to store all this soup? According to the author of Once a Month Meals, the soup will only stay good in the fridge for 4 days. If you can use it within that time, awesome! However, the meals that need Cream of Whatever come later in the month. Since each serving is 1.5 cups, I spooned each serving into a quart sized freezer bag.

This large batch made 8, yes, 8 servings! That’s 8 “cans” of Cream of Whatever! Three more than I expected! YIPPEE! I gave one to my friend and put the rest in the freezer. When I’m ready to use a “can”, I just need to thaw a bag and add it to any recipe!

Cream of Whatever Soup

Yields: 1-2 cans                           Time: 30 minutes                               Print

Source: onceamonthmeals.com

Ingredients:
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 small onion, diced
• 1/2 cup main ingredient, diced
• 1/4 cup butter or substitute
• 1/4 cup flour or substitute
• 1 cup milk or substitute
• 3/4 cup broth
Directions:
– Sauté garlic, onion and main ingredient (mushrooms, chicken, celery, etc.) and set aside.
– Melt butter over medium heat.
– Whisk in flour. Cook for about 2 minutes.
– Add milk and broth.
– Add sautéed garlic, onion and main ingredient.
– Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer, stirring regularly, until it reaches desired consistency (about 10-15 minutes).
– Season to taste with salt and pepper and use as you would a can of condensed Cream of Whatever Soup in any recipe.