Cream of Mushroom Soup
Warm up with a bowl of soup! This Cream of Mushroom Soup is packed with flavor – it’s the perfect comfort food for a cold winter day!
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60 seconds. It doesn’t feel like a long time, but a lot can happen in a minute. It felt like the world slowed down quite a bit in 2020, but that’s not entirely true. A single minute – 60 seconds – on the internet in 2020 held a lot of action. According to a report by Visual Capitalist, the amount of digital activity on the internet skyrocketed last year. Not too surprising, right? After all, many of us were self-quarantined at home. What do you do when stuck at home for days on end? Bake sourdough bread. Do puzzles. Get on the internet.
A single internet minute in 2020 meant more than 400,000 hours of steaming shows on Netflix. That same minute brought 500 hours of videos uploaded to YouTube. 6,500 packages were shipped by Amazon each minute – it’s estimated that $1 million dollars are spent on worldwide e-commerce each minute. That means Amazon is pretty busy! Oh, and Zoom. I was only vaguely aware of Zoom at the start of 2020. Now I know it quite well. According to the same report, 208,000 people participated in Zoom calls each minute. That’s a lot of activity happening every 60 seconds!
Cream of Mushroom Soup
While the internet might be racing, I do find it important to step away and enjoy some quiet time each day. That might come in the form of reading a book by myself. Or perhaps Laura and I catch a Netflix show in the basement at the end of the day. Or maybe it’s just sitting down with a bowl of this Cream of Mushroom Soup for lunch – and leaving the cell phone in the other room.
Growing up, we almost always had a can or two of Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup in the cabinet. But it was never for eating by itself. That canned soup was the base of all sorts of tasty casseroles and dishes. However, a couple of months ago, I had an amazing bowl of cream of mushroom soup that we ordered as takeout from a local restaurant. I had never considered the idea of eating this soup by itself – call me crazy!
Now that I’ve discovered how flavorful (and easy) this Cream of Mushroom Soup is, I can assure you that it will be in our regular soup rotation. Like many of you, we always watch our calories closely as we come out of the holiday season. Surprisingly, this soup is not bad for you at all! (I say surprising as anything labeled “cream of” is usually packed with calories.) However, by using a bit of flour and cornstarch along with pureeing some of the mushrooms into the soup, we end up with a thick, creamy soup that isn’t too bad for the waistline. Oh, and it also tastes amazing! Win-win!
As with most things, homemade is better, and this Cream of Mushroom Soup is no exception. Featuring the deep, earthy flavors of mushrooms, a bowl of this creamy soup makes for a great lunch or dinner. We served this up with a hunk of freshly baked sourdough bread, and it certainly warmed us up on these cold winter days. I hope you enjoy this soup as much as we do!
Did you make a batch of this Cream of Mushroom Soup at home? Leave a comment, or snap a photo and tag me on Instagram (@Spicedblog). I’d love to see your version!
Cream of Mushroom Soup
Ingredients
- 2 Tbsp unsalted butter
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 large yellow onion diced
- 2 tsp minced garlic
- 1½ pounds cremini mushrooms sliced
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- ½ cup sherry or Marsala wine
- 6 Tbsp all-purpose flour
- 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- ½ tsp black pepper
- 2 Tbsp cornstarch
- 1 cup half-and-half
- {Optional} chopped fresh parsley for garnishing
Instructions
- Using a large stockpot or Dutch oven, add butter and olive oil; place over medium-high heat.
- Once butter has melted, add onion and sauté, stirring occasionally, for 2-3 minutes.
- Add garlic, stir and continue sautéing for 1-2 minutes.
- Add mushrooms and thyme; stir until well combined. Sauté, stirring occasionally, for 4-5 minutes.
- Remove 1 cup of cooked mushrooms and set aside.
- Add sherry; stir until well combined. Continue sautéing, stirring occasionally, for 2-3 minutes.
- Add flour; stir until well combined. Continue sautéing, stirring occasionally, for 2-3 minutes.
- Add chicken broth; stir until well combined. Bring mixture to a boil, stirring occasionally.
- Once boiling, reduce heat to medium-low. Add salt and pepper; let simmer for 15 minutes.
- Using an immersion blender, puree soup until smooth.
- Using a small bowl, whisk cornstarch with 3 Tbsp of water. Add cornstarch mixture and half-and-half; stir until well combined. Increase heat and continue cooking for 2-3 more minutes, or until soup has begun to simmer.
- Remove from heat and stir in reserved cooked mushrooms (from above).
- {Optional} Garnish with chopped fresh parsley before serving.
Looking for more tasty soup and stew recipes? Check out these other favorites, too:
Interesting stats about internet usage. I know I increased my usage this past year and also the amount of home cooking we did. I always loved cream of mushroom soup growing up, and still do now. This homemade version looks amazing and I can’t wait to give it a try!
Oh, our internet usage definitely increased this past year. Some of it was due to the pandemic, but we also finally ‘cut the cord’ with cable, so all of our tv comes in via streaming now. (Best decision we ever made, by the way!)
It’s cold out there, and a good bowl of soup is hard to beat. I highly recommend this homemade version of the classic. Stay warm, Kathy!
Boy, I know my usage was up in 2020! And I don’t care! But I do care about this soup! There were no canned soups in my mother’s kitchen but as soon as I was out on my own, I learned about them. And of course, being the food snob that I was, I turned my nose to them. I think there was a cream of chicken I also learned about from my husband. Anyway, it’s totally weird that I’ve never made a real cream of mushroom soup! I love mushrooms! Your recipe sounds divine.
I’m with you, Mimi – our usage definitely increased last year, but I don’t care one bit. (Part of it was due to the fact that we ‘cut the cord’ with cable, so now all of the tv’s in our house stream data over the internet. Best decision ever, by the way!)
There is a time and place for canned soups for sure. However, I think you and I can totally agree that homemade is better. That is 100% the case for this soup – a homemade cream of mushroom soup is quite delightful on a chilly day! 🙂
Amazing how much we can do in a minute in this day and age with technology! But it is important to take some time and relax, decompress — this Cream of Mushroom soup looks like the perfect way to do so 🙂 And it’s been ages since I’ve had the canned Campbell’s version… my mom would use it as pasta sauce when we were growing up. Totally craving for some homemade mushroom soup now… send over a bowl, David!
It truly is amazing how much happens every single minute in the streaming world. I was shocked by the chart – so much so that I just had to share it here on the blog! A good bowl of homemade soup is a great way to slow down a bit, and I’ve gotta say this cream of mushroom soup is a good one. And that’s a fun idea to use cream of mushroom soup as a pasta sauce – I can see that being quite tasty!
I was a weird kid who liked to eat the canned version of this as ‘soup,’ but as an adult I read the ingredients label and that was the end of that. So I love having a healthier homemade option – thanks, David! I can see myself using this in recipes and enjoying it straight.
I’m with ya, Marissa – never read the list of ingredients on a can of soup! Homemade is always better. 🙂 (With that said, I’ll still eat a can of tomato soup or chicken + wild rice soup when I’m sick – it’s comfort food memories.) Either way, this cream of mushroom is quite tasty!
Yes sir, homemade is always better…especially when it comes to mushroom soup. Yours is a winner.
You can say that again, Karen! We’ve been all over the homemade soups lately – and this one is indeed a winner. 🙂
You can’t beat a good homemade cream of mushrooms soup during the winter. Love your version here David. Especially with a little sherry added to take the edge of these colder days!
Ah, the sherry is a requirement for mushroom soup! It adds that extra layer of flavor that really makes the mushrooms shine. I do love a good homemade soup, and this one was a popular one here in our house. Pureeing some of the mushrooms was a fun way to thicken the soup without adding additional cream.
Mushroom soup and miso soup are my go to soups when I crave for one, so warming and full of umami. We almost do it similarly so I can vouch that this recipe will be amazing
Yes! The umami factor on this soup is through the roof – it’s a good one for warming up on cold days! 🙂
If u like the taste of mushrooms then cut the thyme down to a quarter of a teaspoon. All u can taste is the thyme.
Thanks so much for the feedback, Jerry!