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This cream of mushroom soup is rich and decadent and so, so much better than canned! It’s perfect as a starter or main dish, or even as a delicious homemade cream of mushroom soup in a green bean casserole or another favorite recipe. Easy to make vegan and gluten-free if needed.
Before You Get Started
- When you’re choosing a white wine to use in this cream of mushroom soup, don’t reach for a sweet one! This isn’t the time for a moscato or riesling or ice wine. Instead, opt for a dry white wine like a French sauvignon blanc or a pinot grigio.
How to Make This Recipe
See recipe card below for full list of measurements, ingredients, and instructions.
Start with aromatics.
Sauté chopped onions and minced garlic in melted butter until the onions start to soften and the garlic is nice and fragrant. Neither of these mile markers should take long to reach at all.
caramelize the onions.
Toss in a little more butter and all of your mushrooms, and stir just to incorporate everything. After that, don’t touch anything for the next 5 or so minutes! You want to give the mushrooms time to sear a bit and release as much of their moisture as possible. Once that happens, you can stir everything occasionally and cook the mushrooms another 5 or 10 minutes, until they’re browned and caramelized. Be careful not to burn them, though!
Make it a soup.
Incorporate the white wine and flour, then the broth and the spices. Once everything’s combined, you can take a little break while the soup simmers for 15 minutes.
Blend ’til smooth.
Use an immersion blender to blend the mushroom soup to your preferred consistency. I like my soup really smooth, but if you want a few mushroom chunks, that’s totally fine! To keep some larger pieces of mushroom, scoop a little soup into a separate bowl, then blend just what’s left in the pot and stir the reserved soup back in afterward.
If you don’t have an immersion blender, don’t worry. You can use a standard blender instead. You’ll just want to take a few precautions since blending hot liquids can be a little hazardous. I’ve included some notes about that on the recipe card below!
Last step!
Once you’ve got the consistency just right, it’s time to literally put the “cream” in your cream of mushroom soup. Make sure the half-and-half is at room temperature before you add it to the soup. If it’s cold at all, it could curdle when you add it to the warm soup, completely ruining all of your hard work.
What I Love About This Recipe
- Cream of mushroom soup is full of rich, deep flavor thanks to sautéed onions, sautéed garlic, and caramelized mushrooms. The dried thyme and white wine don’t hurt, either. If you ask me, it tastes so much better than any canned cream of mushroom soup you’ll get at the grocery store.
- It’s deliciously creamy, and hearty enough that you could honestly serve it as your main course. Pair it with some crusty bread and a spinach salad and you’ve got a satisfying and cozy meatless meal.
- You know how your favorite green bean casserole or pork chop casserole or potato stroganoff recipe calls for a can of condensed cream of mushroom soup? Yeah, not anymore! Replace your canned soup with an equal amount of this homemade version and instantly level up your recipe.
Cheryl’s Tip
Planning to stock your freezer with some cream of mushroom soup for later? To maximize space, use food-safe freezer bags! Any size works – sometimes I like to use the quart-size for smaller portions so I don’t have to defrost a lot of soup at once every time.
Let your soup cool completely, then transfer it to your freezer bag(s) of choice. Remove as much air as you can, then seal the bag(s) and lay them completely flat. You can put them directly on a freezer shelf, or lay them on a sheet pan first, whichever works better for your set-up. Freeze the soup flat for 30-60 minutes. After that you can rearrange things as needed, and if you stand the flat bags upright, they take up almost no space!
Recipe Variations
- Make it Gluten Free: Use a gluten-free all-purpose flour and make sure your broth is totally gluten-free with no cross-contaminants.
- Make it Paleo: Use ghee instead of butter, broth instead of white wine if desired, and replace the all-purpose flour with cassava flour. Swap the half-and-half out with 1 cup of coconut cream, made from a can of unsweetened, full-fat coconut milk.
- Make it Vegan: You’ll want a plant-based butter instead of traditional butter, of course, and vegetable broth instead of chicken broth. Use the same coconut cream substitution I mentioned in the paleo variation above.
Making changes to a recipe can result in recipe failure. Any substitutions or variations listed are simple changes that I believe will work in this recipe, but results are not guaranteed.
Cream of Mushroom Soup
Equipment
- Large, heavy-bottomed pot
- Large wooden spoon
- whisk
- immersion blender or standard blender, see Notes
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
- ½ cup chopped white onion approximately ½ of one medium onion
- 1 tablespoon minced fresh garlic approximately 2–3 cloves
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
- 6 cups sliced mushrooms approximately 20 ounces, white or baby bella mushrooms
- ¼ cup dry white wine or ¼ cup low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth
- 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth or vegetable broth
- ⅛ teaspoon dried thyme
- ½ teaspoon salt plus more to taste
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper plus more to taste
- 1 cup half-and-half at room temperature
Instructions
- Place large, heavy-bottomed pot on stovetop over medium heat. When pot is warm, add 2 tablespoons unsalted butter. Let butter melt completely, pushing butter across bottom of pot with wooden spoon occasionally.
- Once butter has melted, add ½ cup chopped white onion and stir to incorporate. Sauté onions until slightly softened, approximately 3 to 5 minutes.
- Once mushrooms have softened slightly, add 1 tablespoon minced fresh garlic and stir to incorporate. Sauté garlic, stirring frequently, 30 seconds or until just fragrant.
- When garlic is fragrant, add remaining 2 tablespoons unsalted butter and 6 cups sliced mushrooms. Stir to incorporate. Sauté mushrooms without stirring 5 minutes or until mushrooms have released almost all moisture.
- Stir mushrooms then sauté 5 to 10 minutes more, stirring as needed, until mushrooms are golden brown and caramelized on all sides.
- When mushrooms are browned, pour ¼ cup dry white wine into pot. Sprinkle 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour over ingredients in pot and stir until flour is fully incorporated and golden, approximately 3 to 5 minutes.
- Once flour mixture has become golden, add 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth in small increments, stirring constantly.
- When all broth has been incorporated completely, add ⅛ teaspoon dried thyme, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper to pot and stir to incorporate.
- Reduce heat under pot to medium-low and simmer soup 15 minutes.
- After 15 minutes, remove pot from heat and let soup cool 3 to 5 minutes.
- Insert immersion blender into pot and blend mixture until desired consistency is achieved. Alternately, ladle soup into standard blender, working in multiple batches, and blend soup to desired consistency. See Notes below for tips on blending hot liquids in standard blenders.
- When satisfied with soup consistency, add 1 cup half-and-half to pot and stir until fully incorporated.
- Taste soup and add salt and/or pepper if needed. Ladle soup into serving bowls and serve warm.
- If you’d like a few unblended sautéed mushrooms in your soup, transfer a portion of the unblended soup to another bowl, then blend the remaining soup to your desired consistency. Return the reserved soup to the pot after blending and serve as desired.
- Leftovers (or Make-Ahead Option): Let the soup cool completely, then transfer it to an airtight container. Refrigerate the soup up to 5 days, reheating it on the stove prior to serving.
- Freezer Option: Prepare soup as instructed. After blending soup, do not add half-and-half. Instead, transfer blended soup to airtight, freezer-safe container and let cool completely, then freeze soup up to 3 months. When ready to use or serve soup, defrost it overnight in the refrigerator first, then reheat it on the stovetop over medium-low heat. When the soup is warm, stir in the room-temperature half-and-half, then continue heating the soup until hot.
Tips for Blending Hot Liquids in a Standard Blender
- Fill blender no more than halfway. Work in batches as needed.
- Let mixture cool slightly before blending.
- Always blend hot liquids with center cap of blender lid removed. Cover with dish towel and hold down tightly to keep lid on blender and keep mixture from splashing out.
Approximate Information for One Serving
Nutrition Disclaimers
Number of total servings shown is approximate. Actual number of servings will depend on your preferred portion sizes.
Nutritional values shown are general guidelines and reflect information for 1 serving using the ingredients listed, not including any optional ingredients. Actual macros may vary slightly depending on specific brands and types of ingredients used.
To determine the weight of one serving, prepare the recipe as instructed. Weigh the finished recipe, then divide the weight of the finished recipe (not including the weight of the container the food is in) by the desired number of servings. Result will be the weight of one serving.
Did You Make This Recipe?
Tag @40aprons on Instagram and be sure to leave a review on the blog post!
Frequently Asked Questions
Sure! If you plan to serve it within an hour of it being ready, you can keep the soup warm on the stovetop over low heat. If you’re not going to serve the soup within an hour of making it, then let the soup cool completely and transfer it to an airtight container. Refrigerate the soup up to 5 days and reheat it on the stovetop before serving.
You can, BUT! If you’re planning to freeze the soup for later, don’t add the half-and-half now. Wait until you’ve defrosted the soup and are reheating it to add the dairy. That way, you don’t risk the half-and-half separating after heating it, freezing it, defrosting it, and heating it again.
More Must-Try Soup Recipes
- Sweet Potato Soup
- Gluten-Free Cream of Chicken Soup
- Cream of Onion Soup
- Turnip Green Soup
- Oyster Brie Soup (from Disney World’s Hollywood Brown Derby)
- Jalapeño Popper Soup
- Creamy Crockpot Potato Soup
- Kale and White Bean Soup
- Creamy Chickpea Soup
- Instant Pot Chicken Pot Pie Soup
- Vegan Potato Soup
- Creamy Cajun Chicken Pasta Soup
- McAlister’s Chicken Tortilla Soup Copycat
- Chicken Velvet Soup
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I pre-make this recipe and then use it in casseroles that call for condensed soup. I cook it down and also adjust my casserole recipe for the difference in consistency. Great recipe!
That’s so great, Amanda! Perfect Thanksgiving cooking hack! Thanks so much for the review, Amanda!
Cheryl, we love your recipes! What would be the best way to make this dairy-free?
Any non-dairy option for milk would work! To maintain the creaminess, perhaps substitute the milk for canned coconut cream or plant-based (non-flavored) creamer!
For the butter, one can easily swap avocado oil for it.
That will work! 🙂
My son is allergic to dairy. Can you substitute a can of coconut milk or cream in this recipe?
Yes! 🙂
Hello,
This soup looks delicious and perfect for wintry Oregon nights! What do you recommend substituting for the half and half to still get that creamy taste?
Thank you
A can of unsweetened coconut cream would be excellent!
Any suggestions on a replacement for half and half?
Are you allergic to dairy?
Not allergic, I usually use coconut milk in my cream soups but wasn’t sure how it would taste in this one.
Cheryl – can this be made thicker to resemble a “condensed” soup to use as a swap in other recipes? Would you recommend simply cutting amount of broth to achieve a condensed soup consistency? Is that an effective strategy?