I was born and raised in Minnesota. Cream of [insert flavor here] soup is a dietary staple. You can barely make hotdish without it.
HOTDISH.
In the age of Eliminate!All!The!Chemicals! there is a very strong anti-cream soup movement.
I’m not afraid of a few chemicals in my food, but I’m not opposed to finding replacements with pronounceable ingredients either.
There are a whole lot of recipes out there for cream soup alternatives. Some you make on the spot when cooking. Others you prepare ahead of time to keep on hand for later use. Some are way more complicated than they need to be. Some are…altogether questionable.
I like the idea of having a dry mix on hand for when I want to use it in a hotdish recipe.
There is a distinct texture difference between the two. The homemade version has a much grainier texture to it than the gloppy canned stuff. Though depending on what you’re using it in, it’s not always that noticeable.
Cream Soup Alternative
Ingredients:
2 cups powdered milk
3/4 cup cornstarch
3 Tbsp dried minced onion
1 tsp black pepper
Optional: 1/4 cup bouillon granules (chicken, beef, onion, vegetable)Directions:
1.) Mix dry ingredients together and store in an air tight container.2.) To equal one 10-oz can of cream soup mix 1 & 1/4 cups water with 1/3 cup dry mix in a saucepan over medium heat, bring to a low bubble and simmer until it thickens, about 5 minutes.
If you skip the bouillon granules in the dry mix, substitute broth of your choice (chicken, beef, vegetable) in place of the water and add chopped celery, onion, or mushrooms depending on the specific soup you’re looking to use.
Source: somewhere in the ether…
I always have powdered milk on hand. Since neither of us can drink milk, buying a carton of the real stuff is a complete waste because it would never get used before it goes bad. Cooking with the [mixed] powdered milk doesn’t aggravate our milk allergies so it makes a decent alternative. It’s nonfat, so if a sauce calls for 2% or whole (or even cream), it might turn out thinner than anticipated, but it really hasn’t been a problem for me so far. If all else fails, mixing up a small amount of cornstarch and water can produce the desired effect of using a higher-fat milk or cream.
These days we generally have soy juice milk on hand, but I don’t usually cook with it unless I only need a small amount. In most cases it works fine—it really doesn’t have any flavor—but it’s expensive and I’m cheap and Bob drinks it regularly with dinners (I just can’t do it) so I usually stick with the powdered stuff.
Just don’t try to make pudding with soy milk. It doesn’t work. You’ll just have pudding flavored soup.
Trust me on that one.
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Originally posted on [the now defunct] Computer Generated Housewife.
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