Canned cream of “___” soup, how I love thee!  Let me count the ways.  You don’t curdle in the slow cooker. What kind of chemical wizardry allows this?  Any dish I pour you in, becomes an instant child favorite.  You are a time saving genius.  But alas, you carry a suitcase full of MSG headaches and I’m afraid what your chemical  wizardry will do to my insides.  We won’t part ways forever….I’m just saving you for special times.

Homemade cream soup is just a basic white sauce with the appropriate vegetable or meat added.   It takes about 15 minutes to make from start to finish, but doesn’t behave well in a slow cooker. Canned soup is this same idea but concentrated with half the water removed (and again–some kind of wizardry that makes it behave in slow cookers.)

As easy as scratch cream soup is, sometimes it just feels too hard.  Like pulling out the mop and cleaning up the kitchen floor.  On those days, having a mix on hand takes away just enough extra steps that life feels possible again.

I’ve seen lots of mix recipes floating around, but none of them use the concentrated idea in their formulas. The results look (and taste) like thickened water with a mist of milk thrown in.  If normal instant dry milk reconstitutes with 1/3 cup powder to 1 cup of milk, you are going to need 2/3 cup of powder to 1 cup of milk to create a concentrate.  When checking out other recipes on the net–keep that in mind.

Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup Mix–single batch

2/3 cup instant dry milk

2 tsp MSG free chicken bouillon granules

1/4 cup flour or 2 Tbs cornstarch or 2 tsp glucomannan powder

1/4 tsp onion powder

1/8 tsp garlic powder

1/8 tsp white pepper

To use, whisk mix with 1 cup of cold water until all lumps disappear, then cook and stir until thickened.

Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup Mix–Large Batch

4 cups instant dry milk

1/4 cup MSG free chicken bouillon granules

1 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup cornstarch, or 1/4 cup glucomannan powder

1 1/2 tsp onion powder

3/4 tsp garlic powder

3/4 tsp white pepper

Use 1 cup of mix to 1 cup of water, stirring until all lumps disappear.  Cook and stir until thickened.

Cream of broccoli soup: sauté 1/2 cup of finely chopped broccoli in a little butter before adding mix.

Cream of celery soup: Saute 1/2 cup of finely chopped celery in a little butter before adding mix.

Cream of mushroom soup: Use 1 can of undrained chopped mushrooms as part of the liquid (makes up about 1/4 cup of liquid)

p.s. dry milk and instant dry milk are 2 different products.  Dry milk reconstitutes 1/4 cup powder to 1 cup water while instant milk uses 1/3 cup powder to 1 cup milk.  Instant dry milk is bigger granules and dissolves more readily in water, and is available at Aldi.  Either product can be used in the mix, you’ll just need less dry milk. (1/2 cup instead of 2/3 cup etc.)

p.p.s You can halve the amount of dry milk and reconstitute the mix into fresh milk.

p.p.p.s. Even though dry milk is somewhat processed, this recipe does curdle in a slow cooker.  It makes great oven or stove top casseroles though.