Cream Of Mushroom Soup

Cream of Mushroom Soup that’s deep, silky and thick enough to coat a spoon. Browned mushrooms, garlic, a splash of white wine and cream, all in one pot in 40 minutes. It’s mushroom soup that actually tastes like mushrooms.

There’s a point about 8 minutes in where the mushrooms finally let go of all their water and start to brown, and the kitchen smells like a restaurant you’d happily pay to sit in. I stand there longer than I need to every single time.

After that it’s coasting. Garlic, a splash of white wine, thyme, broth, cream. Forty minutes start to finish and it’s all one pot.

And if you landed here because a casserole recipe wants a can of condensed soup and you’re standing in your kitchen without one, scroll down a bit. I’ve got you.

Right, let’s sort this out.

A can of condensed cream of mushroom is 10.5 ounces, which is about 1¼ cups. This soup is thinner than that, because it’s built for a bowl and a spoon rather than a casserole dish.

So you concentrate it. Take about 2 cups of the finished soup and simmer it uncovered until it’s down to roughly 1¼ cups. That’s your can. This recipe makes about 6 cups, so one batch gives you 3 of them.

Two useful things. The canned stuff is saltier than this, so taste your casserole before you reach for the salt shaker. And if you want it smooth like the can, blend it before you reduce it.

It freezes beautifully in 1¼ cup portions, which means a lazy Sunday can leave you with 3 cans’ worth sitting in the freezer looking very pleased with themselves.

• Mushrooms (1½ pounds, sliced): Cremini or baby bella. And yes, a pound and a half. It looks completely unreasonable going into the pot and then cooks down to about a third of that, so trust me on the quantity.
• Butter (2 tablespoons) and olive oil (2 tablespoons): The butter’s for flavor and the oil is there so the butter doesn’t burn while we get on with the browning.
• Onion (1 large, chopped): Goes in first and gets a few minutes to itself.
• Garlic (3 cloves, minced): Three is the minimum. I have never once regretted 4.
• Dry white wine (¼ cup): Goes in after the mushrooms have colored and picks up everything stuck to the bottom of the pan, which is where a surprising amount of the flavor has been hiding.
• All purpose flour (⅓ cup): Turns it from mushroom broth into something silky.
• Chicken bouillon (1 cube): Sitting right next to 4 cups of vegetable broth, which looks like a mistake and isn’t. The bouillon brings a savory depth the vegetable broth can’t manage alone. Swap in a vegetable cube if you’d rather keep it vegetarian.
• Vegetable broth (4 cups, low sodium): Low sodium, since the bouillon is already bringing salt to the party.
• Heavy cream (1 cup): Stirred in at the end. This is the difference between mushroom soup and cream of mushroom soup, and it’s a difference worth having.
• Fresh thyme (1 tablespoon, or 1 teaspoon dried): Mushrooms and thyme are old friends.
• Fresh parsley (1 tablespoon, chopped): Something green at the end.
• Salt and pepper: At the end, once everything else has had its say.

Get the base going: Melt the 2 tablespoons butter with the 2 tablespoons olive oil in a big pot over medium heat. In go the chopped onion and 3 cloves of garlic for 3 to 5 minutes, until they’ve softened and the kitchen has started to smell promising.

Brown the mushrooms: Add the 1½ pounds of mushrooms. They’ll release an alarming amount of water and the pot will briefly look like a swamp. Completely normal, keep going. Around 7 to 10 minutes the liquid cooks away and they start to take on color, and that’s the moment the whole recipe has been waiting for.

Wine in: Pour in the ¼ cup white wine and give it a minute or 2 to cook down, scraping up all the good stuff on the bottom of the pot.

Thicken it: Sprinkle the ⅓ cup flour over everything and stir for a full minute. It’s a short wait for a much better texture.

Make it soup: Crumble in the bouillon cube, add the thyme, a little salt and pepper, then the 4 cups of broth. Bring it to a boil and simmer 10 minutes.

Cream at the end: Heat down to low, stir in the 1 cup of cream, 2 minutes and no more. Let it boil here and the cream will split, and then you’re serving grainy soup while assuring everyone it’s meant to look like that.

Eat it: Parsley on top, bread on the side.

• Give the mushrooms room. A wide pot, or do them in 2 batches. Crowded mushrooms steam rather than brown, and steamed mushrooms are grey and a bit forlorn.
• The puddle is fine. Every mushroom recipe goes through a soggy phase around minute 4. The good part is on the other side of it.
• A full minute on the flour. Sixty seconds, and it’s the difference between silky and slightly pasty.
• Low heat once the cream is in. Cream and a rolling boil have never got on.
• Taste before you salt. The bouillon and the broth have both been quietly contributing this whole time.

• Vegetarian: Vegetable bouillon instead of chicken. Everything else stays put.
• Vegan: Olive oil for the butter, vegetable bouillon, and full fat coconut milk or a good oat cream instead of the heavy cream.
• Smooth: Blitz it with an immersion blender. Blend half if you want some pieces left to chew on.
• Serious mushroom energy: Soak a handful of dried porcini in hot water, chop them in, and use the soaking liquid as part of your broth. It goes somewhere quite a lot deeper.
• Sherry instead of wine: Very traditional, very good.
• Make it dinner: Add cooked barley or wild rice and suddenly it’s a whole meal.

Crusty bread, obviously, for the very important business of getting every last bit out of the bowl. A grilled cheese next to it has never once been a bad decision.

If you want something bright alongside, a sharp green salad does the job.

Four days in the fridge in an airtight container. Reheat it gently rather than blasting it, since cream soups can separate when they’re rushed.

It freezes for 3 months. If you’re freezing it for casseroles, do it in 1¼ cup portions so each one is ready to go as a can.

It can look a bit grainy coming out of the freezer. Warm it slowly, give it a whisk, and it pulls itself together.