When I began my real food journey as a Southerner one of the more difficult challenges was to find recipes my family liked without the use of condensed soups. Chicken pot pie, funeral potatoes, poppyseed chicken casserole anyone?
Any wonder why Southerners are overweight and unhealthy? The ingredient labels of these soups are rife with things I’m trying to avoid: MSG, artificial flavors, soy proteins, preservatives, and unhealthy fats that raise cholesterol. One can of Campbell’s cream of chicken is the equivalent of 90% of the recommended daily value of sodium.
I quickly learned to make cream of chicken soup (mushroom, etc) with lots of nourishing broth but couldn’t figure how to make it thick enough to replace canned condensed soup. Some recipes just need the thicker condensed soup.
Today I present a recipe for condensed soup for when you want comfort food and want it to be healthier. Also: Why did it take me 17 years to simply increase the flour?!
Condensed Soup Recipe
Ingredients
6T butter or fat
2/3 c AP flour
2/3 c broth
2/3 c milk or cream
seasonings: sea salt, pepper, powdered garlic, onion, powdered mushrooms
Instructions
Melt butter in a small saucepan and whisk in flour. Stir constantly while it forms a paste. Slowly whisk in broth then milk. Continue to whisk for several minutes smoothing out the flour and scraping down the sides of the pan as you go. Add 1/4 tsp of garlic, black pepper and salt (add or more!! maybe as much as a tablespoon salt if using homemade broth). Whisk until smooth and creamy.
Taste! If it tastes like flour and butter paste then and add more seasonings. Definitely more salt. Trust your ability to taste.
The recipe takes the place of 2 cans of condensed soup. Recipe may be doubled or tripled. Refrigerate up to a week in an airtight container or frozen. Souper cubes are great for this.
HT to @mykycottage from Instagram for originally sharing this culinary delight.
Notes
fat - I substituted some butter with pastured lard from my local co-op. Local lard will have amazing values of hormone healing, immune building vitamin D which we all desperately need more of, especially in winter.
[The Weston A. Price Foundation does not recommend synthetic vitamin D in any form. The vitamin comes in two main forms: vitamin D2 and vitamin D3. Neither are recommended as supplements in favor or whole food. For more information, read an excellent article by Sally Fallon Morell here.]
broth - for the love of all that is yummy and healthful, please make your own broth. The better the broth tastes, the better your food tastes. For this recipe I used a very silky delicious batch of broth (super gelatinous once cooled).
Troubleshooting — the biggest broth mistake most people make is using too much water and too few bones. Watery broth does not taste good. Read more troubleshooting tips here.
seasonings - besides delicious broth, adding seasonings will help this taste beyond flour and fat. Please use salt. There’s a reason that Campbell’s soup tastes good and it is partly because they use enough salt. Use a quality sea salt rich in other minerals your body can use.
I bought dried mushrooms at Costco this fall (something like this) and blitzed them to a powder in my blender. I love adding this powder to everything (eggs, ground beef, wilted greens, potatoes - anything savory) and it might be my favorite seasoning. Shelf stable mushrooms that my kids can’t pick out? Yes please. It adds flavor, nutrition, and that pleasing mouth feel of umami.
Health Tip
While I’m happy to give you this recipe for condensed soup, if you’re in the beginning stages of a real food journey, branch out and find a few new recipes to incorporate your menu rotation that don’t include condensed soups.
Like I tell people trying to go gluten-free, “Don’t just buy gluten-free bread (which mostly always tastes terrible) - try to eat something without bread.” Try recipes with meat and vegetables and without GF pasta. Here are some easy, healthy AND delicious sheet pan recipes to try.
It’s not just finding the best gluten-free replacements, it is also training your mouth and mind to like new things.
Baby steps my friend. Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Heartwarming Dragon Fruit Story
Before going to a Christmas party this week I grabbed some last minute items at the grocery. In the produce sale section I saw a bag of 4 discounted dragon fruits. Not being from a tropical region I had no idea if they were ripe. I decided to buy the dollar’s worth of adventure.
Once home I cut open the first one. I expected pink flesh. It was white. A quick Google search told us there are two colors: white and pink, depending on the outside color. We also learned it’s considered a superfood in nutrition.
I cut them up and arranged pieces on a Christmas platter. We shared at the party. Trying new things is fun!
Crazy enough, an elementary aged girl told me at the party, “Thank you for bringing those. We were just at the store and I asked my mom to buy a dragon fruit. They were too expensive so we didn’t get them. But you brought some for me to try!”
I almost cried it made me so happy I gambled the dollar.
Life is hard; food doesn’t have to be.
Julie
PS - Have reluctant children who would never taste dragon fruit? I overheard one mom at the party coax an unsure child. This interaction made me so happy.
Mom: Wanna try this?
Child: (decidedly) Nope.
Mom: OK. Just lick it.
Child licks, unsure. Realizes it isn’t bitter or poison.
Mom: Now take the teeniest mouse bite.
Child bites. Chews. Realizes it’s not bad. Says, “I don’t like the texture of the seeds.”
Mom: Fair enough. Thanks for trying.
***This is how we train…BABY STEPS. Keep going, Mom!***