Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Condensed Cream of Celery Soup

A few days ago, I was shopping for the ingredients to make Cheesy Ham & Potatoes. I was making the casserole for a friend, and one of the requirements her family has is no soy products. So I read the label for the condensed celery soup, and of course found soy, along with a lot of other random ingredients. MSG, soy something or other, artificial flavoring, mushy celery... sorry Campbell's, you just converted me to making my own. I threw a bunch of celery in my cart & determined to figure it out.

I found 2 recipes online that looked like what I wanted, so I combined them and came up with this. It is delicious, has simple ingredients, and is a ton cheaper than the cans! Plus the celery actually looks & tastes like celery! I'm planning to make a batch of it to freeze, so it won't add too much time when I'm making dinner. The Cheesy Ham & Potato casserole turned out better than ever when made with this. I hope you like it!

* You can alter this to make whatever kind of condensed soup you want. I've also made it with finely diced mushrooms & beef broth in place of the chicken broth, and it made a pretty good cream of mushroom soup.

Condensed Cream of Celery Soup
Printable version here

Yield: The amount of 2 (10.75 oz.) cans

3 tbsp. butter
2 tbsp. minced onion
3 celery ribs, minced (a food processor works great for this)
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup flour
1 cup milk
1 1/4 cup chicken broth
Salt & pepper to taste

Melt butter in a saucepan over medium-low heat; add onion & celery and saute until tender (about 5 minutes). Add garlic & saute 30 seconds more.

Add flour and whisk until smooth and bubbly (mixture will be thick). Cook for 1 minute.  Gradually add milk & broth, whisking to keep smooth.

Bring to a gentle boil, whisking constantly. Simmer for a few minutes until thickened. Add salt & pepper to taste.

Notes:
-
Soup can be frozen for later use. It will separate after thawing. To fix this, I heat the thawed soup in a small pan, and whisk occasionally. By the time it is heated through, it is back to normal.

(The recipe that this is based on was taken from here)

5 comments:

  1. Very cool. I need to find a good sub for cream of chicken. The one I tried was definitely not my fav.

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  2. So glad you were able to make this recipe work for you!!
    We have become spoiled to the taste of "homemade" condensed soup. It just tastes so much better than the canned!
    Happy cookin' ~ Connie

    P.S. We homeschool too! Our oldest graduates this year! It is hard to believe that the years have passed so quickly!! Enjoy your homeschooling journey!

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  3. Do you think this would work as cream of mushroom soup too? Just trade the celery for mushrooms?
    I had fun talking "food" with you this morning. It would be fun to get together and cook stuff together!
    (by the way, Ryan has to show Dave the "garage band" app on his iPad. Dave would love it! :) )

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  4. Amy, I had fun talking with you & Deb too! Yeah, I think this would work for cream of mushroom. I've never cooked with mushrooms, because I don't like them (although I do use cream of mushroom, because some recipes need it!). The only other change I would make is using beef broth instead of chicken broth. Let me know if you try this! :)

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  5. Is this recipe a straight substitute for canned soup? What I mean is, does this make the exact same amount as a regular size can of Campbells?

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