Creamy mushroom soup
This creamy mushroom soup is a far cry from the gloopy, gray stuff that comes in a can, but is almost as easy to make.
Two mushroom recipes so close together, huh? Yes! But hear me out. This recipe is so unctuous, so creamy, so warming, and so filling, that I couldn’t hold onto it any longer.
What makes this better than the canned version? Well, the color, first of all. The golden sautéed mushrooms, the purple shallots, and the red paprika lend this soup a much richer and nicer color than the gray stuff (it’s not delicious).
A note about adding dairy to hot soup: It’s possible to split the cream if you add cold dairy to other hot liquids. Split dairy basically looks like you’ve added thousands of little dots of cream rather than the soup looking uniformly creamy. Does that makes sense? It’s totally fine to eat and will taste good, but it sometimes doesn’t look as appetizing.
To avoid this, you can either heat up the dairy or cool down the base soup. The fattier the dairy, the less likely it is to split, so if you’re using heavy cream as I recommend for this recipe, let the cream sit at room temperature while making the rest of the soup. If it still feels chilly when you’re ready to add it, microwave it for 30 seconds before adding. If using a lighter milk or non-dairy milk, I would actually heat it to just simmering in a separate pan on the stove or significantly cool the base soup before adding it.
The texture is also completely different to the canned version. Theoretically, you could throw the mushrooms into a food processor and whizz for a few seconds to quickly chop the whole lot, but I like to cut them myself to get a range of sizes and shapes. I halve the really small shrooms, quarter the medium sized ones, and chop up the large ones. Remove the stems or don’t- that’s entirely up to you.
A note about how I tell if my mushrooms are cooked enough: I cook the mushrooms until they release some water and then that water evaporates. They will have cooked down significantly.
Creamy mushroom soup
½ cup heavy cream
24 oz mushrooms, cut into various sizes
1 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp olive oil, divided
Heaping ½ tsp dried thyme
½ tsp paprika
2 tsp kosher salt
3 large garlic cloves, minced
2-3 large shallots, minced
½ cup white wine
4 cups stock (chicken, beef, or vegetable)
Time: about 45 minutes
Yield: 5-6 cups of soup
Measure out the heayy cream and let sit at room temperature while you make the rest of the soup. See note above about using other types of dairy in this soup.
Chop the mushrooms in varying sizes (see note above).
In a large pan, melt 1 Tbsp of butter and 1 Tbsp of olive oil over a medium flame. Once the pan is heated, add the mushrooms and cook over a medium flame, until the mushrooms have released their liquid and that liquid has evaporated, about 8-10 minutes.
Prep the rest of the ingredients while the mushrooms cook.
Once the mushrooms are relatively dry, add the thyme, paprika, salt, garlic, and shallots. Cook until the garlic and onions are fragrant and translucent, about 3 minutes. If the mixture seems very dry, add another Tbsp of olive oil.
Add the wine and stir, while scraping the brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Cook for another 2-3 minutes.
Add the stock and increase the flame to medium high. Bring to a boil. Lower the flame all the way and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes.
Add the cream and stir.
