Description
Rich and velvety mushroom soup made with fresh mushrooms, cream, and aromatic herbs. Ready in 30 minutes and perfect for cozy family dinners.
Ingredients
For the Soup Base:
- 2 pounds mushrooms – whatever’s on sale (I usually grab cremini because they’re cheap)
- 4 tablespoons real butter (margarine tastes like sadness here)
- 1 big onion, chopped up
- 3 garlic cloves, minced (or just use the jar stuff)
- 1/4 cup flour
- 4 cups chicken broth (the low-sodium kind so you can control the salt)
- 1 cup heavy cream (milk works if that’s what you have)
- 1/2 cup cooking sherry (skip it if you don’t have it)
For Seasoning:
- 2 teaspoons thyme (dried is fine, fresh is better)
- 1 bay leaf (seriously don’t forget to fish this out)
- Salt and pepper
- Parsley to make it look fancy
Instructions
Don’t you dare wash those mushrooms under the faucet – they’ll turn into little water balloons. Just brush them off with a paper towel like my grandma taught me.
Pro Tip: I slice mine thick because thin ones disappear into mush. We want actual mushroom pieces in our soup, not mushroom-flavored cream.
This is where most people screw up – they dump all the mushrooms in at once and wonder why everything’s soggy. Do half at a time and leave them alone for a few minutes. I know it’s tempting to stir, but don’t.
Same pot, add more butter, throw in your onions. Cook them until they’re soft and smell amazing – about the time it takes to load the dishwasher.
Dump the flour over everything and stir it around for a couple minutes. This gets rid of that chalky flour taste nobody wants in their soup.
Pour in the broth slowly while whisking so you don’t get weird lumps. Add the sherry if you’re using it, plus the thyme and bay leaf. Let it bubble for about 10 minutes.
Pro Tip: I learned the hard way that dumping all the liquid in at once makes lumpy soup. My kids still remind me about that disaster from two years ago.
Put the mushrooms back in, then slowly add the cream. Let it heat through for 5 minutes but don’t let it boil or you’ll have cottage cheese soup.
Fish out that bay leaf before someone bites it, then ladle into bowls. Grab some bread and call it dinner.
Notes
- Buy the pre-sliced mushrooms if you’re in a hurry – life’s too short and nobody will judge you
- That fancy sherry from the wine store is nice, but cooking sherry from the grocery aisle works fine too
- If it’s too thin, just let it simmer longer with the lid off while you clean up
- Don’t have cream? Half-and-half works, even milk if that’s all you’ve got
- Burnt the bottom? Don’t scrape it – just pour everything into a new pot and pretend it never happened
- Out of thyme? Oregano, rosemary, whatever green stuff you have will work
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Category: Soup
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cup
- Calories: 285
- Sugar: 6g
- Sodium: 520mg
- Fat: 24g
- Saturated Fat: 15g
- Unsaturated Fat: 7g
- Trans Fat: 0g
- Carbohydrates: 12g
- Fiber: 2g
- Protein: 8g
- Cholesterol: 75mg