With autumn’s arrival and the approach of shorter days and cooler nights, it may be time to start thinking about warming comfort foods and holiday cooking. It will be here before we know it!

Have you ever found an amazing recipe you wanted to make, but it calls for a can of cream of chicken or cream of mushroom soup? When you’re eating a processed-free diet, you want to avoid canned soups – for a multitude of reasons. Even the “healthier” brands tend to have a ridiculous amount of sodium (not from healthy sea salt, either) and a list of ingredients I can’t pronounce!

This is a recipe you can use to make cream of “whatever” soup.  When you are shopping for your cooking adventure, you can plan on these ingredients, plus whatever item you added into the “whatever” blank. Cream of chicken – cook up some chicken breast first and add it in while you’re cooking your recipe. Some other ideas are: mushroom, celery, onion, asparagus, potato, cauliflower, broccoli, and turkey, which can all also be diced then sauteed in butter or coconut oil.

Cream of Condensed Soup
3 Tbsp. organic butter
3 Tbsp. flour (I’ve used Nutiva coconut flour and Bob’s Red Mill Whole Wheat Flour)
1/2 c. chicken stock (or any stock, really)
1/2 c. organic heavy whipping cream (or almond or coconut milk if you don’t want to use cream)
Your “whatever” ingredient
Himalayan Pink Salt and pepper

Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat then add the flour. Cook, stirring rapidly, until the mixture is thick. Add the stock and whisk until smooth, then add the milk. Bring to a simmer and cook, stirring, until thickened. This is a good time to add your “whatever.” Remove from the heat and add salt and pepper to taste. This recipe is equivalent to one can of soup.

You can cook it the day you’re going to use it, or it will actually keep for a couple days in the fridge, too.

The above recipe has a great thickness, however, if you feel you need to thicken it more, arrowroot is a healthier choice than corn starch. It’s an alternative, but I’ve never needed it.

Of course, you can always just enjoy this as a soup, too!