Cream of mushroom soup is a delicious comfort food. It’s made with loads of mushrooms, cooked with butter and spices in vegetable stock, blended to a smooth puree and topped with cream. Mushrooms are either loved or despised – I’ve rarely seen people on the fence. Thankfully, my family falls in the former category. But I can assure you that this home style creamy soup will become your weeknight dinner favorite for two reasons – (a) it’s easy to make, (b) it’s tasty. Let’s dive in…

WHAT YOU WILL NEED

Ingredients

Note: 1 cup = 235 ml

1. ¼ cup unsalted butter / avocado oil
2. 680 grams mini bella mushrooms, sliced 
3. 1 cup yellow onions, finely chopped
4. 4 garlic pods, roughly chopped
5. 1 sprig thyme – recommended but optional
6. 1 tsp. Italian seasoning 
7. ½ tsp. black pepper powder
8. 1 – 946 ml box vegetable stock / broth / water
9. Salt to taste (I used 1 ¾ tsp. table salt)
10. 1 cup water
11. ½ cup heavy whipping cream / milk

Substitute butter with avocado oil or any cooking oil and cream with milk for a low fat version

Kitchen Tools

1. Instant Pot / Pressure cooker 4 -5 liters / large stock pot
2. Ladle, flat & scoop
3. Immersion blender / regular blender

PREPARATION (with step-by-step photos)

Step 1 – Set Instant Pot on sauté mode and when it’s hot add ¼ cup butter and let it start to melt. If using pressure cooker or stock pot, set it on medium to high heat

Step 2 – Add the sliced mushrooms, ¾ tsp. salt and mix with a flat ladle

Step 3 – Sauté until the mushrooms are golden brown and dry. This will take about 30 minutes

Mushrooms will sweat a ton of water and it takes time to dry out. Do not drain the water. The taste comes from mushrooms cooking in that water until they dry and turn golden brown

Avoid burning the mushrooms to get the best taste for this soup. Set aside a few browned mushroom slices for dressing if you like

Step 4 – Add in 4 roughly chopped garlic pods, 1 cup finely chopped onions, and sauté until the onions are translucent

• 

• 

Step 5 – Add 1 sprig fresh thyme, 1 tsp. Italian seasoning, ½ tsp. black pepper powder, 4 cups or 1 box of vegetable broth/ stock, remaining 1 tsp. salt, 1 cup water and stir well

You can skip fresh thyme, if it’s not locally available or if you do not like its taste

Substitute vegetable broth / stock with equal amount of water

• 

• 

Step 6 – Close with lid and set Instant Pot to ‘Manual – high’ for 3 minutes. If using a pressure cooker, cook for 3 whistles. If cooking in a stock pot, bring it to boil, place a lid with a slight opening (this will prevent the liquid from boiling over), reduce heat to low, and cook until the mushrooms are tender

Step 7 – Open the Instant Pot / Pressure cooker when ready and remove the whole thyme sprig

Step 8 – Blend the mixture to a creamy texture using an immersion blender. If using a regular blender allow this mixture to cool down completely before blending

Always avoid blending hot ingredients in the blender, unless the technology of the blender supports it

If using a regular blender, bring the blended soup back to the pot and heat it before adding cream

Step 9 – Stir in ½ cup of heavy whipping cream

If you plan to make this cream of mushroom soup ahead of time, re-heat the soup and add the cream just before serving

Step 10 – Enjoy this sublime home style Cream of Mushroom Soup 😋

---

Mushrooms were never a part of our family meals while I was growing up. Maybe because of the weird way they grow (while we were growing up, the story was that these fungi grew by the way side on dog pee…not exactly an appetizing intro to this wonderful food). I was first introduced to the taste of mushrooms at work (I was well into my twenties), thanks to my friend Sandhya Singh’s mom. But they just weren’t popular / easily available. After moving to the US and seeing grocery aisles loaded with mushrooms, I learnt that fungiculture was huge. The fact that it is a great source of Vitamin D also helped push the inclusion of mushrooms into our diet. My first time cooking mushrooms was a disaster though. I imagined nicely browned mushrooms on the side of my breakfast plate, but in reality I had just soft cooked mushrooms and it did not look anywhere close to the golden brown ones served at restaurants. I always thought it had to do with adding a lot of butter/oil, but only after some more online research, I learnt that the right way to cook mushrooms was not to crowd them while cooking. A spacious flat pan and just enough mushrooms with little butter will do the trick. Happy cooking!

---

---

---

Thank you for stopping by. If you’ve tried this recipe, I would love to hear from you. Please add your comments below and / or rate this recipe. Your feedback will help me improve and share better recipes with you.