Thank you for this!! Saved to try soon -- can't wait.

Thank you! Have added it (copy below) to my recipes.

Thanks, this will come in handy. For the last couple years the thought of using canned soup for recipes has really been a turn off for me.

Thanks for the recipe. It sounds really good. While I don't have any salt issues, canned soup is so over salted I rarely get it.

My grocery has a line of low sodium fat free condensed soups I use for sauces. Too easy and all the flavor needed for our uses.

One of the things I have found with almost anything low salt is that they often taste as it the whole box of salt was added to it. I seldom add salt to anything although tonight's pasta I am cooking with about 1/2 teaspoon of salt since it seems to change the texture just a little, firms it up, and I hate mushy pasta.

Thank you so much! While we don’t have any dietary issues, I always try to avoid a lot of sodium anyway as I cannot stand anything over-salted. Plus it just isn’t good for us. I will definitely be making this.

Thanks for the recipe. It looks simple enough for me. :) I am trying to do more cooking.

Thanks for posting this. I used to love Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup both for eating (yum) and in a few recipes. I haven't purchased it in years and years, but this might inspire me to dig out some of those old favorite recipes of years gone by.

I used to make scalloped potatoes using cream of mushroom soup. It was so easy and added the creaminess I wanted.

When I met hubby, he didn't like mushrooms in any way and he saw me picking out all the little brown bits of mushroom out of the soup before using the cream for the potatoes. He was dumbstruck that I'd do that for him. I made a roux from then on.

What do you like to make with mushroom soup?

I wouldn’t know what to do with it

Thanks, i bet its better than canned! I use it with beef roasts or pork chops.

I used it in a quick and easy recipe for beef stroganoff years ago. Then I ran across a much better recipe that didn’t use the canned soup. Later our grandkids came along and they loved the stroganoff, mostly for the noodles and sauce, so I would sometimes cheat and use the low sodium version canned soup for a quick meal for them, especially when we had 3-4 of them at once. Throw some green beans or salad on the plate and they were happy eaters.

I, too, used it for stroganoff. I loved the green bean casserole that is a holiday tradition. I used it with chicken dishes, ready for gravy, etc. And just plain old mushroom soup!

I haven't bought canned soup since the 1970s, and then only New England style clam chowder (Bar Harbor, not Campbell's).

I've been making a similar recipe for mushroom sauce (which I made up myself), but I use vegetable broth instead of chicken, and I do add a bit of salt to mine. I really dislike anything too salty, except perhaps popcorn. I sauté the onion before I add the mushrooms, and then I add thyme and black pepper once the mushrooms are almost done and sauté that together for another couple of minutes This brings out the flavor of the thyme and makes the black pepper less harsh. Then I deglaze the pan with white wine before adding the vegetable broth. I do not add milk at all to mine, partly because I do not like it and partly because it upsets my stomach.

I do not generally add garlic to mine, but I have on occasion, but I find that it does not need it. What I make is actually a velouté sauce, since it uses broth instead of milk, and I serve it on chicken, broccoli, rice, pasta, etc, but I also add more broth to it to make soup, to which I usually add noodles or dumplings.

My Alsatian grandmother made lots of sauces in the French style, even though she considered herself German. My other grandmother was half French, and she also made a lot of sauces, but I learned mostly from my Alsatian grandmother.

I do make the green bean casserole with this sauce as well, and it has a very nice, fresh flavor. I only use fresh green beans, but my father like canned beans and canned peas. I cannot eat canned peas at all and generally buy them frozen.

I don't know why salt finds its way into so many American recipes. Some chefs on TV think that it is a flavor enhancer, but for me, it is a flavor detractor. I especially dislike salt on chocolate. I like a lot of vegetables without any salt at all, such as corn, squash, and zucchini, and I find that they have a natural sweet flavor when salt is omitted. I do put salt on potatoes, however, and it is necessary in bread and pasta.

What to do with mushroom soup?

Mom used to make it with 1/2 a can of milk and put it over green beans or yellow or zucchini squash as a sauce.

I used to put chicken parts in the crock pot and mix the mushroom soup from the can with a packet of lipton's dried onion soup mix and let it go all day.

This time I used it in the easy chicken/rice bake, where you mix the soup/water/rice in a casserole, place the chicken pieces on top, sprinkle with paprika, cover and bake. Came out good.

But if you look, Campbell's has about a zillion recipes using it....

That's an awesome recipe, thank you!!!!!

I am not one to use a can of soup in cooking and dont, generally, buy those Campbells soups for any purpose.

While your recipe for mushroom soup might make a better soup, isn't it true that most use these canned soups as more of a sub for white sauce?

Being one who cant get near milk without suffering a gag reflex, I never make white sauces anymore, but it really seems that a white sauce would be the best substitute for what I see people using the cans for. Why not perfect the white sauce, instead? It is really very easy and you can control the salt.

During this pandemic, last winter, I turned to Campbells tomato soup as a throwback to my childhood comfort. I went through maybe a dozen cans of it last winter along with a real old fashioned grilled cheese. I am over it now.

Other than that..........no canned soups or dried stuff in packages. They are almost inedible due to the heavy dose of salt.

I think that Progresso is marginally better, but it is still apt to be very salty. Once in a while, a can of that, maybe. but not often.

Canned soups like that have become a hallmark of modern American dinner tables.

I think that one real downside of that is the fact that our collective palates have become accustomed to having so much of what we eat to all have the same overall taste, mostly enhanced meat flavor and salt. I think that it leaves us with a very limited degree of appreciation for so many other things.

It seems that what most are using it for is more of a white sauce. That is, basically, what is in that can. It is a white sauce, a gravy, that is enhanced with MSG, salt and "natural flavors".

Beware of "natural flavoring". It may not be what you expect it to be.

A white sauce is so easy to make.

But a white sauce doesn't have the mushroom flavor.

It's white sauce, with flavorings.
Sauces aren't that hard to make: white sauce traditionally starts with a roux, (butter and flour cooked together 'til bubbly,) and then the liquids added and cooked until it thickens.

As kids, canned soup was what Mom served us when we were playing outside all day in the snow and thought a hot lunch would be more appropriate than just a sandwich. As a kid, I guess canned soup seemed okay.

As an adult, I remember the last time I bought Campbell's and it tasted like salt and sugar in broth. Haven't purchased it since, excepting the occasional times the ubiquitous green bean casserole was requested, and even then, I suspect the store brand was purchased.

When you try it, you may be pleasantly surprised how easy sauces are, even Hollandaise (!) My partner gets the Knorr stuff in an envelope, and is mystified when I turn it down in favor of just a little lemon juice on whatever. It's sauce, but it sure isn't Hollandaise.

I think what makes this recipe great is that it's a direct replacement for recipes that call for canned cream of mushroom soup and many people either hate it or just simply cannot eat it because it is too salty. So while it's great to know how to make a white sauce(which is super simple), it's not going to be a replacement for "add one can of cream of mushroom soup"in that old favorite recipe.

I make velouté sauce instead of béchamel (white) sauce in order to avoid milk. When making a mushroom sauce, I often use dried porcini mushrooms and use the soaking liquid in the sauce. This enhances the mushroom flavor.

Instead of salt, I add a small amount of mushroom soup base (which is largely salt and therefore a good substitute for the salt), and this also enhances the mushroom flavor.

One factor around the use of canned soups in place of a real white sauce is that the soups deliver a taste punch not found in nature, naturally. So much of the American palate has become dependent on enhanced flavors due to all of the added flavor enhancers, and salt, that are found in so many of these processed foods. The palates of many do not appreciate something such as the more subtle flavor of real mushroom broth. It is as if it has to be super charged and strong.

The flavor industry is a big and thriving industry. So much of what has come out of the laboratories has perverted our expectations.

Given the very small amount of mushroom in a can of soup it is unlikely that the mushroom flavor comes from those few bits of mushroom. It more likely comes from the soy protein, yeast, MSG and that mysterious "natural flavor". Natural flavor can be derived from just about anything and due to the lobbying of the flavor industry does not have to be listed as to what is in it.

So, that is most likely where the flavor comes from, and, not from real mushrooms.

Things such as soy protein and yeast are not necessarily worthy of suspicion, but they are not normal cooking ingredients. The "natural flavor", on the other hand, might be worthy of being suspect.. You have no idea just what that is since it does not have to be disclosed. What is the actual flavor of "natural flavor"? Food scientists discover how to make our palates believe that we are tasting something that we really are not.

Thank you - I used this recipe for a chicken and rice dish tonight and it was delicious!

If I wanted to make a gluten free version, could I use corn starch in place of the flour? Or would a rice flour work?

Lars, I agree with you about finding pleasure in the flavor of some things when they are not brined in salt. I quit salting so much while cooking and found some pleasures that were being overlooked, or over salted.

Salt where you need it, but salt takes dominance over so many foods.

Annie cornstarch would work except if it was reheated it would turn liquid although you could then thicken it with more. Never used rice flour since I must avoid too much rice. However corn and rice along with all grains who are from the grass family do have some gluten in them the amounts just vary. I found this out years ago when there was a problem with pet food that contained corn gluten. Until then I had also thought it was gluten free. Mochi is made of a glutinous rice that has more gluten than other rice types.