I have actually made a cream of broccoli soup with pureed cauliflower. It was a good base, though certainly not the same. I would recommend adding a bit of milk or cream to the puree to ensure you get the creamy texture of the condensed soup.
My husband is from a Jewish family and I am from a Catholic family, so our favorite tradition is trading holiday food. I give him all my Cadbury eggs and ham for Matza pizza. So good...
no one has mentioned almond milk, which works wonderfully in "cream of" soups instead of the cream. It is pretty high in fat though, so that's the only downside. But it has a wonderful taste, and is non-dairy.
pureed white beans instead of the potato for more protein and fiber, albeit a very different flavor.
The problem with using substitutes for "cream of _____" is that the dish you're trying to recreate doesn't taste the same. Green bean casserole, for instance, made with another sauce instead of cream of mushroom soup may be good, but it's not the traditional green bean casserole. I think the solution is to avoid those things or make them infrequently.
Here's a very simple and quick alternative. The Bisque. For every gallon of liquid in your recipe add 1 cup of uncooked rice. When the rice is cooked, puree the soup and pass through a strainer. Then garnish with reserved Veg. of the themed soup ;IE Florettes, diced tomato,sliced mushroom etc...You'll find a very similar apperance and mouth feel.
Use a healthier brand than the red one. Health Valley, Imagine, Pacific, all have tasty organic brands that are free of the nastier additives, and they have real big chunks of mushroom and taste really good. Even the Progresso brand is healthier than Campbell's.
Since I was diagnosed as a diabetic last year, I've come up with a number of ways to cut out sugar, carbs, and fats and still have food that tastes good and is satisying.
I start out by sauteeing onion and garlic or shallots in olive oil.
I basically use a chicken soup stock or base to cook whatever veggie and a potato or two in the stock with any herbs you like.
I use a butter substitute called Butter Buds to add a richer flavor.
Cook until the potatoes and vegs are just tender.
Then either use an immersion or stick blender, or about half of the liquid and veggies and blend until they're a smooth as you like.
CAUTION: Be very careful when blending a hot liquid in the blender. Only fill about half way and vent the top. (I know, I learned the hard way and had broccoli soup everywhere).
You can make the soup as smooth as you like, but I like to leave some veggies for texture or perhaps blend them slightly along with the smooth blended soup.
It's healthy creamy and fufilling without a speck of fattening cream or butter.
It'll never be the same as say, a real creamy soup, but it's much, much healthier and you can eat a larger portion and not feel guilty.
One thing to keep in mind is that while the sodium content per serving of a canned cream of X soup is very high, that same content spread over 6 or 8 servings in a casserole recipe might look a lot more reasonable depending on the other ingredients. I am a fan of the chicken and rice bake made with a can of cream of mushroom soup. We get 6 servings out of one recipe which includes one can of soup. Using Campbell's healthy request version of cream of mushroom, that's a total of right about 200mg of sodium per serving from the soup. I don't add any other salt to the dish. According to NutritionData.com, the chicken would add another 85mg of sodium per serving and the rice another, literally, 1.5mg per serving.
You could also use the Campbell's low sodium cream of mushroom which has only 60mg of sodium in a can. I haven't looked at the ingredient list on that to know whether there are other things that would disqualify it, though.
US Recommended Daily sodium amount is 2400mg, by the way, for comparison's sake.
If you concern/desire is to not use any processed foods, obviously none of this is really of interest. If, though, your concern is keeping sodium and calories in check, some condensed soups can be used in ways that don't actually kill the nutritional status of a dish. I've also made the above dish with Amy's cream of mushroom with good success.
We always have Turkey and Ham and it is s toss up for me but I do love that Turkey gravy! Mouth watering now.
Cherry glazed ham. A recipe passed down from my Mom
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