Cream of Chicken Soup (Condensed)

Cream of Chicken Soup is the third recipe in the series of Kitchen Pantry Recipe posts I started at the end of July. One of the questions I get most often is, “Hey I have this family recipe but it calls for this item I don’t want to buy, do you have a substitute?

Can you make Cream of Chicken Soup (or other ingredient)” The answer I usually give is, “No but here is a similar recipe. ”

Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup like you find in a can is a homemade version you can use in casseroles and dips without any guilt and it’s freezer friendly!

This recipe flies in the face of that response. Yes, use your family recipes with the packaged products and if you want to swap for homemade I am here to make that easier for you! You don’t need to purchase Campbell’s Cream of Chicken Soup to enjoy your favorite casserole anymore!

Here is the exact serving I made used in a Slow Cooker Hash Brown Casserolethat I made for my friend Jill’s blog Kitchen Fun With My 3 Sons this past Monday:

Looking for more kitchen pantry recipes?

This Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup Recipe is so easy to make and with just a few ingredients you’ll be making your own in no time. ESPECIALLY when you have leftover rotisserie chicken or chicken stock!

If you don’t have a chicken carcass you can definitely make this cream of chicken soup recipe with chicken breast. In fact I added it to the recipe to be thorough.

Making a cream soup like this recipe is really quite easy, you can either start with a roux and slowly add in the dairy to the butter/flour mixture, or you can simmer this soup on the stove and whisk it well while it cooks and you can skip the butter altogether.

Now that we have this recipe on the site I’m going to be making more recipes using cream of chicken soup. I will be updating this page with links and I will be referencing this recipe when I use it in other recipes.

Now that we have this recipe on the site I’m going to be making more recipes using cream of chicken soup. Don’t worry I will be updating this page with links and I will be referencing this recipe when I use it in other recipes.

Some tips and info about this Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup recipe:

• Yes, you can freeze it, I usually freeze it in 1 1/4 cup increments since that is what comes in the canned variety.
• The milk won’t curdle, but when you defrost whisk it well if you can. If going directly into a casserole don’t even worry about whisking.
• If you want to make this Cream of Chicken Soup gluten free you can replace the flour with cornstarch. Start with 2 tablespoons mixed in as directed, but if you need more make sure to make a slurry (1 part cornstarch to 1 part water).
• Feel free to play with the spices as you’d like, I used the ones in the recipe by analyzing the ingredients and the flavors of the canned variety. I use this variety as an ingredient in other recipes so I don’t tend to look for the flavor of the recipe to come from this piece of the puzzle as much.
• If you don’t whisk as much and it gets a little lumpy don’t worry about it, this is meant to be added to forgiving casserole recipes!
• I love (I mean genuinely love) these freezable containers in pretty much every size. I don’t buy branded containers like Rubbermaid, hefty or pyrex because we use these instead for almost everything.

Tools Used in the making of this Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup Recipe:
Better Than Bouillon: I almost never buy boxes of broth because I keep the beef, chicken and vegetable version of this Better Than Bouillon.
Perfect Freezing Containers: As a chef I keep a giant stash of these in the kitchen (we used to use them in culinary school), they’re heavy duty, freeze well and stack great. I can write on them with permanent marker or attach labels and they last forever.

Yield: 3 cups

Cream of Chicken Soup

Prep:5
minutes

Cook:10 minutes

Total Time:15 minutes

Cream of Chicken Soup like you find in a can is the perfect homemade version of the condensed packaged soups you can use in casseroles and dips without any guilt! Plus its super easy to make.

Ingredients:

• 4 cups chicken broth*
• 1/4 cup chopped chicken or a rotisserie chicken carcass (I use the rotisserie chicken)**
• 2 1/2 cups milk (I use whole milk)
• 1 teaspoon celery salt
• 1/2 teaspoon white pepper***
• 3/4 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 1/4 cup flour

Directions:

1. Bring a saucepan with the chicken broth to a simmer with the chicken carcass/chicken meat.
2. Remove 1 cup of the broth to a large measuring cup, add in the milk, celery salt, white pepper, onion powder and flour to the large measuring cup and whisk well until fully combined.
3. Pour the mixture into the pan in a slow stream while whisking.
4. Continue to whisk regularly for 5-7 minutes or until the sauce is thickened (like the canned variety).
5. If you used the chicken carcass, remove it and discard it.

* You can also use Better than Bouillon with water (I do this sometimes, I just double the concentration of it to get a lot of chicken flavor).

** The reason I use the carcass instead of cubed chicken is because to be a good copycat I wanted to keep the chicken pieces minimal. In the Campbell’s Cream of Chicken Soup cans I opened the chicken bits were quite small. Plus, the flavor in that rotisserie only adds depth!

*** I use white pepper because the canned variety doesn’t use black pepper. If you don’t mind the black specks go right ahead and use black pepper!

PS YES, I freeze this all the time, and to have a ratio of how many cups to a can, Campbell’s lists one can as containing 1 1/4 cups of condensed soup. You can freeze the leftovers easily if you just need one can or cut the recipe in half.