ChefSteps is a team of chefs, writers, and food lovers who develop recipes, techniques, and guides to help people cook better at home.

ChefSteps

So many of us have powerful sensory memories of cream of mushroom soup. You can do so much with a cream of mushroom soup base: green bean casserole, tater tot casserole, pork chops simmered in it, and a pretty great gravy. We might have grown up with cream of mushroom soup from a can, but we have grown up now. So many of us in the Northwest love cooking with wild mushrooms. How can we honor the OG soup of our childhood memories? We can make the most decadent, delicious cream of mushroom soup base of our adult palates and desires. We love mushrooms here at ChefSteps and it is the season for wild mushrooms. We made this base with a variety of them: porcini, chanterelle, morel, ​and King oyster. Wild mushrooms are seasonal and at the mercy of the weather, plus the luck of your local forager. During the development of this recipe, we were able to obtain porcini mushrooms, but by the time we filmed the video, we couldn’t get any. So, in the recipe, we mention some great substitutes. Also, the weeks during which we developed this recipe was fresh truffle season, with some beautiful white Alba truffles from Piedmont, Italy showing up at Pike Place Market. They are expensive and heavenly. Since we decided to make the cream of mushroom soup base of our dreams, we included them here. Of course, we don’t expect that everyone will want to shell-out for imported white truffles, but you don’t need them to make this base spectacular. Use the wild mushrooms you like best to make the best cream of mushroom base you have ever tasted.