Gluten And Dairy Free Cream Of Mushroom Soup

This is how it looks BEFORE “blending ’til smooth” – I was so hungry, I didn’t wait to blend it. 🙂

Yesterday, I was feeling a bit peckish and decided to whip up some cream of mushroom soup since I had a pound of Baby Bella ‘shrooms in the refrigerator. Not only that, but I had seen a recipe in an e-mail from Dr. William Davis of Wheat Belly fame for a Dairy Free and Wheat-free / Gluten-free version.

Since I’ve been working on reducing the simple carbohydrates in my diet, this sounded like a good time to try it. And, I’ve never been one to follow recipes 100% to the letter, so I used 2 tablespoons of butter instead of the olive oil since I’m not as concerned about dairy-free as I am about wheat-free. And it came out absolutely delicious! I’d serve this to company every day of the week.

Okay, here’s the recipe, along with my own “adjustments” (in parenthesis):

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil (I used 2 tablespoons butter)
• 1 yellow onion, finely chopped (I used a fairly large onion – and next time I make this, I’m going to add a couple of ribs of FINELY chopped celery because I think it would taste delicious in this mix)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced (I used 4 large cloves)
• 16 ounces Baby Bella, Cremini, or Button Mushrooms, coarsely chopped (I personally like Baby Bella – they have more flavor, and are “meatier” than button shrooms)
• 1 teaspoon sea salt, or to taste (I used about that, my personal favorite salts being “Real Salt” or “Himalayan Salt“)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper (Personally, I just twist away on the pepper mill until I like what I see. About 20 twists for me!)
• 3 cups Chicken Stock (I’m really fussy here – if I don’t have homemade, I ONLY use “Kitchen Basics” – it’s in the photo here in this post, and it has no “junkie” ingredients. If you cannot find Kitchen Basics at your store, try Amazon here.)
  

  This photo is missing the mushrooms and onion, because they were already in the pot, and I didn’t have any others to show! 🙂

• 1 can (14 ounces) Coconut Milk (I happened to have “light coconut milk” on hand, and it worked absolutely perfectly!)
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives (sounds good to me! I personally used dried garlic scapes since we grow garlic)

Now, here is how I did it, because I just combined a couple of Dr. Davis’ steps and it’s really easy.

METHOD:

• In a medium (3-4 quart or so) stock pot, heat the olive oil (or butter, if dairy is okay with you), and sautee the garlic and onion until the onion is translucent. This was about 5 minutes or so.
• Now, add the chopped mushrooms, salt and pepper, and stir a bit to knock down the mushrooms and they start to reduce a little. Once there is a little liquid in the bottom, cover and simmer for a few minutes until the mushrooms are soft – about 5 or so minutes.
• Add the chicken stock and coconut milk (use some stock to make sure you get ALL the yummy coconut milk out of the can!), and stir until it’s all combined, and any thick “blops” of coconut are dissolved.
• Heat it all until it’s just about boiling.
• At THIS point, I was so hungry, that I just dished out a few ladle’s full for us – see photo – and ate it as “chunky mushroom soup.” Wasn’t bad!
• Now, though, to “cream” it, just put it into a blender, food processor, Blendtec or VitaMix – whatever you have. Don’t whip it so hard that it foams – just enough to puree it until it’s smooth.
• Top it off with the chopped chives (or dried garlic scapes, or even a little chopped scallion), and enjoy!

Delicious! This is the wheat-free cream of mushroom soup AFTER it was blended. I used butter, so I can’t call it “Dairy Free” 🙂

We thought it was absolutely delicious, and couldn’t have enough of it! Even BEFORE it was blended ’til smooth!

And, for those of you who are concerned that it will taste like coconut, please don’t worry – there was no coconut flavor at all, and the consistency was heavenly!

Try it! We’re making this again very soon!

PS: Dr. Davis’ nutritional analysis, in his original recipe is that this makes 8 servings, and has (Per Serving): 181 calories, 5 g protein, 8 g carbohydrates, 15 g total fat (which, I think differs if you use full-fat coconut milk versus light, and whether or not you use butter), 10 g saturated fat, 2 g fiber, and 338 mg sodium (which might differ depending what type of chicken stock you use)