The Canned Ingredient That Makes A Delicious Mashed Potato Gravy Base

Canned soup deserves more love. Despite its lackluster reputation, it's inexpensive, shelf-stable, and pretty flavorful, meaning canned soup is a great way to upgrade many recipes, besides being a convenient choice for your weekday lunch. This is particularly true for notoriously finicky foods like gravy. The savory condiment may seem simple enough — flour, broth, butter, and seasonings — but getting the ingredient ratios right, stirring out the lumps, and nailing the perfect velvety consistency can be a real challenge.

Enter canned cream of chicken soup. In an era where most people are pinching pennies and short on time, this underrated convenience food is basically a concentrated chicken gravy base. (It also makes a great batter for ultra juicy fried chicken.) Although some versions of this soup-fueled sauce insist that you still need flour to thicken it properly, many others simply rely on the soup's robust, creamy consistency to give their gravy body and richness. This is a boon for people with gluten sensitivities, who can use gluten-free cream of chicken soup to thicken their gravy without sacrificing texture or flavor.

The main things you need to turn this soup into a stupendous mashed potato gravy are a liquid to thin it out slightly and your preferred seasonings. While water works fine, milk or chicken stock will add a lot more flavor. Seasonings, meanwhile, can be as simple as salt and pepper, or as luxe and complex as black truffles, roasted garlic, smoked paprika, or even a pinch of cayenne.

While there are a few key steps required to transform your cream of chicken soup into a "soup-er" easy and flavorful gravy, you don't need a specific recipe. Instead, you can simply empty the can into a saucepan over gentle heat and add splashes of chicken broth, milk, heavy cream, or even water to the soup until it reaches your desired consistency. If you like a thinner gravy that streams easily over traditional roasted turkey, you'll need to add more liquid. If you like a thick, heartier consistency, you'll want to add less.

The same goes for seasonings — don't be shy with the flavors you enjoy, but add them to taste. Salt and pepper are a given, but you can also add traditional poultry seasoning herbs, such as tarragon, thyme, and parsley, or simply sprinkle in a little dried gravy mix for some nostalgic umami that also pairs perfectly with mashed potatoes. Garam masala or even taco seasoning might add a layer of unexpected warmth and complexity to mashed potato-friendly dishes like marinated grilled pork, roasted green beans, or a homemade KFC-inspired fried chicken bowl.

Of course, a 10.5-ounce can of soup makes a decent amount of gravy, especially once you add the rest of the ingredients. Fortunately, there are plenty of foods that cream of chicken soup improves, so you can make a smaller batch of gravy if necessary and save the rest for upgrading another recipe, such as au gratin potatoes, white chicken chili, or even curry.