Step Aside Canned Soup: Make Cream Of Chicken In Minutes Using 4 Staple Ingredients

Though canned cream of chicken soup makes an excellent pasta sauce and is essential to Dolly Parton's famous Ritz cracker casserole, it features many drawbacks common among canned soups, including a reputation for tasting a bit flat. Making it at home with just a few household ingredients yields almost two cans' worth of soup per batch that can be eaten or used exactly like the store-bought stuff. Plus, the homemade version is packed with flavor, especially since you have full control over the seasonings.

All you need is about half a stick of butter, a pint of chicken broth, about a third of a cup of all-purpose flour, and a cup or so of milk — all things many home cooks already have on hand. You can also adjust the ratios to make more or less soup, depending on how much you need. The most important thing to remember when putting everything together is that water and cold ingredients are the enemy. Let your butter and broth come to room temperature, and gently warm your milk in a small saucepan (or even your microwave) to keep your soup from clumping or seizing.

Melting the butter slowly is also crucial to evaporating the excess moisture without scorching it. After it's fully melted, you can incorporate your flour, broth, and milk. The process is surprisingly similar to making gravy, with the flour acting as a thickener that helps the milk and broth combine smoothly and condense into a silky texture.

Though it's perfectly acceptable to use boxed (or canned) chicken broth in this recipe, it's fairly easy to make homemade chicken broth from a grocery store rotisserie chicken, and extremely tasty, as well. You'll get all the delicious fat and seasonings from the skin, the nutrients and gelatin from the bones, and it'll taste fresher than store-bought. However, you can achieve a similar flavor in your soup with chicken bouillon cubes, bouillon paste, or even a few packets of seasoning from your favorite brand of dried ramen.

Other seasonings that elevate the flavor of homemade cream of chicken soup include garlic and onion powder, Italian seasoning (which contains many of the same herbs as poultry seasoning), celery seed, and bay leaves. The last two are particularly tasty, as they're aromatics that add a beautiful astringency, which enhances the meaty flavor. Just remember to remove the bay leaves once the soup is done, as they're not edible. A tiny pinch of nutmeg or cayenne is also delicious in anything creamy.

If your soup seems a little thin at first, don't worry; it'll thicken as it cools. Once it reaches room temperature, you can store it in a sealed container in your fridge for up to a week. It's also great for meal-prepping, as it'll last for up to four months in the freezer in the proper container until you're ready to use it, just as you would canned cream of chicken.