I stumbled upon this great recipe at Frugalhomeliving.blogspot.com

Homemade Cream of… Soup Mix

2 cups powdered milk
3/4 cups cornstarch
1/4 cups chicken, beef, or vegetable bouillon granules
2 tablespoons dried onion flakes or 1 teaspoon of onion powder
1 teaspoon dried thyme, crushed
1 teaspoon dried basil or marjoram, crushed
1/2 teaspoon black or white pepper

Combine all ingredients and blend until mixed. Store in an airtight
container in a cool dry place for up to 1 year. This recipe makes 3 cups
and is enough for 9 cans of soup.

To substitute for one can of condensed cream soup:

In a 1-quart saucepan or microwave safe bowl, combine 1/3 cup of soup
mix and 1 1/4 cup water. Bring to a boil or microwave on high for 2 to 2 1/2
minutes, stirring occasionally.

This can also be used as a quick fat free gravy, thin to the consistency
you prefer.

The variations are endless, use your imagination and experiment with
different ingredients. For example, instead of thyme and basil,
substitute 1-teaspoon dry mustard and 1 teaspoon dill weed.
You might like to add up to 1/4-teaspoon garlic powder to the dry soup
mix.

For another option: add a couple of tablespoons of any dried vegetable
flakes to the dry soup mix.

I know!!  That's why I was so excited when DeDe came through with the canning recipe.  I'm still going to can some cream of mushroom, but I'm going to keep this on hand for all the others!!!  And I found some VERY LOW SODIUM/VERY LOW PRICE powdered boullion online!

monica said:

I think I am going to try making some of this too.  I am going to leave out the powdered milk, because I got a whole case of evaporated milk last year and have about 3 cans to use before December '09.  Do you think I should leave out a little of the water to adjust the recipe?

I use at least 1 can of soup a week, so this will help stretch the budget for sure!!!!!  

I would leave all water out, and just use the canned milk as the milk and the liquid in the recipe.  I think if you used it straight out the can, it might be too rich?  I don't know, I've never used canned milk except in fudge………

Evaporated milk is great to have for emergencies and every day :)

In my house it's a fav in coffee. I use it in gravy such as sausage gravy, in potato soup, broccoli soup, in macaroni salad dressing and potato salad dressing. Also very good when making any creamy sauce like cheese sauce, etc.

You can can many of the "cream of" soups with the recipes we have come up with in Canning2. Cream of Mushroom, Celery, Chicken and Mushroom, Broccoli. All use no milk products and do not need any, but you can add milk if you want when heating – I use evaporated if I do that.

dede

FINALLY made up a big batch of this tonight (of each chicken and beef)!

I've never had enough of the pwd milk or cornstarch on hand to make a big batch, so I was just doing enough for 1 can at a time….(the difficult way!)

It's wonderful stuff!  and I did a cost breakdown (just cuz I like to do things like that!) and on the high side (estimated seasonings as I don't know those exactly) it equals out to 15 cents per serving (equal to 1 can of soup).

It's wonderful stuff!  I use it in many different things.  Sometimes, when I'm feeling lazy, I'll mix up some to use as gravy!  LOL!!!  A can of cream of mushroom soup used to be my gravy always, until I learned how to make the real thing.