Creamed Coconut Mushroom Soup Base
A dry mix that turns one cup of hot water into thick mushroom soup. No milk powder involved.
- calories
- 380
- weight
- 2.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 152
- protein
- 4 g
- serves
- 2, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 5 min
- total time
- 15 min
- water
- 240 ml boiled
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Lunch
- Canister stove
- Alcohol / Esbit
- Liquid fuel
- Backpacking
- Basecamp
- Car camping
- Winter / snow
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
- Gluten free
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Creamed coconut | 1/2 cup | sold in a bar; grate it cold |
|---|---|---|
| Potato starch | 3 tbsp | cornstarch works if you have it |
| Dried shiitake mushrooms | 2 tbsp | crumbled small, not sliced |
| Vegetable broth powder | 1 tbsp | |
| Dried parsley | 1 1/2 tsp | |
| Onion powder | 1/2 tsp | |
| Dried thyme | 1/4 tsp | |
| Dried basil | 1/4 tsp | |
| Fine sea salt | 1/4 tsp | |
| Black pepper | 1/8 tsp |
Method
- At home, chill the creamed coconut bar, then grate it on a box grater. Gloves help; it is greasy and it melts on contact with warm hands.
- Crumble the shiitake fine and stir everything together. You get about 10 tablespoons of mix, which is two dinners.
- In camp, put 5 tablespoons of mix and 240 ml of cold water in the pot together. Stir before you light the stove.
- Heat on a low flame and stir the whole time. It goes from cloudy to thick in about three minutes.
- Pull it off as soon as it coats the spoon. Starch that boils hard thins back out.
Grated creamed coconut is doing the job powdered milk usually does. It is solid coconut flesh, not a milk powder, so it carries the fat that makes the soup read as cream and it stays shelf-stable without a cooler. The potato starch is the body: it swells as the water heats and holds everything in suspension instead of letting the coconut oil float off on its own.
Start the mix in cold water rather than dumping it into a rolling boil. Starch dropped into boiling water seizes into lumps that never break up, and a hard boil after thickening breaks the gel back down. Low flame, constant stirring, off the heat early. The dried shiitake rehydrates in the same few minutes and is the only real mushroom flavor here, so crumble it small enough to soften.
Packing
Split the mix into two single-serving bags at home so you are not measuring tablespoons in camp. Above about 75F the coconut sweats and the mix clumps, so keep it in a cool part of the pack and use it in the first few days of a warm trip.
Variations
- Stir in instant potato flakes at the end to turn it into a full dinner.
- A handful of dried egg noodles cooked separately, then dropped in, makes it a main. That drops the gluten-free claim.
- Dried porcini or mixed wild mushrooms in place of shiitake, same volume.
https://trailcooking.com/dry-mixes-seasonings/vegan-dry-cream-of-mushroom-soup-mix