Creamy Mushroom and Sausage Soup
Dried mushrooms, summer sausage, and milk powder. A pizza-shop flavor rebuilt out of a pantry.
- calories
- 690
- weight
- 5.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 125
- protein
- 26 g
- serves
- 2, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 15 min
- total time
- 20 min
- water
- 600 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
- Canister stove
- Liquid fuel
- Campfire coals
- Backpacking
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Winter / snow
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Dried sliced mushrooms | 1 oz | a mix of shiitake and porcini beats one kind |
|---|---|---|
| Hard Italian salami or summer sausage | 4 oz | shelf-stable, diced at home |
| Whole milk powder | 1/3 cup | |
| Instant mashed potato flakes | 3 tbsp | thickener, replaces the flour roux |
| Chicken bouillon | 2 tsp | |
| Dried minced onion | 2 tbsp | |
| Garlic powder | 1 tsp | |
| Dried sage | 1/2 tsp | |
| Dried thyme | 1/2 tsp | |
| Olive oil | 1 tbsp | |
| Black pepper | to taste |
Method
- Put the dried mushrooms and minced onion in the pot with 600 ml of water. Let them sit ten minutes off the heat if you have time; they rehydrate faster cold than you expect.
- Bring it to a simmer. Add the diced sausage, bouillon, garlic powder, sage, and thyme. Simmer eight minutes so the sausage fat renders into the broth.
- Pull the pot off the flame. Milk powder curdles at a boil, so wait until it stops bubbling.
- Whisk in the milk powder, then the potato flakes a spoonful at a time until it coats the spoon.
- Stir in the oil and grind pepper over it. Let it sit two minutes to finish thickening.
The original is a home kitchen soup: fresh mushrooms browned in batches, a flour roux, a cup of white wine, heavy cream. None of that packs. Dried mushrooms replace fresh ones and actually concentrate the flavor, hard salami replaces raw Italian sausage without a cooler, and whole milk powder plus potato flakes stand in for the cream and the roux at once.
The order matters more than the ingredients. Simmer the meat and mushrooms long enough to build a broth, then kill the heat before the dairy goes in. Milk powder added to boiling liquid separates into grit, and there is no fixing it once it does.
Packing
Mushrooms, onion, bouillon, and herbs go in one bag. Milk powder and potato flakes in a second, because they clump if they get damp early. Sausage rides in its own bag.
Variations
- Leave the sausage out and use vegetable bouillon. The mushrooms carry it.
- A splash of white wine from a small bottle, added before the milk powder, gets you closer to the original.
- Crushed crackers or a torn tortilla stirred in makes it a heavier dinner.
https://www.pinchmeimeating.com/creamy-mushroom-soup-sausage