Creamy mushroom soup with Shiitake – made completely from scratch! So easy and delicious! If you haven’t tried shiitake mushrooms yet in a soup – make this recipe and you’ll love it!
In between the Christmas cookie recipes, I have to fit in this cream of Shiitake mushroom soup I made last week from scratch without using any heavy cream, and using only 1.5 cups of half-and-half. And, by the way, you can use any type of wild mushrooms in place of Shiitake. I’ve made this soup years before, with different types of mushrooms, and it’s always been popular with the family, and I thought it would be nice to make a rendition of it during the holidays this year. Warm and hearty creamy mushroom soup is so welcome on cold winter nights, as a prelude to any dinner. In fact, for the past 2 weeks, a bowl of this wild mushroom soup with shiitake or a carrot-lentil soup always awaits me and my husband as a warming appetizer before dinner. And I wholeheartedly recommend the same for you: fill yourself up with soup before dinner, and you won’t be as hungry and will probably eat less for dinner.
I know many people use store-bought cream of mushroom for gravies, but this is a SOUP! This recipe doesn’t use any heavy cream and uses only 1.5 cups half-and-half, majority of creaminess in the soup comes from pureeing mushrooms, carrots, onions and vegetable stock (which you make yourself by boiling water with vegetables) into a wonderful thick concoction that looks like it’s full of cream. The thick density of pureed mushrooms is easily solved by adding a bit of half-and-half. Or, if you’re a purist and don’t want any cream, you could even get away by substituting half-and-half with lesser amount of milk. Then, right before serving, sprinkle the soup with freshly ground black pepper and salt and enjoy your quiet winter evening warmed by a comforting homemade mushroom soup!
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Step-by-step photos: how to make creamy mushroom soup with shiitake
Scroll down for the recipe, but these photos will help you to make this soup.
Start with preparing beautiful Shiitake mushrooms
Slice them up!
Chop up onions and carrots
Cook mushrooms, carrots, onions
Add 2.5 cups water to vegetables
Use food processor to puree vegetables and vegetable stock you just made
pureeing vegetables and vegetable stock in food processor
pureed vegetables and vegetable stock
Put puree back in the pan – see how thick and rich in color it is! Just a little bit of half-and-half will make perfect! No need for heavy cream.
Green onions are optional but I highly recommend using them!
Chop up the green onions!
Soup with added half-and-half. Nice cream of mushroom color!
Make this creamy shiitake mushroom soup from scratch! This recipe doesn't use any heavy cream and uses only 1.5 cups half-and-half, majority of creaminess in the soup comes from pureeing mushrooms, carrots, onions and vegetable stock. So good!
- 10 oz shiitake mushrooms , large whole
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 onion chopped
- 1 carrot chopped
- 1 teaspoon thyme
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 2.5 cups water
- 1.5 cups half and half
- 3 green onions chopped (OPTIONAL)
Slice mushrooms into bite-sized pieces. Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil and 1 tablespoon butter in a large pan, add sliced mushrooms and cook for about 10 minutes until mushrooms soften. Remove half of cooked mushrooms to a separate plate.
To the other half of mushrooms, remaining in a large pan, add chopped onion, carrots, thyme, 1 teaspoon salt, pepper to taste. Continue cooking vegetables for 10 more minutes, until onions and carrots soften a bit.
Add 2.5 cups of water to vegetables (mushrooms, carrots, onions) in the pan, bring to boil and boil on medium heat for 20 minutes. Some liquid should visibly evaporate, leaving reduced stock, but don’t let all water evaporate. add more water if that’s the case.
Remove from heat and add the stock you just made (water with mushrooms, carrots, onions) into the food processor. Process the mixture until it achieves puree consistency.
Put puree back into the same cooking pan, add reserved cooked mushrooms that you removed to the plate earlier. Add 1.5 cups of half and half. Bring to boil, reduce heat to simmer (low heat) and cook covered for 5 minutes, constantly stirring. Add more salt and pepper if desired. Your soup is done at this point, or you can add chopped onions towards the end or use them as garnish, or skip them altogether (depends if you like green onions in your soup).
I made this soup tonight, used portobellos and cremini mushrooms. I made it vegan by substituting Earth Balance butter and I used a can of coconut cream in place of the heavy cream. It was delicious! Thank you for the recipe.
Thank you, Linda, for your comment! Portobellos and cremini mushrooms sound like a delicious choice! So does coconut cream in place of heavy cream!
Julia, I’ve made this soup yesterday. I had some unused Shiitake mushrooms and was searching for a good recipe to use them up. I stumbled across your recipe and since it was easy and required minimum ingredients, I made it right away.
What a delicious soup it was! So flavorful and creamy. To me it resembled a little bit Porcini mushrooms soup. But since fresh Porcini are quite difficult to get here in the US, Shiitake are pretty good alternative.
Anyways, I’ll definitely be making this soup again, so good!
Thank you Iryna for stopping by and leaving such a nice comment! You make a great point that this soup does taste like it’s made with porcini mushrooms even though it’s really shiitake. I am SO GLAD you enjoyed it! 🙂
We grow shiitakes in our backyard and are always looking for great ways to use them. This recipe uses a good amount of them and it’s super easy and quick, not to mention delicious. I’ve made it about 5 times now and I’ve passed it on to other shiitake lovers. One thing I noticed in the directions at Step 5, you say to cook covered for 5 minutes, while constantly stirring. No can do. Reminds me of one of my favorite scenes from Raising Arizona. “Well, which is it, young feller? You want I should freeze or get down on the ground? Mean to say, if’n I freeze, I can’t rightly drop. And if’n I drop, I’m a-gonna be in motion.”
Lucky you – growing shiitakes in your backyard!
You’re funny! 🙂 I guess I meant cooking covered while occasionally lifting the lid and stirring so that the stuff doesn’t get stuck to the bottom of the cooking pan.
I love this soup….can it be frozen? Thanks for the great recipe!
Yes, this soup can be frozen. I am glad you liked it!
Awesome recipe. I had a big bag of dried shiitakes and some chanterelles I put to use for this recipe. I used the water I reconstituted the mushrooms in to make sure i got every bit of the flavour.
I am glad you liked it! I love shiitake – they are so flavorful! Perfect for the soup!
I love the idea of using different types of mushrooms all together! My question is this… I have dried shiitake and dried oyster mushrooms, how long would I need to cook these down with the carrots and onions before adding fresh mushrooms? I very much look forward to making this dish. Thank you!
Delicious. We loved it.
About how much would you say 15 large shiitake mushrooms weigh? I am looking forward to making this.
Just made this tonight. Great simple soup. I used 1/2 a red onion and a shallot. As well, I used shitake, oyster and regular mushrooms mix. Beautiful. Thanks.