For one can, melt 3 tablespoons of butter, cook ¼ cup of finely chopped mushrooms in it, stir in 3 tablespoons of flour, then whisk in 1 cup of milk and simmer until thick. That makes about 1¼ cups, the size of a can.
Pick an ingredient and the swaps appear here, with amounts. The full chart is below.
How to make it, step by step
- Melt 3 tbsp butter in a small saucepan over medium heat.
- Add ¼ cup finely chopped mushrooms and cook for about 3 minutes, until soft.
- Stir in 3 tbsp all-purpose flour and cook for 1 minute, stirring.
- Slowly whisk in 1 cup milk, or half milk and half chicken broth.
- Simmer, stirring, until it’s as thick as canned soup, 3 to 5 minutes. Season with ¼ tsp salt.
Use it exactly where the recipe says to add the can of soup, undiluted. No mushrooms? Leave them out and you have a plain cream sauce.
Cream of chicken or cream of celery soup
The same sauce works. For cream of chicken, use chicken broth for half the liquid. For cream of celery, cook ¼ cup finely chopped celery in the butter in place of the mushrooms. Our cheddar biscuit chicken cobbler uses a can of cream of chicken soup and works with any of these.
Green bean casserole
A classic green bean casserole uses one 10.5-ounce can. Make the sauce above, stir it into the beans with the rest of the recipe, and bake as usual. The casserole is done when it’s hot all the way through, 165 °F in the center.
Why this works
Canned condensed soup is a thick white sauce. Three tablespoons each of butter and flour per cup of liquid is the standard ratio for a thick white sauce. A 10.5 to 10.75 oz can holds about 1¼ cups, and that’s what one batch makes.
The sauce is a standard thick white sauce, not an extension chart figure. Can size from Colorado State University Extension, Ingredient Substitutions, which counts a 10¾ oz can of condensed soup as about 1¼ cups. Casserole temperature from the USDA Safe Minimum Internal Temperature Chart. Checked on October 30, 2026. More swaps: ingredient substitutions.