Mushroom Soup For Kids

This mushroom soup for kids recipe a basic soup that you can use as a starting point for adding in other flavors. Many mushroom soups are too rich for smaller kids: This is made with milk instead of cream to keep the richness down, making it perfect for little ones starting out!

Mushroom Soup

A mushroom soup is a staple, right? Well it is here, we love mushrooms! But it hasn't always been that way, a couple of my kids were very resistant to mushrooms and now while one is better, the other is not a huge mushroom fan. It's the texture rather than the flavor apparently, they find them 'slimy' and so this soup is really the only way they'll eat mushrooms since they lose their sliminess (!) when turned into soup.

And they're Soooooo good for you, I take the fact they'll eat mushrooms like this as a win :)

I don't use cream to make this soup, which I know bucks the trend of nearly every other mushroom soup recipe. The reason for this is that it can be too rich for smaller kids and when I first made this for my lot, one of them was still quite small and honestly, no one notices that there's no cream in it and so I see no reason to change the recipe now. This also makes for a bit of a lighter soup, although it's super filling, being packed with mushrooms which in turn are full of fibre and so will fill you up.

I also like to give the kids a little jug of milk that they can add to their bowls of soup if they like. It already has milk in it when they're served it, but kids and mini things go hand in hand and so this is something they like to do to make the soup a touch thinner, if that's what they want.

The Best Mushrooms For Soup

While we (mostly!) love mushrooms here, we're not mushroom connoisseurs. The mushrooms I buy in the supermarket are what I think of as the 'common' type. They come in multi packs in varying sizes and they're pretty inexpensive. They're called Chestnut mushrooms.

There are over 10,000 types of mushrooms. Who knew! There are probably around 6 types sold locally to me, I'm sure you can find more in other stores. My neighbour once gave me some Oyster mushrooms which I used to make some fancy mushrooms on toast, but apart from that, I really don't know my mushrooms as well as I should.

What I'm trying to say is that you should use which ever mushrooms are available to you locally and cheaply, I don't think it'll make a huge amount of difference!

More Kid Friendly Soup Recipes

• Cheesy broccoli and leek soup
• Homemade cream of chicken soup
• Christmas Eve soup
• Creamy roasted red pepper soup
• Clean eating butternut pumpkin soup recipe

Mushroom Benefits

Mushrooms are an edible fungus, although perhaps don't tell the kids that yet, and they're super good for you! Mushrooms are a great source of vitamins, anti oxidants, protein and minerals, so they're definitely something you want to try and include in the kids diets.

Need more convincing? Look what they contain:

• B vitamins
• Riboflavin
• Niacin
• Pantothenic acid
• Selenium
• Copper
• Vitamin D

And a fun fact...mushrooms are the only Vegan non-fortified source of vitamin D.

Additions

Because this soup is so simple it leaves lots of room to add flavors in as and where you think they kids will enjoy them:

• Garlic - Feel free to add a clove of crushed garlic at the same time as you fry the mushrooms in butter. While this won't give you an overwhelming garlicky flavor which lots of kids aren't keen on, it'll add a bit of a kick!
• Lemon - An unusual but surprisingly good flavor in a mushroom soup, try adding a quarter of a cup of fresh lemon juice to the pan before blending
• Left over roast chicken - If you have some chicken left overs from a roast, add them when you fry the mushrooms ion the butter and then continue the recipe as per the instructions

Leftovers

This mushroom soup is great for a few days after you've made it, covered, in the fridge. Let the soup fully cool down before putting it in the fridge. I recommend keeping this for a maximum of three days.

If you have a Thermos this soup is pretty awesome on a cold day for lunch. Heat it to the temperature you'd eat it at rather than bring it to the boil as these Thermos' keep the food really hot and it won't have cooled down much by lunch!

How To Make Mushroom Soup For Kids

Ingredients

• 4 Cups Mushrooms Whole, washed
• 1 Cup Vegetable stock Homemade or organic bought
• 3 Cups Water
• Salt & pepper For seasoning
• 2 knobs Butter
• Milk Full fat, to taste

Instructions

• Put all your mushroom in a large pan, they look like loads but they boil down to a smaller size, and add the water and vegetable stock
• Simmer the mushrooms for 1½ hours on a really low simmer. They won't fall apart and will keep their shape
• Drain the mushroom water into a jug and set to one side. Don't throw it away!
• In the same pan add the mushrooms back, season well with the salt and pepper and fry them in the butter for a few minutes until all the butters fried away into the mushrooms
• Add the cooking water back into the pan and using a stick blender, blend the soup until as smooth as you can get it
• You'll have a fairly thick mushroom soup, and you can now add your milk into it to get the consistency you want. I haven't included amounts for the milk as you can simply add as much or as little as you want, depending on whether you prefer a thinner or thicker soup
• Reheat your soup if needed and serve

Mushroom Soup Recipe