BEST Cream of Celery Soup

This homemade Cream of Celery Soup is fantastic as a stand-alone soup or used in any recipe calling for canned condensed cream of celery soup. Made from scratch and utterly delicious!

Most of us appreciate and enjoy the luxury of convenience from time to time, but we all know there is NO comparison between store-bought canned “cream of” soups and homemade. No comparison in flavor. No comparison in the purity and healthiness of the ingredients. And I would never even consider eating the canned stuff as an actual soup. Mixing it together with a bunch of other ingredients as part of a recipe is one thing (and still only something I have done on very rare occasions while turning a blind eye to the ingredients list), but mixing it with milk, heating it up and eating it plain? Gag. I still can’t fathom how my husband thinks that canned cream of chicken soup tastes good. Again, a very rare indulgence, but still. I asked him if it’s okay if I reveal this fact about him to the world. His response, [laughing] “Sure, go right ahead, I’m not ashamed of that!” *sigh*

This cream of celery soup is sublime. I whipped it up to use as the base for a Creamy Cabbage & Kielbasa Soup I was developing for dinner that evening  but it was so good that I was really tempted to eat it plain and just make something else for dinner.

For best results, be sure to use good quality celery that’s very fresh and full of flavor. When it comes to celery, organic really is best. Non-organic commercial celery usually just tastes like a crunchy stalk of water with a “hint” of celery. So get the good stuff from your local farmer’s market. And there have been many times when I’ve been surprised to find the organic celery selling for the same price as, or not much more than, non-organic.

This recipe also provides an excellent base for many other “cream of” vegetables soups. Substitute mushrooms, asparagus, broccoli, etc, for the celery.

• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 small yellow onion ,finely chopped (about 1 cup)
• 2 cups very finely chopped good quality flavorful celery
• 1 large clove garlic, minced
• 1/3 cup all-purpose unbleached flour
• 1 1/2 cups good quality chicken broth
• 1 1/2 cups whole milk
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper