We just cannot say enough good things about this homemade dry cream sauce mix for soups and sauces. It’s called SOS mix, short for “Soup and Sauce.” It appears to have originated with the Best Foods company in the 1970s, and now is promoted even by various universities such as Utah State.
When mixed with a liquid, it makes a creamy base that can be used for anything from soups to sauces.
Some of the things you can make are cream soups, cheese and pasta sauces, Au Gratin Potatoes, Chicken Broccoli Alfredo, Chicken Enchilada Casserole, Chicken Parmesan Skillet, Chicken Pot Pie, Easy Beef Teriyaki Stir-fry, Hawaiian Pork Chops, Macaroni and Cheese, Mushroom Garlic Pork Chops, and Skillet Lasagna. For more recipe ideas, see the Utah State Extension recipe booklet for SOS mix.
It’s fat-free, gluten-free, and wheat-free, and saves you loads of time and money. You can reduce the sodium in it by looking for lower-sodium bouillon powder.
If you use it to make cream soups with, the recipe gives you enough dry mix to make the equivalent of 9 x 300 ml (10.5 oz) tins of creamed soups just by mixing a small amount of it with a bit of water (directions below.)
To be clear, this is NOT a canning recipe. Do not can soups made with this. (Learn more about homemade soups for canning.) Rather, it is an aide in helping you make quick, healthy satisfying meals with your home canning.
We’re including this recipe in the ‘Cooking with Canning‘ section on healthycanning.com because, combined with your home canning, it can help you make meals that are even quicker, even healthier and even more delicious.
The recipe
Yield: Makes 350 g (2 ½ to 3 cups) of dry mix.
Soup or Sauce (SOS) Mix
Ingredients
- 200 g powdered milk (skim, instant. 2 cups / 7 oz)
- 100 g cornstarch (¾ cup / 3.5 oz)
- 40 g chicken bouillon powder (aka chicken stock powder. Instant, regular or low sodium. ¼ cup / 1.5 oz)
- 2 tablespoons onion flakes (dried. 10 g / ⅓ oz OR 4 teaspoons onion powder)
- 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning (optional)
Instructions
- Mix all ingredients well.
- Store in a sealed container, jar or bag in a cool, dark place.
Nutrition
Recipe notes
- Store this in a basement pantry or cool cupboard. You could also refrigerate (or freeze) if you wish, for extra long life. Milk powder does have a long storage life, but that can be shortened if exposed to heat or high storage temperatures, which will cause it to go rancid. For that reason, do NOT attempt to “dry can” this. The heat from that will just have the opposite effect of shortening the shelf life. Plus, there’s just no need to;
- Instead of the Italian seasoning, you can use 1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves plus 1 teaspoon dried basil leaves plus ½ teaspoon ground black pepper. You could also mix up your own Italian seasoning;
- You may also wish to make up a batch of this without the Italian seasoning. If you come to rely on this mix a lot as a Weight Watchers® substitute for heavy cream, as we do, then having Italian seasoning everywhere in your cooking can become a bit wearying. Having an additional batch that is just plain solves the problem. (We still put in the onion powder.);
- A vegan or lactose-free version can be made by swapping out the powdered milk, and instead using 1 cup soymilk powder and 1 cup almond flour;
- Instead of chicken bouillon, you could try vegetable bouillon to make this kosher or vegetarian;
- Sometimes, dried onion flakes can be very hard (depending on the source) and not completely soften when this dry mix is made up into sauce or soup. The result is that you can get detectable crunchy bits in your cream soups that might bother you. If you find that the case, try using the onion powder alternative instead.
- One tablespoon of the dry mix weighs about 10 g / .3 oz.
Usage notes
To make up the equivalent of a tin of cream soup: combine ⅓ cup of dry mix with 1 ¼ cups of cold water (40 g with 300 ml water.) Whisk until well blended. Cook and stir on stove top or in microwave until thickened.
Or, use in recipes in varying amounts as indicated by those recipes.
Recipe source
Proctor, Debra G. and Ellen Serfustini. Soup or Sauce (SOS) Mix. Utah State Extension Service. 30 March 2011, v 4.8.
This is also known as Master Mix for Cream Soup, and Casserole Sauce Mix.
Cooking with canning
Pork and pepper in cream sauce
History
The recipe was appearing in newspapers by 1975, with the credit given to the Best Foods company.
Homemade casserole mix a money saver. Progress Bulletin. Pomona, California. 5 November 1975. Page 34, Col. 1.
In the 1970s, the recipe called for onion powder rather than onion flakes, and, individual herbs instead of Italian seasoning mix.
By the 1980s, a version of the recipe had appeared calling for onion flakes instead of the powder.
Huron Daily Plainsman. Huron, South Dakota. 24 November 1982. Page 14, Col. 3.
In 1986, it was carried in the book “The New American Diet” as “Homemade cream soup mix.”
Nutrition
The nutritional information below would apply if you mixed that amount of mix with 300 ml (1 ¼ cups / 10 oz) of cold water to make a “tin” of cream soup.
Regular sodium version
Calculated using regular chicken bouillon powder (Lee Kum Kee brand).
Per ⅓ cup (5 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon / 50 g) of the dry mix.
- 143 calories, 854 sodium
- Weight Watchers PointsPlus®: 3 points
- Weight Watchers SmartPoints®: 4 points
Low sodium version
Calculated using low sodium chicken bouillon powder (Epicure brand).
Per ⅓ cup (5 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon / 50 g) of the dry mix.
- 143 calories, 266 mg sodium
- Weight Watchers PointsPlus®: 3 points
- Weight Watchers SmartPoints®: 4 points
* Nutrition info provided by MyFitnessPal
* PointsPlus™ and SmartPoints™ calculated by healthycanning.com. Not endorsed by Weight Watchers® International, Inc, which is the owner of the PointsPlus® and SmartPoints® registered trademarks.
LG
This recipe has been a life saver for my husband. He has esophagus cancer, which started with recurrent reflux. Commercial cream soups upset his stomach, so any dish with cream soup as an ingredient had been off our menu. I discovered the SOS recipe a couple of years ago and I simply can’t be without it. I usually use 3/4 of the mixture to 2 1/2 cups of water to make the equivalent of 2 cans of soup. Thank you for sharing this fantastic recipe!
Elizabeth Robinson
This sounds wonderful! Unfortunately, various members of my family cannot use any form of corn or rice. Replacing them with flour results in a gloppy, lumpy mess. If I warm up the milk while carefully whisking in the flour, adding water and milk powder as needed to cook out the raw flour taste, it’s just not a time-saving mix anymore, is it. Potato flakes cannot taste like anything but potatoes. Please, please help! Thank you!
Megasaurus
Try Tapioca Starch. I bought a bunch when I was avoiding gluten and found it easily interchangeable with corn starch and other thickeners. Small learning curve (it mixes easier with cold water/liquid ingredients first before being added to hot ingredients). But I like it so much that even now that I no longer have dietary restrictions, I still purchase and use it.
Leigh Ann Martin
DO you think dry goat milk would be ok instead of dry milk.
Healthy Canning
Well there wouldn’t be any safety concern, it would just be a matter of taste, so try it if you wish.
Nak
Would vacuum sealing this mix help with long term storage?
Cliff and sue kidd
Short term that would help, up to a year. Try vacuum sealing and store sealed containers in deep freezer for longer storage life.