From corn chowder to savory butternut squash, there's one thing many hearty soups have in common: heavy cream. It's a deliciously enriching ingredient, but not always something that people have on hand -- not to mention it isn't the healthiest addition to a recipe.
Whether you find yourself completely out of heavy cream or simply looking for a more nutritious substitute, you're not alone. Even professional chefs like Pace Webb are in the same boat when cooking at home, as Webb tells #OWNSHOW in the above video.
"I usually don't have cream just chilling in the fridge. I know I definitely don't want to go out and get just a little bit of cream to make my soup delicious," she says.
Instead, Webb has a little trick she uses to thicken up soup.
"You basically take whatever ingredient it is from your soup that's the main ingredient... For instance, today, it's butternut squash. You're cooking your soup with the stock and all the lovely vegetables, and you take about half of the butternut squash out," Webb explains. "Put it in a blender and then add some of the stock it's been cooking in and puree it."
Next, take the thick puree and add it back into the soup as it cooks. "It thickens it without having to add any cream," Webb says.
This simple trick works beyond soups whose main ingredient is a root vegetable.
"It also works on other soups like any kind of bean soup or cauliflower soup, one of my absolute favorites," Webb says. "You get the idea. That is how you make a creamy, cream-less soup!"