A highly versatile, kidney-friendly cream sauce without the cream recipe.

Cream-less cream sauce for renal diet! 98 mg phos and 90 mg sodium for a cup make a great substitute for “cream-of-[fill in the blank]” soup or for making a rich cream sauce in place of milk-cheese recipes.

Cream Sauce Without the Cream

Prep Time: 30 mins
Cook Time: 30 mins
Total Time: 1 hour

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Ingredients

Scale

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup onions, finely chopped
2/3 cup white rice
5 cups chicken broth, reduced-sodium
(Check your labels here closely! You will want to find the lowest sodium broth or stock possible. When I looked the sodium content ranged anywhere from 70 mg/cup – 500+ mg/cup. Pacific Low Sodium Free Range Chicken Broth,found at my local Kroger, had 70 mg/serving.)
1 cup dry white wine
(Make sure to get a true dry white wine, not “cooking wine” as this can be quite salty.)
1/4 tsp salt (opt)
(We thought that the very small touch of salt in this recipe helped with the flavor. However, if you are using a lot of flavorful herbs in your dish you could do without the salt. Also, if you can’t find a low-sodium broth/stock (<150 mg) then definitely leave out the salt.)

Instructions

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring, until soft but not browned, about 5 minutes. Add rice and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes more. Add broth and wine and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer until the rice is very soft and the liquid is greatly reduced, about 25 minutes. Cool slightly
Transfer the mixture to a blender and puree, in batches if necessary, until smooth. (Alternatively, puree in the pot with an immersion blender.) The consistency should be similar to a pourable sauce; add more broth or water as needed. Season with salt and pepper

Notes

Make Ahead Tip: Cover and refrigerate for up to 1 week or freeze for up to 3 months. Defrost overnight in the refrigerator or using the defrost setting on your microwave.

Tip: To make the sauce vegetarian, we like to use chicken-flavored vegetarian broth over regular vegetable broth for its hearty, rich flavor and pale yellow color. Look for “no-chicken” broth in the natural-foods section of well-stocked supermarkets.

KidneyGrub Verdict:

This is a good basic cream sauce recipe. The emphasis here is basic. You won’t be eating this out of the jar with a spoon, but with the right spices it is quite versatile. We’ve been playing with several recipes using this sauce and wanted to roll it out before we start using it in some delectable up-and-coming dishes! Credit for this recipe goes to Chef John Ash as featured in EatingWell magazine. One cup of regular white sauce made from cream per the NCCDB has 323 mg potassium, 214 mg phosphorus, and 886 mg sodium. Comparatively our recipe has 235 mg potassium, 91 mg phosphorus, and 62 mg sodium (depending on which low sodium broth you use).

Low sodium chicken broths to consider that we found at our local Kroger:

Pacific Low Sodium Free Range Chicken Broth (70mg sodium/1 cup)

Imagine Low Sodium Free Range Chicken Chicken Broth (115 mg sodium/1 cup)

Kitchen Basics Unsalted Chicken Cooking Stock (150mg sodium/1 cup)