I tried a cream soup yesterday, and well, I was short on cream. But I did have half and half in the frig. And while I will admit, fat free half and half is not cream in any way (I am not even sure that it is even food after this) I decided to give it a go.
What I am about to say may surprise you. Don't use it to cook.
I would say it's never a good idea to add anything pretending to be cream without containing any fat. Half and half has a tendency to separate in soups and sauces, especially fat free half and half, which has a lot of additives to make up for the lost fat content.
Honestly, I would have used straight heavy cream had I had any since I am not overly health conscience.
If you keep the fat content down in other areas of the meal and forgo heavy starches, it's really not that bad for you. I add my cream at the very end of cooking, and heat it just long enough for it to warm.
You can also try tempering the next time you cook with cream, especially if you want to keep working with fat free half and half. In tempering, you put the cream in a separate bowl, and slowly add a small amount of hot soup whisking constantly. This brings the cream up to temp. When you add the cream/soup mixture back into the pot, it's less likely to break because it's closer to the temperature of the liquid in the pot.
And while I know people fear fat. People assume fat = weight gain when that is not the case. That is why you find most everything in diary claiming to be fat free, low fat, reduced fat etc etc are popular because of this.
My soup was okay, though it wasn't as yummy as I wanted. But I should have expected it, low fat creams have a tendency to do that, especially at higher temperatures. I'd recommend either using a cream with a higher fat content (you can get away with using a lot less of it in soups that low/no-fat creams so the impact won't be huge), or be very careful with the temperature and only add low-fat cream to finish or while the soup is on a low simmer. Once it's incorporated it's usually safe to heat a little higher but it will split if it gets too close to boiling.
Next time I will just use milk instead.
