Progresso Tomato Rotini

When I bought this, because it's a "vegetable classic" I assumed it had veg in it! Which is stupid of me because of course I read the ingredients to discover there was no soy protein, which is why I bought it, and yet. There are no veg here! It wasn't terrible, but it was basically a worse version of the cheese tortellini soup -- no cheese, no vegetables, just noodle and tomato. I added shredded cheese and it was decent, but I would never get this if I can just get the superior tomatoey soup.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10

Progresso Vegetable Classics Hearty Penne in Chicken Broth

On my weekly perusal of the soup aisle, I found a new legume-free one! Holy wow! Sure, it's chicken noodle soup without the chicken, which sounds pretty boring, but I would love love love a safe chicken noodle soup. And this is safe! I ate it and didn't die! And my current horrible internal pain (IDEK guys) was not exacerbated by it, cause it's only like 150 calos and pretty mild stuff. Still it was filling to eat the whole can. So that's all lovely. Unfortunately, it tasted freakin' weird. Why? Apparently there's tomato powder in it. So it tastes like spaghettios but only a little bit and the rest like chicken noodle soup. That is very bad and not good for me. I abhor tomato soup. So, this was a bust and I wouldn't get it again. But I am grateful it exists! Just take out the tomato powder, guys! And also make one with chicken and no soy? xoxo

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 5/10

Progresso Spicy Italian-Style Wedding with Italian Sausage

I'm a huuuuge soup fan, but even if a soup doesn't have beans/peas/fish in it, it has soy protein in 99% of the time. But this one didn't! So I bought it! (Yes, I do check every new soup I see, just like Chinese food.) And it was better than I feared it might be, but not amazing. Probably a very standard soup, but I'm still looking forward to buying it again because it was a standard soup! It really was spicy, too. And decently filling for the calos. Noodles, broth, a few carrot/spinach bits, and some spicy meatballs (not very sausagey, more like meatbally). Thanks, Progresso.

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 7/10

Tabatchnik New York Style Chicken Broth with Noodles & Vegetables

This tasted almost identical to their other chicken soup with dumplings, just with more noodles in it (and no dumplings). Same difficult greasy frozen pack to open, but otherwise the cooking was unproblematic (I did have to add an extra minute of cook time though). Really, there's sort of a weird taste to this -- corn starch? Chicken fat? And there's very little seasoning or salt flavor, which is quite different from a canned soup. Nevertheless, it's allergy-friendly, and therefore good to have around for sick days (as I experienced today!).

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 6/10

Progresso French Onion Soup

Oh no. To be fair, the only French Onion soup I've had 'til now has been on cruises, as far as I remember. But it's delicious there, like hot oniony cheese and broth. This was very far from that, even though I melted provolone cheese on top and made toast. It actually made me feel pretty nauseous and I couldn't finish it (although I did eat most of the cheese). The flavor was just weird -- too sweet? Too fake? I'm not sure, and nothing in the ingredients stood out, but it was just unpleasant. Soy free though! :p

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 3/10

Progresso Cheese Tortellini Soup

This is the rare canned soup with no peas, beans, lentils, or soy protein. Unfortunately, it's a tomato soup base, and I never liked those! Smells like sketti'os. Easy to heat, and the taste is OK if you like tomato soup. Good chunks of carrot and zucc in there. The noodles are few and floppy, and they REALLY add to the sketti'o vibe. I don't hate it, though, just because it's so rare to find a safe soup and I love the food category of "soup". Decently filling/healthy, but again, very tomatoey.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10

Tabatchnick Chicken Broth with Noodles & Dumplings

I never expected to venture into the frozen soup space, but this is a rare chicken noodle soup that has zero soy protein in it. Amazing. A true blessing. It's weird to make because it's a frozen block of soup that sort of overhangs any normal human sized bowl, so you have to have a plate underneath and an active stirring mindset, but overall the cooking was still fairly simple. The result is much less saltier/flavorful than I expected, given the salt content, but that's OK - I don't mind a bland, hot chicken water. The noodles are good, firm, eggy, and plentiful, and the little carrot squares are also good. The dumplings (n=2) are weird balls of cornmeal, not noodle/flour, but they're filling I guess. Overall, this is OK if you need a chicken soup. I don't yearn for it but I was happy to have it yesterday when I came home with a budding illness! And I'll definitely try out their other pea-free options.

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 6/10

Idahoan Cheddar Broccoli Hearty Soup

So, Idahoan never got back to me about their contradictory allergy labelling, which isn't great. Yet I decided to support them by buying a bunch of soup. Oops. But in my defense, you only need water to make these, this supposedly doesn't have soy protein in it, and I like soup. I like soup! Sue me! :D:

This is pretty solid, anyway. It's a pot of warm, filling, potatoey mush. I admit it was weirdly salty and sugary for a soup, and it had an aftertaste of sugar cookies, which was very very weird. But, I like it. It's cheap, easy to cook, didn't make me itchy, and isn't super calorific even though the salt/sugar stats are no bueno. Not a ton of brocco (or cheese) flavor, mostly sweet + potato, which sounds kind bad, but it's really not bad. Pleasant soup. I will try adding veg to it at some point, because that seems like it might be an upgrade.

Overall
Cost: 6/10 [2.50$ at Walmart.com]
Taste: 7/10

Bear Creek Soup Mix - Creamy Potato

This made a ton of soup! It was also quite filling in itself, and not terrible tasting, but it made me feel pretty bad on my insides and also has a taste that gets worse as you keep eating and not better (the anti-wine, if you will). I added carrot to this, which worked well enough, and I wasn't SUPER allergic to this because I ate at all up, but it wasn't worth it to me. Cheap to buy but still not worth it. Idahoan mix is better!

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 5/10

Idahoan Steakhouse Creamy Potato Soup

Soup! I love soup, when I'm not allergic to it and when I don't need to use a blender to make it. This was so easy and convenient. Just add water and cook. It also made a lot of soup! And it tasted pretty good; it was creamy as advertised and not too gross like mashed potatoes but wet would be. A tip for me: I shouldn't eat it all at once. Also it was a little monotonous, maybe I should try putting something in there (like carrot, or maybe broccoli or corn?). Anyway, it was good and filling, though fattening. I would buy it again if I ever saw it at the store, but I haven't seen it anywhere.




Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 7/10

Campbell's Chunky Classic Chicken Noodle

This is in a very handy microwave container, and only takes 1 minute to heat up and only has 190 calories! I also thought it tasted pretty decent, there were a lot of noodles and chicken chunks and the carrots were nice, and of course the broth was comforting on my vaguely sore throat. So I was eating this and thinking "ah, I should get more of these". A good endorsement, right? But then, when I finished, I felt that itchy-lip allergy feeling, a tightness in my throat, and general weirdness. I think beyond it just being anxiety, I'm actually mildly allergic to this. I don't know why, or what it is - I always guess it's the soy protein, but I don't have trouble with other soy-containing foods nearly as much, so it's a bit of mystery. That said, I learned not to get this again, even though it seems otherwise good. So if you have allergies like me, be cautious - otherwise, go for it!

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste with fear: 4/10

Campbell's Chicken with Rice

This is great to have on hand when you're sick and every food hurts you. However, I had one on hand and ate it when not sick, because I was very hungry and lazy. It was not very good in that circumstance. The rice is a little buttery, which is nice, but of course it's mostly (bland) broth and tiny tiny pieces of soft carrot/chicken/celery. Just really tasteless and not much content. Which is, again, good if you're sick, but really disappointing if you actually have an appetite and taste buds. So future-me will now know better and will save this for sick-futurer-me.




Overall
Cost: 7/10
Taste: 5/10

Campbell's Kickin' Buffalo Style Chicken Soup

It had been a while since I had canned non-chicken-noodle soup, so I thought I was due to give it a try. I regret this! Soup is gross. I wasn't even allergic to it (no peas, not that much soy I guess) but it was just really bad. It even looks gross! Don't buy this, you guys!!

Overall
Taste: 4/10
Cost: 5/10 [3.00]