By Justine Sterling |
The best vegetarian soups are available to you whenever you want—because they come in cans! No longer will you have to slave over homemade vegetable stock to experience true soupy bliss. We tasted some of the top rated vegetarian canned soup brands on the market and found the best ones you can buy.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re making soup with an entire chicken or some root vegetables, good soup should be well seasoned, comforting, and substantial enough to be a meal on its own. It should also have a great texture—whether that’s totally smooth or studded with fun food bits. The best vegetarian soup needs to do all of that with no help from the animal kingdom.
In one of our most wholesome taste tests yet, I sat down to 13 different canned vegetarian soups in order to find the best vegetarian soup that you can buy at the grocery store. Here are the six that I think deserve a spot in your pantry.
- Gardein Plant-Based Saus’ge Gumbo
This gumbo isn’t just vegetarian, it’s straight-up vegan canned soup. Made with okra, red bell peppers, celery, white rice, Cajun spices, and something called plant-based saus’ge, it’s a good vegan approximation of a gumbo. It’s hearty thanks to the rice (fun fact about me: I love rice in soup) and the big chunks of saus’ge are spiced with a good peppery flavor. “If you are a vegan, this will be impressive,” former New Orleanian and Sporked senior writer Jordan Myrick said. “But it’s not for meat eaters.” As a meat eater, I agree, I would not pick this over a meaty gumbo. But I think vegans deserve sausage gumbo, too. And this one will do nicely.
Credit: Merc / Instacart
- Pacific Foods Organic Thai Sweet Potato Soup
Some of the best vegetarian soups are filled with tons of vegetables, and some require no chewing at all. This is the latter kind of vegetarian soup. There are some chunks of sweet potato but they’re very soft. It’s a very comforting soup and if you paired it with a big hunk of toasted sourdough, you’d have a great lunch for a rainy day. There’s tons of lemongrass aroma and nice curry flavors. “It feels healthy,” said Sporked managing editor Gwynedd Stuart. But it’s still creamy, too.
Credit: Merc / Target
- Campbell’s Well Yes! Garden Vegetable Soup With Pasta
This is a vegetable-forward vegetarian soup. The broth is light and herbaceous and, very importantly, the pasta isn’t mushy. I hate mushy pasta in canned soup. There’s lots of roasted red pepper and tomato flavor, it’s seasoned with pepper and not too much salt. I’d eat this hearty canned vegetarian soup out of a mug, curled up on the couch. It’s the best vegetarian soup when you really just want some vegetables in soup.
Credit: Merc / Target
- Amy’s Kitchen Thai Coconut Soup
This take on tom kha phak is so creamy and delicious. Made with sweet coconut milk, lime leaf, lemongrass, tofu, shiitake mushrooms, sweet potatoes, and green beans, it’s a vegan canned soup that even non-vegans will love. While it’s perfectly satisfying as is, you could add some rice (maybe leftover from last night’s dinner), as well as a squeeze of lime and a drizzle of hot sauce for a restaurant-quality feast.
Credit: Merc / Target
- Maya Kaimal Creamy Spiced Butternut Soup
“Yum yum yum,” I wrote in my notes. This boxed soup (it still counts as canned in my book!) is so flavorful. It’s sweet but not overly so, balanced out with some acidity. Gwynedd favorably compared this to her own homemade soups, while Jordan said it was reminiscent of rasam. Try pairing this creamy vegetarian soup with a grilled cheese sandwich for a real game-changing lunch.
Credit: Merc / Thrive Market
- Amy’s Quinoa, Kale & Red Lentil
For me, the best vegetarian soups give me something new and interesting. And this one certainly does that with its mix of quinoa, kale, and lentil. There’s lots of turmeric flavor and tons of fun textures, so every spoonful is different. And there’s no stringy kale! Just good, in-tact kale leaves. This is lunch. This is a substantial lunch. I will be buying this again, because it’s simply the best vegetarian soup I’ve tried.
Credit: Merc / Target
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Other vegetarian soups we tried: Pacific Foods Organic Creamy Cashew Carrot Ginger Soup, Amy’s Kitchen Thai Curry Sweet Potato Lentil Soup, Gardein Plant Based Chick’n And Rice Soup, Pacific Foods Organic Spicy Black Bean & Kale Soup, Pacific Foods Organic Spicy Black Bean & Kale Soup, Campbell Well Yes! Minestrone Soup, Amy’s Kitchen No Chicken Noodle Soup
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About the Author
Justine Sterling
Justine Sterling is the editor-in-chief of Sporked. She has been writing about food and beverages for well over a decade and is an avid at-home cook and snacker. Don’t worry, she’s not a food snob. Sure, she loves a fresh-shucked oyster. But she also will leap at whatever new product Reese’s releases and loves a Tostitos Hint of Lime, even if there is no actual lime in the ingredients.
