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Food

Marco Pierre White Glorious Indian chicken soup review

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Description: “A warming curry soup with tender pieces of chicken breast, red pepper, coconut cream and authentic indian spices, finished with coriander. GLORIOUS.” I think the descriptions writer got a bit curried [sic] away!

Health: 404 cals for the pot, which is OK, but low fibre, high sodium, middling protein makes this a bit average.

Taste: Less good than the first time I tried it, I think. The soup is a bit thin and suffers from the absence of a strong binding veg in there (some potato or some curried squash or even a few more lentils). The salt-level, whilst not overbearing in the taste, is headache inducing.

Full-o-meter: Not brilliant. Not thick and substantial enough without bread.

Verdict: 3.5/5. Downgraded on original verdict now that I’ve given it a full review.

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Le Pain Quotidien soup

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Does passion about bread translate to passion about soup?

Le Pain Quotidien, those Belgian bakers that make our daily bread, also make soup. This was my lunch for today – organic red pepper and carrot. No idea on calorie count, so can’t do my standard review but…

Taste? Meh. It was OK. Not enough spice. Carrot marries to coriander so well, its kind of a mystery to me as to why anyone would leave the carrot unpaired with some healthy spice.

Fillingness? Generally sceptical of pure veg soups without meat or a pulse in there – just not substantial enough. The bread it came with is awesome though, a nice walnut rye and a really lovely piece of artisan white french stick.

So I’ll probably try their soup again… but maybe not this one.

Food

Sainbury’s ‘Taste the Difference’ green split pea and ham soup review

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Description: “A classic warming combination of green split peas and ham finished with double cream.” Yep, about right.

Health: Only OK – 406 calories for the pot, low in fat and sat fat, not quite so low in sodium, not great on fibre.

Taste: Standard – good, reasonably plentiful chunks of ham and bacon, a good amount of juicy pea, a rich, creamy soup base – there’s nothing not to like (assuming you have fondness for pea and ham). However… there’s nothing particularly interesting or exciting about it.

Full-o-meter: Eh, OK. You’d expect it to be better but the poor fibre content and relatively low protein score (it’s more a pea soup than a ham soup – and rightly so) means you’ll be hungry not too long after this (unless you have it with bread).

Verdict: 3.5/5. It probably deserves 4 but I’m just not inspired by it. I guess I’m not really a ‘classic’ soups guy – I like a bit of edge in my soups.

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Marks & Spencer green Thai spiced chicken soup review

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Description: “A blend of British chicken, Jasmine rice and water chestnuts in an aromatic Thai spiced broth.” Poor show on the chicken, and wish I’d noticed that it was described as “broth” when I bought it, which is an euphemism for “watery gunk.”

Health: OK-ish at 390 calories for the pot, but low on protein and fibre and relatively high on sat fat. Damnit.

Taste: Meh. Watery soup, absent chicken and the inexplicable presence of water chestnuts (which should not be present in anything, as far as I’m concerned) makes this pretty mediocre. Yes, it tastes of “green Thai spice” (whatever that is) but its correlation to green curry is as a McDonald’s chicken McNugget is to a whole roast chicken – distant and only recognisable once someone’s told you.

Full-o-meter: I suspect its going to be WEAK, given the poor textures and nutritional value.

Verdict: 1/5. My lowest rating ever. Seriously, M&S, even the ‘1’ is being charitable. You can do better.

Food

Marks & Spencer Moroccan style spiced chicken soup review

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Description: “A fragrant, lightly spiced chunky blend of vine ripen tomatoes, chickpeas, British chicken and red & green lentils.” Well, mostly right. It’s not lightly spiced, there’s about a metric tonne of cumin in there, but otherwise, about right.

Health: It’s OK – 390 calories for the 600g pot, v. low on sat fat (although reasonable about of actual fat), and obv. v. high on fibre.

Taste: Hrm. This isn’t the first “Moroccan chicken soup” I’ve tasted and IMHO this is inferior to both Pret & even Sainsbury’s attempts. Overkill on the spice front doesn’t make the soup spicy so much as heavy and sludgy and the tomato flavour is almost completely lost. That said, it’s “Moroccan style” and think it does serve as a kind of tribute; the consistency and textures (spicing notwithstanding) are otherwise OK and the chicken, chickpeas and lentils taste as you’d expect from M&S – good quality produce in action.

Full-o-meter: Very good. This is a heavy soup, it should keep you going.

Verdict: 3/5. Not bad, but simply not as tasty as other soups carrying a similar name. Won’t be high on my list to have again soon.

Food

Waitrose tomato, lentil & chorizo soup review

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Description: “A thick hearty soup of red lentils, tomatoes and chorizo seasoned with garlic, black pepper and smoked paprika.” Yep.

Health: Not bad, although heavy-ish for a pot this size – 422 calories for 600g. Low in sat fat, good amount of fibre.

Taste: I do like these Waitrose soups. Rich, thick red lentils, with a nice sharp tang from the tomatoes and a good amount of seasoning accompanied every now and then with a rewarding salty chew of chorizo. Yum.

Full-o-meter: Only had a half pot (with toast) but imagine this would keep you going for a reasonable amount of time.

Verdict: 4/5. A good one; more chorizo, more spice would have boosted the score (I like the spicy chorizo!), likewise a slightly lower calorie count. But a good option!

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Marks & Spencer chicken, barley & root vegetable soup review – simply fuller longer

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Description: “A light broth of chicken of chicken, vegetables, pearl barley and smoked bacon.” Other than the bacon, which was missing, this is about right. Emphasis on the carrots and potatoes.

Health: 200 calories for a 400g pot, which is good, but not particularly high on protein or fibre, so… meh.

Taste: Meh. Vegetables suspended in light, heavily spiced broth. Cabbage in broth does taste pretty good but when that’s the height of praise… it’s basically standard chicken soup and therefore totally uninspired.

Full-o-meter: Rubbish. 200 calories, low fibre, low protein… needed toast to top me up to 400 calories AND I broke and had a cookie too, which is my own damn fault, but not helped by the meagreness of the soup.

Verdict: 2/5. Not having this one again. It didn’t taste actively unpleasant, but wasn’t good in any substantive way.

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Marks & Spencer meatball minestrone review – simply fuller longer

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Walked into M&S today to find some new soups and discovered a new line, Simply fuller longer, they’ve launched to capitalise on people’s New Year’s Resolutions, and sucker that I am, I bought a couple. Actually, they fall into the category of ‘thought through food’ that my diet is based on so was happy to see them, especially on promotional purchase price of £1.49.

Description: Meatballs, green beans, cabbage, carrots & other assorted veg in a light but well-seasoned tomato-based broth.

Health: Awesome, as you can imagine, at 260 calories for the pot (sorry, can’t find details online so you’ll have to trust me to recite the pack values). Low on sodium, fat, sat fat, highish in fibre for the pot.

Taste: Really, surprisingly good. As someone who last ate minestrone age 14 by mistake when I bought a can of Heinz soup thinking it was Oxtail, the meaty, tomato-y moreishness of this was a pleasant surprise. The slight aniseed flavour to the spicing was surprising but not unpleasant and the veg was chunky and well cooked. Meaty meatballs also a big plus.

Full-o-meter: Not great. It’s only a 400g pot (most of these store soups are 600g for the pot) and as I’m forgoing bread with my soup I got a weird Vietnamese style chicken salad to top me up to my 400 calorie lunchtime ration.

Verdict: 4/5. Would score another half point if it came in a bigger pot, but then M&S wouldn’t have got the extra cash out of me for the salad.

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Waitrose Moroccan chicken soup review

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Description: From pack – “A chunky, filling soup of chickpeas, British chicken and sultanas, spiced with roasted coriander, cumin and cinnamon.” Yep, that’s right, emphasis on the chickpeas!

Health: Awesome. <300 calories for a 600g pot, loads of good fibre, low on fat.

Taste: Good, aromatic, thick, tasty near-stew of chucky veg and shredded chicken that is reasonably well spiced. I think it could use a bit more salt and chilli/spice to give it a bit more kick/moreishness, but very tasty. Slightly heavy on the chickpea front, which no doubt contributes to the bulk and health of the meal but feels a bit disproportionate.

Full-o-meter: Pretty good for such a low cal meal – in no small part due to the large number of chickpeas.

Verdict: 4/5. I regularly return to this one, it’s a less guilty pleasure than the Keralan Chicken if not quite as tasty.

Food

Waitrose Keralan spiced chicken soup review

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Description: From the pack – “A warmly spiced soup of coconut milk, British chicken and green beans with a mix of Keralan inspired spices and chilli.” Sounds about right.

Health: Hrm, not great. There’s a lot of coconut milk in there, which is fantastic for the taste, texture & consistency of the soup, but not great for the calorie count, ramping up to the 450 or so mark for the pack.

Taste: YUM. A gentle spice, thick with chicken and well cooked beans and just the right level of seasoning. A really delicious soup portion.

Full-o-meter: Excellent. Probably the coconut milk in here weighing everything down, but it does keep you going.

Verdict: 4.5/5. One of my favourite shop-bought soups.