Just in time for cold and flu season, I started seeing three “fresh” soups in the refrigerator section with the prepared foods over the past couple of months. I finally bought one of each and the first review will be the Chicken, Barley and Vegetable soup.
These caught me a little off guard one day when I was going over the usual stuff in the prepared food section. Cool, something new and with the cool weather a most welcome addition to the line up at Trader’s. They sure looked good in that clear plastic container. Must be a trend right now. I have noticed that Campbells and some other soup maker have all started putting their soups in clear plastic containers. It’s more visually appealing that’s for sure! You can see all the bits and pieces of barley, chicken and vegetables right through the plastic. I had to try these!
Heating instructions are pretty simple, either pop it in the microwave or stick it in a pot and heat it up. It’s 20oz of soup, so a lot for someone like my wife to eat a whole container of it, but since I’m 6’2″ it’s about enough to fill me up! I wouldn’t heat it up in the plastic container in the microwave, those things can get hot if you don’t watch it so I just heated it up in a pot and dumped it in a bowl.
When I bought this I was a little worried because TJ’s carries a canned chicken noodle soup and frankly it sucks, but I have to say this is probably one of the best soups I’ve ever bought from a store. Honestly, it would be hard for me to tell this wasn’t made at home. It’s rich and satisfying and you can actually identify the vegetables in your soup. The salt balance was just right. When I got done with the bowl, I was very satisfied! Lot’s of pieces of chicken, but they were not the big chunks that you would get in a homemade version, there was plenty of chicken.
I would definitely buy this again many times over. It was sooo good that I am going to give it 9 Bells!
(Update, 11/2/11, I had another one of these and while the flavors were all the same, the vegetables were really undercooked to the point of almost being raw. Next time I will taste test some and then cook accordingly)
I have to say, I just bought this and heated it up. Thought that it contained soft pieces of pumpkin as there was lots of solid pieces of orange. Turns out it was some kind of oil/fat because my soup has a 1/2 inch layer of oil on the top. I even tried eating some of the vegetables, but that wasn’t a good idea. Really disappointing, I was looking forward to the soup. Hopefully it was just a one off and a bit too much of the regular oil they use, but it was quite awful.