Trader Joe’s Minestrone Soup. It’s that time of year again. Time to eat healthy. Eat something hot. Time to eat something to make you get over your flu. I have the perfect thing for you. Soup! I recently spied two new entries into Trader Joe’s lineup and they were some big cans of soup. One Minestrone and the other was Lentil. I recently tried both of them and I was kind of taken by surprise!
For this review, I am just going to cover the Minestrone soup which I ate a whole can of recently for lunch. I had tried the Lentil soup at the kitchen bar at Trader Joe’s last week too and thought it was excellent! This soup seemed to replace the funny shaped can of Minestrone soup that had been a mainstay on Trader Joe’s shelves for many years. I had tried it from time to time and was nonplussed by it and never reviewed it. I saw this brightly colored can and thought they had repackaged it, but no this is a complete re-do. They are even having it “Made in Germany” which makes me think there is some Aldi connection going on. (For those that don’t know, Aldi of Germany owns Trader Joe’s). Hey, more power to them! I lived in Germany for a while and I can attest to the high quality of soup that I had there!
First off, the can is quite large, at 28oz, which is quite a bit bigger than Campbell’s, but you don’t have to add water. When I opened the can to warm it up, you tell right away this was a pretty dense, rich soup by how it poured out of the can. The ratio of liquid to food was pretty low.
I just simply warmed it up in a pot on the stove top. Pretty simple! They say on the can not to bring to a boil, but to gently warm it up to a simmer, which I did! I pour it into a bowl and I could tell right away this was my type of “stick to your ribs” type of soup. Although there was no meat in it, it was quite filling! I’m not sure why they didn’t label it Vegetarian or even Vegan for that matter as I couldn’t find any trace of animal in either soup.
Since Minestrone is an Italian soup, I sprinkled some shaved Parmesan cheese on top and a couple of grinds of pepper. This is some real soup! Minestrone can be kind of like fried rice, the kitchen sink of foods. Throw whatever you have in the bottom of the vegetable drawer in there with some broth, tomatoes and beans and you have Minestrone! The broth of this was very rich. There was not lack of veggies. Lots of green beans, carrots, peas and other things I couldn’t identify but they tasted great!
28oz is a lot to eat by yourself and even I couldn’t finish a whole can, but what I did have was great! It’s perfect for this time of year (Winter as I write this) to warm you up on a cold day. I am going to rate Trader Joe’s Minestrone Soup 9 Bells!.
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I’ve had a can of this staring out at me from the pantry since Christmas (my mom thought the “M” on the can was funny since she calls me “Em” and therefore put this hulking thing in my stocking, of all places). I was thinking about just keeping it around as a memento, but now it seems too good to pass up. Thanks for the review!
Unbelievably, I bought some Progresso today for my sick wife, forgetting all about this new label on an old TJ’s fave. The Progresso was on sale, but like you mentioned at 28oz., this big can will beat most competitors by the ounce.
You’re right about the German connection. An old boss of mine told me a story once about the source of the soup, mentioning that the old-style “chubby” cans were never accepted much by American outlets, so Trader Joe’s has had an exclusive lock on them. I’m sure it is through the Aldi connections of ownership that such quality soup ends up on TJ’s shelves from Germany.
Thanks for the review!
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would love to pick this up next time i’m in store! btw no new updates? miss your reviews!
Well the soup is gone now. Trader Joe’s got rid of it. Idiots.