New England Country Soup

A few weeks ago, the folks at New England Country Soup reached out to me to see if I'd like to try out some of their soups.  New England Country Soup is an all-natural, ready-to-serve soup produced by a company based out of Cambridge, MA.  The package could not have come at a better time this week as I was sick in bed and absolutely in no mood to be cooking (or eating for that matter).  On Friday, after finally heading back to the office, I was ready to open the box and see what was inside.

New England Country Soup sent over several of their soups, along with a similar flavor from a popular brand for a comparison.

Chicken Corn Chowder (vs. Campbell's Chunky Chicken Corn Chowder)

Caribbean Black Bean (vs. Progresso Hearty Black Bean)

They also sent me a package of the Chicken Pomodoro soup.

Along with some lovely bottles of spices.

Black Pepper and Cumin spices
(There was also Oregano but the bottle broke during the delivery)

Since I was going crazy just eating plain broth and crackers, I was ready for something with flavor.  Bret and I decided to do a taste test of the chicken corn chowder.  Normally I would have heated both of these packages up on the stove but I was completely worn out and decided to go for the microwave route.

First up, Bret and I tried New England Country Soup's chicken corn chowder.  The soup heated up easily in the pouch although I must warn that the packaging is very hot to handle.  The chowder wasn't too thick (which I liked) and chock full of corn, potatoes and chicken meat.  I loved that the soup had a little bit of a kick to it with their use of cayenne.  Bret liked that there was a lot of corn kernels in the soup and that the prevailing flavor to the chowder was actually corn.

Then we tried the Chunky's version.  The dim lighting doesn't show this well but the soup was a bright yellow, which seemed really artificial.  While there were larger chunks of chicken in the soup, there was an overpowering flavor of bacon in the soup...although we couldn't find any actual bacon in the soup.  The soup just seemed really inauthentic to us. 

The winner of our taste challenge was definitely New England Country Soup.  It just tasted more like something you would have actually made in your own home.  In addition, I love that New England Country Soup tries to be as transparent as possible with its ingredients.  They have an ingredient tracker on each pouch, which can be plugged into their website, to find out where the ingredients for the soup is sourced.  I couldn't read the code on the Chicken Corn Chowder package but I tracked the other soups and it was definitely interesting to see where all of the ingredients came from.

And for those of you who cook as much as I do, I wanted to share information with you about New England Country Soup's Soup Challenge.  They are asking people to pick one of New England Country Soup's flavors...and make a comparable version.  Five finalists will be picked to compete in the ultimate Soup Challenge in Boston on March 5, 2011 for a weekend getaway for two in Martha's Vineyard.  You can learn more information about the soup challenge here.

Tell me, what is your favorite type of homemade soup?  What is your favorite store brand soup?  Speaking of contests, I'm still in the running for Boston's Best Local Blogger.  I would definitely love and appreciate your vote here.