Cream of Celery 2/4/2023

If you ever had chicken soup and thought "I really like the celery in this" then this is the soup for you. A bit sweeter and thicker than chicken soup. 7/10

Bean with Bacon 2/10/2023

I expected this to be salty and it was, maybe on the verge of overly so. Not a huge bacon flavor. I didn't really like the beans and smokiness in watery soup like this, even though I do like red beans and rice. Maybe I just added too much water 7.8/10 6/10

Cream of Mushroom 2/11/2023

Not too salty. Nice savory flavor. I don't understand (read: I dislike) when people, for instance on Chopped, say "umami flavor" instead of "savory flavor". Umami is just a pretentious word for savory. I think people like it simply because it seems cool and exotic and evokes notes of Japan or generally Asian. And the reason umami means nothing more than savory but Japanese is the Venn diagram of savory flavor and umami flavor is a single circle; if someone could point to a soup that tastes savory but not umami, or umami but not savory, then I'd happily accept distinct words for distinct flavors. However as things stand, people say umami rather than savory not to describe flavor but to hint at whatever that exotic Japanese backstory of chemical deliciousness is. Campbell's cream of mushroom is good. 8/10

Vegetable 2/14/2023

With beef stock, but maybe a bit heavy on the tomato. I may be a bit biased against this one, because my go to easy and healthy food is frozen veggies - peas, carrots, corn, green beans - which is what this is, and I turned to soup for something more interesting... Still, Campbell's tastes better than if I were to simply dump a bag of frozen veggies in beef stock with tomato paste, and is quicker and easier. Probably not as healthy as frozen veggies though. 6/10

Vegetable Beef 2/17/2023

I expected this to be merely Vegetable (see prior soup) plus a bit of beef, which would have been the same or slightly better, but Vegetable Beef was significantly better. First, it was not overly heavy on tomato - just nicely savory. Second, it added barley, which I like in soup. Third, it didn't have corn, and didn't remind me of frozen mixed veggies in the same way plain Vegetable did. 8/10

Cream of Potato 2/17/2023

On an absolutely wild Friday night, I try two cans of soup. Different types, no less! And potato I thought might be bland, but it was very salty. Reminiscent of Jewish food - a little potato and a lot of salt. Similar flavor to Lipton onion soup mix potatoes. 7/10

Chicken Noodle 2/23/2023

Classic, but maybe I didn't add enough water, because it was a bit too salty/oily. Also, all my ratings are between 6-8...which sounds about right to me, honestly, it's soup from a can, not la soupe aux truffes, but if you get home hungry on a Thursday you're not gonna turn up your nose at it. That said idk chicken noodle was just boring and salty. 6/10

Chicken with Rice 2/24/2023

As with chicken noodle, the classic doesn't outweight the bland. I even like rice and added the right amount of water, so it wasn't too salty and I liked it a bit more than Chicken Noodle, but still bland. 6/10

Broccoli Cheese 2/24/2023

Tastes like salty broccoli but weird, and slightly off putting texture too...I tasted it and decided not to eat it. I might just not be hungry but when I think about chocolate covered orange, kiwi, or fried chicken I do feel hungry. So I suspect the weird soup is the culprit. I don't really eat soup with cheese but I'd imagine there are good variants, but this is not it. I feel like if you're eating something unhealthy you should enjoy it and I simply did not want to finish this. 4/10

Old Fashioned Vegetable 2/28/2023

I want to address one thing first - I was harsh on broccoli cheese, and it might have been partially because I wasn't hungry or in as good of a mood in general. Maybe you'd want soup ratings to be purely a function of the soup, with the rater not entering into it. But the tree falling in the forest, the performance of gender, the can of soup: they exist only in their audience. Also some soups work in a can but broccoli cheese is not it.

Anyways, old fashioned vegetable was more what I expected from vegetable. The beef stock is palpable instead of overwhelmed by tomato. Really it's closer to vegetable beef than vegetable. In a good way, the nice savory way. Maybe a bit salty (but tastes good so I don't mind) and I'd prefer barley or rice over super soft, almost mushy noodles. 7/10

New England Clam Chowder 3/3/2023

Savory and in a fishy way, which I like. The small bits of meat are chewy, contrasting nicely with the mushy lumps of potato. I don't have a ton of experience with actual New England clam chowder so idk what it should taste like, but for me Campbell's canned version works. 8/10

Beef with Vegetables & Barley 3/4/2023

Beef with vegetables and barley is kind of the perfect soup. It's a lot like Vegetable Beef - I'm putting it slightly ahead, maybe it has more barley/less veggies? This is one of the rare cases where the less/fewer distinction actually matters? Since you can count types of veggies, "fewer veggies" would mean it lacks green beans or something, whereas "less veggies" is just a lower but uncounted proportion of vegetables in the soup? I don't actually know what the difference between Vegetable Beef and Beef with Vegetables & Barley is, hence the digression. Both are very good, I'd recommend either if you want to grab a good, classic can of soup. 9/10

Minestrone 3/5/2023

Not a huge fan of pasta in soup like this, it's kind of bland and the broth is kind of bland too. On the other hand it's better than the overwhelming tomato of Vegetable. Tastes like less salt (relative to Campbell's other soups, which are quite salty), but I'd have to check the ingredients to be sure. 7/10

Tomato Bisque 3/6/2023

Just tomato, tomato, and more tomato. Not even much seasoning, a little added richness. Maybe it'd pair well with something, but I like my soup to be a meal in itself, like Beef with Vegetables & Barley. 5/10

Golden Mushroom 3/9/2023

Like Cream of Mushroom: savory, thick, and mushroomy. I didn't have Cream of Mushroom recently enough to tell exactly how this is different, but Golden Mushroom seems saltier and stronger in some almost tangy way. It's very orange; not sure why it's called "golden". Maybe the mushrooms were golden before being made into soup? Maybe it's metaphorically golden? Who knows. Nicely chewy little bits of mushroom. Would go great with bread. 8/10

Cream of Mushroom with Roasted Garlic 3/10/2023

The garlic really dominates the mushroom. Tastes like garlic chicken or garlic noodles. 7/10

Chicken with White and Wild Rice 3/14/2023

This is what I was looking for in chicken soup. Compared to the ones before the broth adds herbs or something; it isn't merely plain and greasy. And the stuff in it! Even visually it's much more vibrant with red, yellow, and green - like a stoplight except it tastes good and it's chicken soup. This holds up much better than Chicken with Rice, which was much closer to Chicken Noodle than it was to Chicken with White and Wild Rice. If you want a chicken soup this is the one. 8/10

Cream of Onion 3/16/2023

Reminds me of onion bagels. Like cream of potato, salty. 6/10

Chicken Gumbo 3/18/2023

I've actually had gumbo I really like in New Orleans at Landry's as well as a few other places, and Campbell's main difference was even though I added a can of water like they said (in fact a bit less) it seemed more thin and watery. Maybe like the Bean with Bacon that way, although I liked the flavor of Chicken Gumbo, it tasted sort of like the sausage I'd want in gumbo. Not bad fillings for soup in a can. 8/10