Ranking 9 Aldi Soups From Worst To Best

If you're a frequent Aldi shopper, you know the store has its quirks. You'll be bagging your own groceries, picking products out of their shipping boxes, and enjoying some Aldi dupes that have resulted in lawsuits. To my knowledge, the soups sold under Aldi-specific brands have not gotten the company in legal hot water, so to speak, but while some are criminally delicious, others lack the flavor to deserve a spot in your favorite bowl.

For this tasting, I rounded up nine soups from the discount German grocer and tasted them side-by-side in a salty, brothy showdown. Soups can encompass a massive spectrum of flavors and textures, but while they should all be spoonable and sippable, only some give you that feeling of comfort that a truly great soup can provide. True to the Aldi promise, all of the soups on this list were relatively affordable (some more than others), but that doesn't mean they're all worth keeping in your pantry for a rainy day.

This soup smelled so much like cat food that when I opened it that my tabby beckoned for a bite. But not even he found this soup worthy of the calories; when I put a little bowl of soup in front of him, he took a sniff and walked away. The first thing I noticed was that the broth was strangely seasoned. Unlike a well-constructed flavor profile, wherein the spices conspire to form something that is greater than the sum of their parts, the spices in this soup each tasted separate. An acrid earthiness pervaded, almost like sour nutmeg.

Visually, the soup was a thin brown color interrupted by ghostly rectangles of potato that were eerily uniform, one of the many reminders that this soup was made at an industrial scale. Speaking of straying far from nature, the cubes of beef were cut at similarly disquieting 90 degree angles. I tasted one on its own and it covered my tongue with a tinny tang reminiscent, once again, of cat food. There are bits of mushrooms floating in this unholy concoction — a subtle reminder that what you're eating is, in fact, food — but they carry no flavor apart from the deeply unimpressive broth in which they float.

According to the text inside an illustration of a heart printed on the side of this can, this soup is "heart healthy," meaning compared to the regular chicken soup sold under the Chef's Cupboard brand label at Aldi, it has less sodium and saturated fat. While this may provide some solace to soup-hungry Aldi shoppers under orders from their cardiologists, what the soup lacks in unhealthy ingredients it also lacks in flavor.

The broth is thin and watery, failing to deliver the rich, slightly fatty promise of velvety smooth, salty flavor that makes chicken soup such an attractive rainy day proposition. The noodles and vegetables hold their shape decently well, but the flavor of both is muted and easily lost in the bland substrate of tasteless broth. You can transform canned chicken noodle soup by adding an egg, which, in this case, could provide some much needed richness and flavor, though it may be counterproductive to shoppers who chose this soup based on its relative heart healthiness.

What comes to mind when you hear canned cream of mushroom soup? If you're picturing a delicious, complex, unique liquid full of richness and subtle flavor, then we've had very different experiences of this tin of soupy concentrate. At least in my own experience, there are so many ways to jazz up canned cream of mushroom soup and use it as an element in a larger recipe that eating the soup itself almost never came up. And this can reminded me why I don't indulge in canned cream of mushroom as a standalone experience.

While mushrooms are high on the ingredients list, cream falls surprisingly low, behind more dubious ingredients like modified wheat starch, malodextrin, yeast extract, and soybean oil, to name a few. I made the soup according to the directions, mixing it with equal parts hot water. I scooped the soup concentrate out and it was decidedly gelatinous, retaining the shape of the can as it plopped unceremoniously into the bowl of hot water. It took a good bit of mixing before it started to dissolve, and little chunks of gooey soup concentrate persisted beyond the stirring, mashing power of my spoon. 

True to its promise, the soup was creamy and mushroomy, but there were clearly some shortcuts taken to achieve such an outcome, and they gave the overall experience a flavor of mass production, which doesn't taste good. The mushroom flavor was present but muted, and the creaminess left a chemical slick on the tongue.

Sometimes people pick up a can of chicken soup hoping to get a taste of their grandma's version of this classic recipe. But unless your grandma was a factory that made chicken noodle soup at an industrial scale with bioengineered ingredients, you will find little nostalgia in this can. The soup's broth is reasonably salty and well-seasoned, but it lacks any real depth, and in the absence of its own substantive flavor, it tastes like it absorbed the flavor of the enriched egg noodles that float listlessly in its depths. 

The soup contains chunks of carrot and celery, both reasonably hearty vegetables that retained some firmness despite being sealed in a can for a long stretch of time. While they didn't taste quite fresh, the veggies fared a bit better in this product than they did in some of Aldi's other soups.

I was equally impressed with the fortitude of the egg noodles, which also managed to retain their shape and texture — no small feat for a canned soup. The chicken chunks, however, were small and dry, and they were flecked sparsely about the soup. What makes chicken soup the perfect sick day food is its combination of protein, carbs, and hydrating electrolytes, and while this soup checks those boxes, it fails to provide the warm, cozy comfort and delicious flavor that a great chicken noodle delivers with ease.

As a concept, I found chicken pot pie soup interesting. Instead of the flaky pastry that typically tops this classic American comfort food, the soup delivers carbs in the form of chunks of spaetzle dumplings. It's a decent analog, but it does make this less of a chicken pot pie soup and more like a chicken and dumpling soup. Apart from the mild case of false advertising, this soup more or less delivered on the promise of being hearty, creamy, and filled with chicken chunks.

A traditional chicken pot pie gravy is made with velouté, one of the French mother sauces, which is stock thickened with roux. The result is a velvety gravy, which this soup exhibited with some degree of success. It was creamy and rich enough that it mostly masked the fact that the chicken cubes were a bit dry, although they were well-seasoned. Peas and carrots swan around the soup, only to dissolve into mush at the mere suggestion of mastication, which made the overall experience texturally less interesting than it could have been. 

Just like there are ways to easily upgrade a store bought chicken pot pie, there are ways to give this soup a bit more oomph. Try adding shredded cheese for an extra tangy bite, or mix in some herbs and spices for a little extra flavor.

When I think of a fall harvest, I imagine a cornucopia of squash and pumpkins, and though this soup delivered neither of those gorgeous gourds, it managed to provide decently fall-adjacent flavor. I found the inclusion of spaghetti a bit curious since the noodle is liable to turn squishy floating in a can for so long. Though it isn't the way Italians typically eat spaghetti, the thin rods of pasta held their shape surprisingly well, absorbing the flavorful broth which the packaging describes, quite accurately, as "zesty."

I'd feared that the broth would be overwhelmingly salty, but it was pleasantly mild, allowing the vegetables to carry their rightful burden of providing this autumnal soup its earthy flavor. Cabbage, carrots, and potatoes ground the soup's flavor while green beans, onions, and red peppers uplift it. The zestiness of the broth seems to come mostly from the aromas of the vegetables themselves, though when I tasted it in isolation, I did taste an umami flavor I couldn't quite place, but it tasted slightly artificial, and may be the result of the mysterious "artificial ingredients" listed on the soup's can. When the November chill hits, I would grab my coziest sweater and can of this soup and snuggle up by a window.

As my first and only foray into German bean soup, I wasn't sure what to expect when the first bite of this hearty stew blossomed on my taste buds. I'm a big fan of beans, particularly white beans, and they did not disappoint with their characteristic mild, delicate, nutty flavor. Texturally, beans lend themselves well to soup since they become soft without losing their shape, which was the case in this soup. Aromatics like onions and carrots buttressed the beans' natural flavor with a subtle sweetness and a gentle allium bite.

As has been the case with many of these soups, this one suffers from an over-reliance on additives. The broth is thick, almost to the point of being slightly gluey, presumably due to the addition of modified corn starch. I also found the broth's flavor vaguely meaty, as though bacon had snuck in somewhere, but the soup is composed only of vegetarian ingredients. Despite the fact that the flavor probably came from the mysterious "artificial ingredients" listed on the side of the can, I found the pork-adjacent flavor welcoming and real enough.

Cheesy, creamy, and acidic, this soup has all the components of a great tomato bisque. The inclusion of parmesan balances out the brightness of the tomatoes, giving this soup's lucky eater an unexpectedly complex umami kick. There are little chunks of tomato floating around, which gives the otherwise smooth consistency of the soup a bit of added textural interest. Specially Selected soups are a bit pricier than the other in-house soup brands at Aldi, but the extra money clearly buys a soup of a higher caliber.

The creaminess of this soup comes from actual cream, which you can tell by its subtle but undeniable milky flavor. The only issue I found was the inclusion of too much sugar. While I realize a bit of sweetness is key to balance out the acidic zing natural to tomatoes, I found the soup veered slightly too far in this direction. That said, I would still happily heat up a bowl of this bisque alongside a grilled cheese made with crusty sourdough. Even though the soup has a healthy amount of Parmesan flavor, if you're like me, there's always room for a bit more of the piquant, umami cheese, and I would grate a handful and sprinkle it on top before digging in.

As a part-time gym rat and a full-time lover of legumes, there are few more enticing ways to get my protein than a hearty lentil soup. Aldi's iteration of the beloved dish was so thick and substantive that when I opened the can, I had to scoop its contents into the pot with a spoon. A combination of red and brown lentils gave the soup a rich, rusted orange color dotted with bright bursts of carrot chunks.

The dominant flavor was carried by the earthy, slightly nutty lentils, while leeks and onions play their allium notes in the background. Cubes of potato add yet another layer of heartiness, making this the most filling soup on this list. Once heated, the consistency was perfectly thick and substantive, but just liquid enough to take sips instead of bites. The soup also did not suffer the excessive sodium that afflicts many canned lentil soup. I imagined eating this soup with a fresh hunk of hot sourdough bread slathered with European butter, or served as a starter to a dinner party in the fall or winter months.

Aldi sells soups under a few different brands, and I purchased options across the spectrum. I aimed to taste a diverse collection of soups, both in terms of flavor and price point. Some were creamy, others brothy, but I subjected each one to the same set of rigorous standards to which I hold soups.

First, I looked for whether the soup in question delivered on whatever promise was made on its packaging. Was the bisque creamy? The lentil earthy and filling? I followed up by examining the texture, rewarding soups that had consistencies that lent themselves to the most important aspect of any soup: flavor. Many canned soups can be notoriously salty, while others lean too sweet. Some use too many artificial ingredients, which can detract from the overall experience, imbuing a soup with strange flavors and textures that seem inexplicably off. After tasting each soup, I took all aspects into account before compiling the final ranking.