Soup’s something I eat quite a lot of. It’s cheap, quick and easy – not to mention versatile (I sometimes use it in place of pasta sauce, or add curry powder to make a kind of curry). If you go for the right soup too, it’s normally low fat and vegetable varieties help towards your five portions a day.
Baxters Vegetarian soup isn’t something I’d normally go for, but it was in the cupboard at home and looked more appetising than the normal Sainsburys soups (which don’t offer much variety in vegetarian flavours). The first thing I like is that it belongs to Baxters vegetarian range – it’s a simply presented green tin with a very appetising picture, and obviously vegetarian (Apart from the name, there’s a badge proclaiming it suitable for both vegetarians and vegans – it’s not endorsed by any recognisable vegetarian society, so it seems to be self-certification though!) It also says less than 2% fat [5g of fat per 415g tin], which is another plus in my book.
The tin opens with a ring pull on the top, though if you prefer to use a can opener you can (on the bottom). The soup inside was very runny, so an easy pour (no need to use a fork to get it all out). I heated in a saucepan, but you can also microwave – both take about 4 minutes and require stirring. Either way you should check the soup is piping hot before serving/eating. You can’t reheat, but if the whole 415g tin is too much you can store leftover for up to 2 days in the fridge (in a non-metal container, not the tin).
Anyway, enough faffing about – on with the tasting! As I said, the soup was very runny and the butter beans were larger than I expected. There was something odd when I tasted though, and at first I couldn’t figure out what. It wasn’t until I’d eaten a bit that I worked out what it was – the overwhelming taste of carrot! At first I thought I’d accidentally opened the wrong tin. There was some tomato in there all right, but there were distinctive pieces of carrot (as well as potato and onion, I might add) and the main taste of the soup itself was carrot with a hint of herb – coriander I think.
I went back and checked the main ingredients. I had opened the right tin, but it contained: water, butter beans (16%), carrots, tomatoes (10%), potatoes, onions and concentrated tomato paste (3%). Since ingredients are in descending order, this means there’s actually more carrot than tomato! For comparison, the Baxters Vegetarian Carrot and Butter Bean soup has 23% carrot (i.e. about twice as much carrot), but nevertheless I found this so-called tomato one over-poweringly carroty. (Amazingly my spell checker recognises ‘carroty’ as a word).
It annoyed me slightly. I’d rejected a carrot soup because I wanted tomato; if I’d known this would be so carroty anyway I’d probably have had the Sainsbury’s Be Good to Yourself Carrot and Coriander.
This soup may be a bit runny and watery for some who like theirs thicker. Personally I’d probably have wanted something thicker myself if I was having just the soup – and it doesn’t make it an easy one to drink either, because of the bits. It was the high quality I’d expect of Baxters though, and would’ve fully satisfied me if I’d been after tomato, *carrot* and butter bean. I'd recommend to those that like carrot – but if not, beware!
(I'll give 4* to reflect a high quality product, but not recommend as a tomato soup. As I said above, if you like carrot too, go for it...)
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Great review....prefer good old basic tomato soup meself. Very odd that they didn't label it as carrot though! Marc
BrandyweirMan 22.01.2004 19:47
Hi Ben. I think you have to have an aquired taste for butter beans. I like their texture but haven't yet aquired .................. Nice informative review though. Cheers ... Barrie.
Jan 15th, 2004
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