Stirring the Pot: The Unofficial Top-10 Soup Ranking of the 2018-19 Year

Ever since coming to college, I have become a huge soup person. When nothing sounds good in the caf and I’m sick of my go-to snar order, a good soup can save a meal. 

But as the days have been getting warmer, I have been finding it more and more difficult to justify having an appetite for such a characteristically warm meal.

Therefore, as the year comes to a close, I’ve provided you with my official soup ranking. As a disclaimer, I only ranked the soups that I have personally tried; for example, while I’ve heard the cream of tomato soup is a crowd favorite, it’s not on this list because I have genuinely never tried it.

Here is some of my criteria I used:

Does it have a lot of add-ins?

If in the caf, can it be paired well with rice or quinoa?

Does it go well with cheese?

1. Moroccan Tomato Lentil

This soup’s predominantly lentil base makes it a filling option for lunch and even better paired with rice for dinner. 

2. Tomato & Cannellini Bean

The cannellini beans in this soup make for a hearty dish. Even better, this soup goes well with rice and multiple types of cheeses whether you get it in the snar or the caf.

3. Vegan Chili

This soup is 95% beans and 5% broth. That being said, it’s a really filling meal that’s not as heavy as meat chili.

4. Minestrone with Beans

This is another doppelganger soup in the sense that it reminds me a lot of the pasta fagioli soup (see below). It doesn’t necessarily make the most sense to eat the soup with rice since it already has some pasta in it, but it pairs really well with oyster crackers and parmesan.

5. Kale

This soup’s name is very misleading; it has a lot more than just kale in it including beans (again) and goes well with both rice and parmesan cheese

6. Chicken Noodle

I’ve only had this soup once because every time I try to get some, it’s almost completely gone—that’s how good it is.

7. Sweet Pepper with White Beans

This soup is extremely similar to the tomato and cannellini bean soup; the only difference I can identify is that there’s red pepper instead of tomato. It’s ranked seventh, not closer to tomato and cannellini bean’s ranking, because I’m personally more of a tomato than sweet pepper person.

8. Pasta Faggioli

This is another mostly-bean soup, but the pasta component changes up the texture slightly. However, the small pasta pieces are difficult to distinguish from the beans because they sit in the warm broth for so long. 

Regardless, this soup it still good with a nice topping of parmesan cheese and oyster crackers.

9. Mexican Tomato-Potato

The potatoes in this soup absorb the tomato base really well. This is another great pairing with parmesan cheese, although maybe cheddar would work too if you had the soup from the snar.

10. Vegetable Rice

Although this soup has a really good overall flavor, the vegetables and rice cook too long together and, consequently, create the same texture. The rice component had a lot of potential, but unfortunately, it’s undistinguishable from the other vegetables by the time I get to it.