16 Boxed Chicken Broth Brands, Ranked Worst To Best

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Chicken broth has been used for centuries to soothe cold and flu aches, hydrate, and provide amino acids, vitamins, and minerals. It is an essential ingredient used worldwide to add liquid and flavor to dishes. And, while nothing tastes quite like comforting homemade chicken broth or stock, creating either from scratch takes time and elbow grease. For an easier option, we suggest turning to one of the high-quality pre-packaged options lining the shelves of your local markets.

If you need help deciding between chicken stock versus broth, make sure to understand the two. Traditionally, a stock tends to have a more full-bodied chicken flavor from extensive cooking of the bones, often upwards of eight hours. Broth simmers meat and bones for a shorter time, often with a mix of onions, celery, and carrots. Today, the two are easily swapped for each other in recipes, with many of the widely available broth options beginning with a chicken stock base.

We taste-tested 16 easy-to-find brands available in 32-ounce boxes providing 4 cups, or servings, of broth. That's enough liquid to make a pot of chicken soup, braise chicken legs or thighs, add roasted poultry flavor to sautéed vegetables, rice, or grains, or transform how you cook pasta. Using broth instead of cream and butter is the perfect option to lighten up mashed potatoes. And trust us; you'll never boil pasta in water again after using chicken broth. Here is our ranking of boxed chicken broths, from worst to best.

The packaging for this Simple Truth Organic chicken broth states the non-GMO broth comes from free-range chickens, which would lead one to believe that the production process includes using meat and bones from chickens raised outside a coop. However, reading the ingredient list, the only chicken in Simple Truth Organic Free Range Chicken Broth is organic chicken flavor. Additionally, though the product notes that it is fat-free and gluten-free, the ingredients also include organic olive oil and yeast extract. Olive oil contains fat, and yeast extract may contain gluten. 

While we appreciate that the broth tastes like chicken, we are curious to know if the flavor is from real chickens. The sodium is lower than other selections, leading us to rank this as our second least favorite instead of the worst.

Since 1987, Pacific Foods has been producing organic foods with a focus on creating a regenerative food cycle, taking its soups and stocks from farm to table. Its free-range chicken broth includes seasonings like organic turmeric and rosemary extract, onion powder, and sea salt. The broth also contains organic dextrose. This simple sugar made from corn or wheat is often used as a sweetener in processed foods, as its chemical compounds are equivalent to glucose.

We appreciate the company's dedication to using high-quality, organically grown ingredients in its broth, producing a gluten-free, non-GMO, fat-free product. The broth's flavor is rich and luscious, with a good chicken taste.

Still, we prefer to add sweeteners ourselves rather than the broth including dextrose. This broth is also one of the more expensive ones available, and its taste is similar to many other organic options, including those without added sugar. Due to these reasons, we suggest skipping Pacific Foods.

We like that the ingredient list for Imagine Foods' organic free-range broth includes only organic chicken, seasonings, and vegetables. The packaging indicates the chickens used for this gluten-free product are Step 3 Animal Welfare Certified by the Global Animal Partnership, which means they had access to outdoor space. However, the sodium count of 720 milligrams per cup is high, placing the broth in the middle of the pack.

Though the salt count is high, the broth did have an appealing chicken flavor that would readily enhance a bowl of chicken noodle or chicken and spinach soup. We would not recommend Imagine's broth in slow-cooking sauces, as the salty quality of the broth will intensify as the liquid simmers and reduces over time.

The likely Kroger-Albertsons merger first announced in October 2022 will make Kroger the second largest food retailer in the country, leaving us curious to see how its store brand stacks up to its big-box store competitors. The ingredient list is on par with the chain's counterparts, including sugar, chicken fat, and yeast extract. However, the sodium count is slightly less at 780 milligrams per cup.

In tasting the broth, we found it to have a pleasantly palatable chicken taste, though less flavor forward than the satisfying selections from Swanson's or Kitchen Basics. It is an affordable option to use as the base for dishes that include other highly flavorful ingredients that will boost the overall taste, like instant ramen or Cajun pasta.

Affordable and tasty, College Inn delivers full-bodied, homemade chicken flavor reminiscent of stewed meat cooked low and slow in its 100% natural chicken broth. The broth's story dates back to the College Inn Restaurant in Chicago, where, in the 1920s, Chef Joe Colton had a rich, savory chicken broth as the base for his famous chicken a la king dish. The restaurant closed in 1973, but by then, the packaged stocks and broths were available throughout the country, bringing chef-quality flavors to American households. 

Today, the company is owned by Del Monte, which continues the legacy of producing a savory broth that's both non-GMO and free of MSG and has good texture and an authentic, wholesome taste that we love in our pan-fried chicken thighs. The sodium is high, 850 milligrams per cup, but the slow-cooked, genuine poultry flavor is also delicious, keeping College Inn among one of our top selections.

Swanson Foods takes broth very seriously. Though the company began with a focus on TV dinners in the 1940s, today, its broths are its backbone, with each showcasing a homemade, concentrated flavor. In 2019, Swanson hired Chef Graham Zanow as its first broth sommelier to help educate consumers on the quality of its broths and why Swanson's are unlike any others.

Swanson chicken broth contains stock from American chicken meat and bones that simmer for 12 hours with fresh vegetables, dried spices, and cane sugar. Yeast extract and chicken fat lend richness and savoriness to the flavorful broth. Each 1-cup serving has 860 milligrams of sodium, equivalent to 37% of the recommended daily intake. 

There is something comforting and familiar about the taste of Swanson's broth that we love. It is a classic that maintains consistent appeal. Swanson reminds us of making cornbread dressing with Grandma for Thanksgiving, dousing the mixture with broth just before popping it into the oven. Swanson's broth has a satisfying taste that brings a feeling of nostalgia.

We aren't sure what the organic flavor or roasted natural flavor Kirkland Signature lists in the ingredients for its organic chicken stock is, but we know this stock tastes delicious. Simmering bones of cage-free chickens and organic vegetables like carrots and celery root forms the base of the stock, along with ground bay leaves, pepper, and concentrated onion juice. The sodium count is one of the lowest in our tasting, 440 milligrams per cup. Each cup includes 2 grams of protein, no sugar, and a trace amount of potassium. 

The best part of the Costco brand's chicken stock is its savory and balanced taste. There is a rich flavor of slow-roasted chicken and herbs, with just the right amount of seasoning. It is also one of the more affordable options available, costing only about $2 a carton. The price, lower sodium content, and great taste make this one of our top selections, perfect for enhancing a vegetable stir-fry or adding depth to wilted greens.

Kettle & Fire Chicken Broth begins with a base of chicken bone broth along with a mix of aromatics including onions, carrots, fennel, shitake mushrooms, leeks, thyme, bay leaf, apple cider vinegar, and tamarind paste, producing a savory, buttery richness with robust roasted chicken and herb flavor. The bone broth base for Kettle and Fire simmers for at least 20 hours, allowing the collagen and amino acids time to dissolve into the water, boosting the nutritional quality of the broth.

The bone broth base is combined with sea salt, tomato paste, and mushroom extract to make the chicken cooking broth, producing a rich liquid with a satisfying depth of utterly delicious flavor. Adding broth to simple soups or sauces transforms the flavors, elevating the overall taste to one that is wholesome and satisfying. The Austin, Texas-based product is gluten-free, non-GMO, free of hormones, preservatives, and anything artificial, has zero sugar, is Whole 30 approved, and has one of the longest shelf lives in the boxed broths we tried, up to two years.

With a focus on health and wellness and its incredible chicken flavor, it was easy to name Kettle & Fire's organic chicken broth our favorite.