9 Best Vegan Store-Bought Soups

Soup is delightfully cozy, but you don't have to eat it solely in the colder months. After all, there are plenty of hot dishes (pizza, pasta, roasted root vegetables), and those are not relegated to cold-season meals. I, for one, love soup. I eat it and make it year-round, so I thought it'd be fun to tackle trying out various vegan soups from the grocery store. I used to be vegan and have an understanding of what folks who don't eat animal products are looking for and what's often lacking in ready-made foods.

I tried 14 different soups in total, but only the following ones made the list purely because of their flavor. These are tasty to eat alone, but you could always add ingredients to level up a vegan soup — think textured vegetable protein, pre-cooked chopped veggies, or nutritional yeast to give it a boost in flavor, texture, or nutrients. To learn more about my methodology, scroll to the end of the article. Get your spoon ready as we dig into the world of vegan soups.

The I Eat My Greens zucchini, cilantro, and cauliflower soup is an alluring green soup that has a very vegetal flavor and aroma. This is a delicious option if you want a veggie-forward, minimal ingredient option. While it has a lot of salt, it doesn't taste super salty. Because there are only a handful of ingredients, it allows the vegetables to come to the forefront, including zucchini, cauliflower, Swiss chard, cilantro, olive oil, and some seasonings. It has a pleasant taste, but it's not heavily flavored with a bunch of potent seasonings. I could see this being a great vegan soup option if you feel sick or need something plain yet tasty to eat (without any added lumps and bumps from ingredients like beans or lentils).

This brand is the most expensive on the list, but it's a top pick if you're craving simplicity. It reminds me of a soup my mother-in-law makes, sopa de calabacitas. While the one she makes is creamy, the flavor of the soup is extremely similar. The twist lid makes it easy to pour yourself as much or as little as needed and then close it up to place back into the fridge.

Here we are with another I Eat My Greens option. This time around, it's the carrot, sweet potato, and turmeric soup, which is mildly sweet compared to its zucchini-filled vegetal counterpart. It is a minimal ingredient veggie dish, and yet it's rich and flavorful. While other soups rely on add-ins, like corn and quinoa, this has carrots and sweet potato as the leading stars — both of which give it a hint of natural sweetness. 

It has richness from the coconut cream to provide a thicker mouthfeel despite being fully pureed. The seasonings, like turmeric and ginger, give it a bold but approachable flavor. As a whole, this vegan soup is well seasoned and earthy, and it doesn't feel like you're missing anything. If you want to thicken the soup a bit, try blending it with oats. It won't overpower the soup thanks to the coconut cream and spices.

The vegetable lentil organic soup from Pacific Foods is chunky, hearty, and perfect for a chilly day. This has ingredients like green lentils, tomato, corn, black beans, and spices. Although the entire can is about half of your daily sodium intake, it doesn't taste overly salty. In my soup-making experience, beans and lentils usually need a good amount of salt to give them flavor. 

This vegan soup has a wholesome flavor with visible pieces of corn, celery, and red peppers to make it feel (and taste) like you're getting some veggies in your meal. The lentils have a pop of texture, and yet they fall apart in my mouth as I chew. I like the thickness, as there's minimal liquid in relation to the amount of veggies and lentils. It's a very warm and satisfying lentil stew, perfect for when you need a satisfying, quick meal. I also enjoy that it has apple cider vinegar to give it a touch of tartness, as I usually like to add lemon juice to my lentil soups.

The creamy portobello mushroom soup by Imagine Foods is made with ingredients like its titular mushroom, potatoes, celery, and other seasonings. The packaging has suggestions on how to jazz it up, such as including sauteed mushrooms or a pinch of thyme for added aromatics. By itself, it is deeply flavorful and savory with that umami punch from the mushroom. Although it contains potatoes, the mushroom comes through the most.

I like that it has a resealable container, and it comes in a larger 1-quart carton. It's a good bang for the buck, meaning you can pour yourself a bowl of soup to eat right away and then revamp it with toppings and add-ins to make it feel like a new meal the next time. Like the packaging suggests, it would go well with chopped sauteed mushrooms (or crispy seared oyster mushrooms for a texture change). I think a sprinkle of vegan cheese or nutritional yeast could further enhance the creaminess and offer a light cheesiness. It's smooth, luscious, and full of that mushroom flavor, perfect to dip a slice of sourdough or a piece of crusty baguette in.

The potato leek soup, also by Imagine Foods, has a similar packaging and therefore the same selling points as above. Made with potatoes, onions, leeks, and other ingredients, this soup has a mild flavor, at least in comparison to the intense mushroom notes of the portobello soup. It mainly has the creaminess of potato with a touch of the mild onion-y taste of leek. It came out very thick when I initially poured it into a pot to heat it on the stove, but it thinned out during the heating process.

While this vegan soup tastes perfectly pleasant alone — rich, potato-y — I specifically like this soup because of its versatility. It could be more filling if you added some pre-boiled potatoes and carrots, or you could try making it "cheesy" with nutritional yeast. The packaging suggests that you could use it as the base of a gravy or in a potato casserole, making it the most adaptable option on this list to stock in the cabinet.

When you want a pre-made vegan soup that tastes luxurious and homemade, then the Love & Ladle organic coconut lentil soup is a top pick. This was one of my favorites from my taste test because it has layers of flavors, each richer and bolder than the next. It is one of the few refrigerated soups I tried, too, so one only has a certain window to eat it at its peak. It is a thicker soup with ingredients such as lentils, carrots, spinach, and coconut milk to give it a creamy texture. It doesn't specify the spices (it literally just says "spices" on the ingredients list), but it's beautifully seasoned. This is marvelously fragrant and flavorful, making it feel like it was made from scratch with love, or something you'd get at a local small business restaurant. 

There's a range of textures from the carrots and the lentils that makes every morsel feel satisfying and filling. The coconut gives this dish a luscious creaminess that further heightens it. It's colorful with pieces of veggies, but the lentils provide pleasant pops of texture. 

If you want a lentil-based dish that's completely different from a classic lentil soup, then this is for you. There's no need to add anything; it's perfect the way it is.

The Love & Ladle organic vegetable chili is fully decked out with things like chickpeas, kidney beans, carrot, red bell pepper, black beans, and other ingredients. This is a thick and filling soup when you don't want to have to cook something from scratch. It has a tomato aroma and taste that offers a bit of acidity. But then there's the pleasant chunkiness and flavors from the various ingredients. 

This is a terrific option to stock in the fridge for a quick lunch or dinner when you want something familiar. One container gives you a very filling, large bowl of soup, but you could split it into two and then enjoy with a piece of homemade cornbread, which is easy to make vegan. I like the addition of chickpeas in the chili, which is not the most common bean you see in this type of dish, vegan or not. Pacific Foods also sells a plant-based chili if you want to try a different brand.

The red bean pozole has hominy, yellow corn, bayo beans, peppers, lime juice, and other scrumptious ingredients to give it a delicious boost. There are generally three types of pozole, and this one is meant to mimic the robustness of a pozole rojo. The soup's appearance is pretty similar to a chili, if one were to only give it a quick glance from afar. But when you take a closer look and get that first bite, there's the taste and feel of the hominy — one of the key components in pozole. It has a grittiness as it falls apart in the mouth, leaving you with a pleasant texture on the tongue. 

This Casa Verde soup is a product of Mexico, so it's as authentic as you can get aside from going to your local pozoleria (if there's one nearby). The soup has a slightly tangy flavor from the lime and a spicy aftertaste from the chipotle peppers and guajillo pepper. The idea is very unique and not something you will find in a lot of brands, making it a fantastic option for anyone vegan. Having eaten non-vegan pozole at family gatherings, I can safely say this is a wonderful plant-based version.

I was thoroughly impressed with Amy's organic quinoa, kale, and red lentil soup. This is chock-full of quinoa, which makes it a memorable choice — unlike anything else on this list and an ingredient I don't frequently see in my average canned soup. It is thick and filled with goodies like kale, red lentils, jalapeño peppers, ginger puree, and cilantro to give it a fragrant and flavorful enhancement. It has a tomato puree base — something we've seen in a couple of these other soups — but it doesn't taste too tomato-y or acidic. 

This vegan soup is surprisingly creamy, likely due to the delicate red lentils. It's delicious and chunky without being overwhelming or overly chewy; the quinoa adds a gritty texture, but you don't have to bite into anything. I found this to be a well-balanced, thoroughly appetizing store-bought canned soup.

I selected all the vegan soups that I could find at my local Sprouts Farmers Market, although I know there's a wider selection if you go to various stores. I cooked each soup on the stovetop for continuity. Although I tried 14 different soups, I wasn't a fan of everything. To make this list of bests, the soup had to taste good, point blank. It had to feel like it was complete, like nothing was missing. Some are heartier with chunks of veggies or lentils, while others are more puree-like. I didn't care so much about texture or price. The most important thing is that the soup tastes delicious and leaves you satisfied.

I may mention how certain soups could be further enhanced, but they are tasty and flavorsome enough to eat on their own — there are absolutely occasions when you want a no-frills, minimal soup, and then there are times you want to zhuzh up a pre-made dish. Soups that didn't make the cut were lackluster and flavorless; they needed seasoning or flavor and were not good enough to enjoy alone (or good, period).