14 Best Canned Soups To Have For Simplified Recipes

Whether you're looking to upgrade your arsenal of useful canned soups to keep on hand or are just looking for ways to use what you already have, it turns out that there are several canned soups that are more versatile than you might have originally thought. The beauty of adding canned soups to recipes is that they provide the qualities and ingredients you want in your dishes without the extra work.

There are lots of benefits to adding canned soups to recipes. Creamy soups can eliminate the need to make your own thickened sauce or having to do the work of pureeing veggies. They can add meaty, umami, or rich flavors to a dish without time-consuming steps. And, while we're talking about saving time, don't forget that they also save you from having to peel and chop veggies. However, beyond all the time-saving measures, there are the added flavors and textures that they can provide to dishes to elevate them beyond the ordinary. Once you see how these 14 canned soups can work for you in simplified recipes, you're likely to want to keep more of them on hand for everyday cooking.

Tomato soup is an excellent soup to keep in your cupboard for dishes other than just plain tomato soup. Sometimes, it's exactly what you need to enhance a dish when you don't have fresh or canned tomatoes at hand or don't want the extra steps of having to prepare or puree them.

Some of the ideas for how to use canned tomato soup might sound obvious, like adding a thickener and flavorful ingredients like stocks and meat to turn it into a bisque or adding an extra ingredient or two like bacon to elevate it. Some other ideas that might not be too much of a stretch are to use it as the base for spaghetti sauce or as the base for a tomato-based soup like minestrone or chili.

There are some other ways to use it that are a little less likely to be obvious. For example, you could add it as the liquid for macaroni and cheese, use it as the sauce for Indian dishes like butter chicken and curry, or make it the liquid you use to cook your egg for shakshuka. And, if you're feeling adventurous, you can even use it as a cake moistener for a surprisingly yummy cake (we like it best with chocolate).

While cream of mushroom soup is pretty tasty by itself, it's gathered a reputation as something you want to keep in your cupboard to use when making casseroles. Not only does it provide creaminess, but it has chunks of mushrooms in it that add extra umami flavor and protein.

It turns out that there are far more ways than soup and casseroles to use a can of cream of mushroom soup. One of our favorites is to use cream of mushroom soup as the liquid portion of a sauce or gravy for meat dishes. It's excellent over pork tenderloin, but one of our favorite ways to enjoy it is over hamburger patties served with wild rice. We also like it as the liquid for a pot roast, especially stirred into leftover pot roast on the second day.

Some more unusual ways to use your cream of mushroom soup is to add it to mashed potatoes or even scalloped potatoes. It's a great addition to macaroni and cheese, with the mushrooms adding a little protein to this vegetarian dish. We also like the idea of adding it to risotto for a quick and inexpensive version.

If you've just been keeping cream of chicken soup in the cupboard to eat by itself or make casseroles, you've been missing out on all sorts of time-saving shortcuts and dishes you could have been making with it. Not only does it add creaminess to a dish, but it has a few chunks of chicken in it to add meatiness as well.

Our favorite way to use it is the creamy ingredient in chicken pot pie, as the liquid in chicken dumplings or other chicken-based pasta, or for making chicken and rice. We also like to use it to make creamy versions of soups that normally have a clear chicken broth base, like chicken noodle soup or chicken enchilada soup.

Still, there are other ways to enjoy it that you may not have imagined previously. It's another soup that works well in making creamy scalloped potatoes. You can use it as a starting point for a warm chip dip when combined with ingredients like cream cheese, jalapeños, and chicken. Along the same lines, it works well as a starter for making chicken enchilada sauce or for upgrading quesadillas.

Cream of celery soup is one of those soups that's likely to languish in your cupboard unopened until it expires because you don't know what to do with it after you use it for that one recipe you bought it for. Yet, it works in many of the same places that cream of mushroom or cream of chicken soup work to add creaminess, as long as you don't mind a little celery in the dish.

Of course, it works in many of the same recipes as other cream-of-something soups. So, one of the first places to consider using it is in casseroles, like a Dilly Tuna Casserole recipe. Sometimes, all you need to do is add an extra ingredient like bacon to transform it into a soup you want to eat on its own. It's also a good one to use to thicken up or fill out a creamy soup you're making especially chowder or dumplings. Don't forget the possibility of using it as a meat sauce or gravy, especially over chicken. It's another one that works with scalloped potatoes, too. However, we always like to keep a can on hand around Thanksgiving to help moisten our dressing or stuffing.

Of course, French onion soup is great served the traditional way, with a piece of crusty bread and melty cheese on top. However, that's certainly not the only thing you should be keeping French onion soup in your cupboard to do. Its rich broth and onions are a welcome addition to many recipes.

It can serve the same purpose as some of the soups we've already mentioned. For example, you can use it to add extra flavor to mac and cheese, use it in pasta sauce, or turn it into a casserole like a Cheesy French Onion Soup Pasta Casserole.

It can also substitute for dishes that French onion soup mix works with, like chip dip, mashed potatoes, as a rice base, meatballs, and gravy. You might also want to try it as a sauce for meatballs. It's also amazing as a flavoring ingredient for roasting par-boiled potatoes along with a top layer of Gruyère cheese.

Until you've learned how versatile it is, you probably haven't often bought a lot of cheddar cheese soup. However, it turns out that this creamy, cheesy soup has lots of uses that make it worthwhile to keep in your cupboard if you're a cheese lover.

Some of the ways you can use cheddar cheese soup are going to look familiar from the ways you can use other soups on our list. For example, it works well as an enchilada sauce, in homemade mac and cheese, as a casserole base, and to help make scalloped potatoes cheesy. Another potato dish it works well in is a copycat Cracker Barrel Hashbrown Casserole. Plus, you can add it to various pasta dishes, like homemade hamburger helper.

Cheddar cheese soup also works well as a topping for items that are common to add cheese sauce to. Some of these dishes include using it as a baked potato topping or as the cheesy part of chili cheese fries.

An often-overlooked soup you should keep on the shelf for a myriad purposes is beef consommé soup. Beef consommé is different from beef broth in that it's often more intensely flavored and clarified to make it extremely clear. So, you could use it in the same ways you would beef broth when you're craving a more intense and rich beef flavor in your dish.

Now that you know what it is, you likely can think of several places to use it, but we'll pass on a few ideas to get you started. Use it in recipes where an intensely beefy broth can elevate the dish, like the au jus for a French dip sandwich, the liquid for slow cooker beef, or the broth for a soup. Another place it works is in a French potato salad recipe. However, one of our all-time favorite ways to enjoy it is as the liquid for baking rice in the oven, along with lots of butter and (sometimes) chopped bell peppers.

Broccoli cheese soup has more lives to live than just being soup. Granted, you could simply elevate the canned version of the soup with extra veggies and chicken broth. However, there are plenty of other uses, too. Broccoli and cheese complement a wide range of dishes, which is why you'll want to keep this soup around.

We want you to fire up your imagination with a few examples of how to use canned broccoli and cheese soup in a new way. Like with most soups, there's always the idea of adding it to a casserole, but there are so many other uses. You can change up the flavors of a chicken pot pie by using this soup instead of cream of chicken. Don't forget that you can use it as a pasta sauce or a base of broccoli cheddar rice. You're also going to love it as the topping for loaded baked potatoes. Thinking along those same lines, it's also a flavorful starter for a loaded baked potato soup when you add ingredients like leftover mashed potatoes, bacon, and chives.

A cream-of-something soup that may have flown under your radar until now is cream of bacon soup. If you think about how a touch of bacon can completely change the flavor profile of a dish and make it taste more homey, you'll realize how valuable a can of cream of bacon soup could be to keep in your cupboard. Not only does it work where you're looking for an ingredient to provide creaminess, but it also adds the smokiness and meatiness of bacon.

We're going to start with just a few ideas on how to use it, but we bet you'll be using it even more once you realize just how versatile it can be. You can use it to add a smoky bacon flavor to homemade mac and cheese, and it creates a nice sauce for meat like pork chops. It's also an interesting addition to a variety of both creamy and broth-heavy soups, like various styles of chicken noodle soup, Italian wedding soup, and even tomato soup. You can even try turning it into a makeshift alfredo-style sauce with the addition of some parmesan cheese, a little milk, and sauteed garlic.

Potatoes love cream of bacon soup. For example, it gives a smoky bacon lift to scalloped potatoes, hash brown casserole, and creamy potato soup.

If you're anything like the average person, you have no idea what to do with split pea soup in your cupboard if you aren't in the mood for split pea soup. However, it really has more versatility than you might expect. The mushy peas that form its main body puts it in the same category of use as cream soups, but the veggies and meat you're likely to find in split pea soup give it added flavors and ingredients to work with.

First of all, you can improve your most basic canned split pea soup with some simple additions to bring it closer to homemade. At the most basic level, you can add chunks of ham. If you want something more robust and even more flavorful, consider adding some aromatics like onions and garlic, extra veggies like carrots and potatoes, and even a bit of oregano.

Beyond a few additions to enhance the soup, you can use the soup in a few unexpected ways. One option is to turn split pea soup into pasta sauce. For example, it makes an excellent sauce for gnocchi. You could enhance it with extra veggies and meat and top it with your favorite toppings like crispy fried onions or cheese to turn it into a casserole. It also works surprisingly well as the sauce for a curry, with the addition of your favorite curry spices and solid ingredients like veggies or meat.

Cream of potato soup is another oddball cream-of-something soup that can be a little baffling to know how to use. Next time you run across some, you might grab a can or two once you have an idea of how they can work for you. Not only does it provide a creamy sauce for your dishes, but the chunks of potato in it prevent you from having to cut up potatoes for your recipes or save you if you don't have any in the first place.

One way to use it is as a soup base. It adds chunky potatoes to chowders of any sort. It can also work nicely as a rice soup base or for any creamy soup where potatoes are welcome.

Of course, it works in casseroles as well, just like all the other creamy soups. So, consider it the next time you're making a chicken and rice casserole or others where you might enjoy a few potatoes in the mix. We've even had them in hashbrown casseroles, where the potatoes from the cream of potato soup add a different potato texture for interest. It can also be a shortcut when you're making a chicken pot pie.

Even canned vegetable soup has its uses beyond just being vegetable soup. You may not have thought of using it any other way before, but once you see how versatile it can be, you might find yourself using it in dishes more often. Largely, using vegetable soup in a dish provides added veggies that you don't have to cut up by hand.

First of all, there are all sorts of add-ins that can just give you a more enhanced version of vegetable soup. So don't hesitate to add meatballs, pasta, or other ingredients to turn it into a more robust and filling soup. You could also blend the soup together with a blender or immersion blender to create a thicker soup base for whatever fresh veggies or other ingredients you have on hand.

Like practically every other soup in existence, it works as an ingredient in casseroles. Just throw in some rice and top with cheese, and you've got the beginnings of something new. Some people use it as the veggie layers for lasagna or as the veggies in a pot pie or shepherd's pie. So use your imagination to add it to dishes, especially when you're low on fresh veggies or just don't want to do any chopping.

There are so many things that you can do with canned chili that having a can in the cupboard could always inspire or enhance a meal. While you can use it for ordinary dishes that call for chili, like hotdogs, chili cheese fries, or a starter for real chili, there are many more places to use it, too. Whether you choose canned chili with or without beans, you're also getting tomatoes and spices to add to your dish.

There are lots of different categories of foods where canned chili can work well. One is as a topping or mix-in for various types of pasta, including spaghetti as well as macaroni and cheese. You can use it instead of plain tomatoes when making shakshuka. Heat together with cream cheese and shredded cheese, and you suddenly have an easy dip.

There are also dishes where you can use canned chili as a topping or filling. Some ideas on using it as a topping include adding it to baked potatoes, Frito chili pie, and nachos. As for places where it works mixed in with other ingredients to make a filling, try it in tacos, burritos, sloppy joe's, and stuffed peppers.

Even bean and bacon soup can do double duty as an ingredient in simple dishes. So, don't just let it sit there waiting for you to be in the mood for bean and bacon soup; put it to work for you. It works anywhere you'd normally want beans and bacon in a dish, with the added bonus of being creamy.

There are lots of places where bean and bacon soup shine, especially with pasta. Simply adding pasta to the soup is one option, but another is to turn it into pasta e fagioli since the bacon is a good stand-in for pancetta. Just add the missing ingredients from a classic pasta e fagioli recipe, like extra onions, carrots, and celery, as well as some herbs.

There are a few other unexpected places where you can use bean and bacon soup. One is to warm it up with some cheese and salsa to make a dip for chips. Another is to turn it into baked beans by adjusting a regular baked beans recipe to use the soup instead of canned beans. Another unusual way to use it is to combine it with cooked ground beef, garlic powder, onion, and ketchup or tomato sauce to make sloppy joe when you don't have any sloppy joe mix available.