9 Aldi Soups, Ranked Worst To Best

Soup's on! Does anyone else feel like scoffing at soup as a kid was somewhat of a universal experience? It never had the appeal as taco night or takeout pizza — falling to the same level of loathing as a slow cooker dinner. But now, as adults, those picky kids view soup season as the most wonderful time of the year. Whether it's chicken noodle, tomato bisque, or minestrone, soup just does something magical to mature palates. It simply hits the spot, and what hits the spot even more is soup at a discounted price. That's right. I'm talking about Aldi soups. Well, actually, I'm doing more than talking about them. I'm tasting and ranking them to find the absolute coziest, tastiest brews whipped up by the German grocer.

Aldi may not have a soup collection as colorful or renowned as the one found at Trader Joe's. But it holds its own with some exclusively Aldi picks from its brands Chef's Cupboard, Specially Selected, and Deutsche Küche (it carries Campbell's too, but that's a taste test for another day). I purchased nine different soups under these labels and judged them using basic soup criteria like consistency and chunkiness, taste and texture of ingredients, seasonings, and sodium content. No one wants a soup that's essentially a salt lick in disguise. From hearty German-style bean soups to smooth bisques, there's a little of everything on the shelves. So, I hope you're hungry for a filling and revealing journey through Aldi's soups.

While I love the price tag slapped onto this can, I don't feel as strongly about the soup that awaits inside. This one comes from Aldi's exclusive private-label brand, Chef's Cupboard. It specializes in soups and broths, yet fails to create a classic chicken noodle soup that is both heart and soul-warming. The ingredients and appearance make it seem like your run-of-the-mill canned chicken noodle. You have chicken, wide egg noodles, carrots, and celery, all swimming in a chicken stock broth. It bears a lot of similarities to Campbell's Chunky chicken and noodle soup. Some even say that Campbell's could be behind the store brand. Just a theory, but good food for thought.

When you go to taste this brew, though, it comes off like a lower-priced soup with a muted flavor throughout. Even though one serving makes up 34% of your recommended daily sodium intake, it hardly tastes salty or flavorful at all. The pink chicken cubes are chewy and dried my entire mouth out, while the carrots and celery played hide and seek in the bowl. The noodles were the only saving grace. They're thick and somehow maintain a springy texture in their broth bath.

Even if I were sick with a stuffy nose, I would still want more flavor here. I'm not asking for anything intense. A handful more carrots, maybe onions, and a sprinkling of herbs like thyme or oregano to give it life.

Chicken pot pie soup is a culinary treasure and a personal favorite of mine. The sub sandwich shop Potbelly makes a mean one. In fact, I think it's one of the best fast-food soups you're likely to find. My mouth starts to water simply thinking about its crumbly, fresh-made crust on top. By comparison, this Chef's Cupboard take feels like an inferior, wannabe version.

First off, it's more like a chicken pot pie and chicken and dumpling soup mashup. It has all the inner makings of a chicken pot pie, including chicken, carrots, celery, peas, corn, onions, and a thick chicken-based broth, but there's no crust component. Instead, spaetzle dumplings are thrown in, which are actually quite good. Plump and doughy, they're by far the best part of the soup, just as the noodles were in the Chef's Cupboard chicken noodle. It's the rest of the recipe that disappoints.

The chicken is chewy again, and the base isn't as creamy as I hoped it would be. The veggies are fine, but overall, there isn't much flavor to work with, despite the salt, onion powder, and other spices sprinkled in. What I tasted was a strange, almost fishy flavor in that very first bite. Luckily, it subsided after a few more spoonfuls. I did like this one slightly better than the chicken noodle, thanks to its mix of ingredients, but it's still not an outstanding soup.

At a German grocery chain like Aldi, you're going to find a considerable amount of nods to German cuisine, many of them bearing the brand name Deutsche Küche. This one gives us a taste of one of the country's staple dishes: pea soup.

Now, this is not a traditional split pea soup, which is often made from simmered and squashed split peas. So, don't get confused. In this can, the peas are allowed to maintain their shape — they're actually quite large — and they're joined by chunks of potatoes, carrots, onions, and leeks. As for the taste, it's not bad. If you like peas, you'll likely enjoy this one, which is why it edges out the previous two Chef's Cupboard creations. That said, the flavor is ridiculously straightforward: like peas with a touch of salt. The taste of onions or any kind of spices doesn't hit the taste buds. So, essentially, you end up with peas swimming in a thick, pea-infused broth, making it seem more like a side dish than a true soup that eats like a meal. I could see it served alongside schnitzel or Kasseler (a German smoked pork chop).

Another minor drawback: I was also a little turned off by the fact that all the Deutsche Küche soup cans mention they may contain seafood, like pollock, salmon, and shellfish. It didn't affect the taste from what I could tell, but I was certainly on the lookout for any fishiness.

There's nothing wrong with getting back to the meat and potatoes. The Chef did that with this choice, and it turns out far better than the other chicken-based soups. There's a deep savoriness that immediately warms and fills you up, rather fast. It also comes packed with 17 grams of protein for the whole can, which is impressive for a soup — be mindful of the heightened sodium count that tags along with those gains.

It's made from potato chunks, seasoned beef, and the rare mushroom. Everything then sits in a dark brown broth of beef stock, tomato puree, burgundy wine, and corn starch (presumably to thicken it up). To me, it's highly reminiscent of a brown gravy. Pour it over mashed potatoes, and you have yourself a completely different kind of dish. The potatoes are plentiful, making the soup extra chunky. I also like their texture and how they still have a bite rather than becoming too soft and mushy. The "steak," which is more like a chuck roast you would use for pot roast, isn't as abundant. But it soaks up all the juices that surround it, making it surprisingly tender. It comes off in shred-like pieces as you bite into each cube.

This is no gourmet-style soup, and it doesn't claim to be. It's a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of creation, and I respect that. Hearty and satisfying, I could see myself grabbing for it again on a cold day.

This Deutsche Küche product seems to take inspiration from not just one, but multiple variations of German vegetable soup. Like the traditional soup base suppengrün, it includes leeks and carrots. It also stirs in potatoes, white cabbage, and green beans. They're not front and center as they are in grüne bohnensuppe, though they do pop up here and there. That's not even the end of the ingredient list, either. You also have peas, red and green peppers, onions, tomatoes, and egg spaghetti noodles. You could say it's a smorgasbord soup of sorts, or an everything and the kitchen sink soup. Somehow, though, everything balances quite nicely.

The long noodles are an unexpected choice. They immediately took me back to the days of old-school Campbell's canned spaghetti or Chef Boyardee Spaghetti & Meatballs. They slip off spoons rather easily, which makes them a bit of a rare pick for soups, but I'll let it slide for the nostalgia factor. The broth itself is flavorful all around, like a cross between a vegetable stock and a tomato sauce, carrying strong notes of bell pepper. The vegetables are chopped finely, yet there's plenty of them in every bite.

Each spoonful feels bright and wholesome, sending this soup well above all three selections from Chef's Cupboard and ahead of the German brand's own pea soup. If you're looking for a veggie soup in the Deutsche Küche family, this is the way to go.

Not everyone is going to like this bisque, and that's okay. That leaves more for us mushroom lovers. It's brought to us by Specially Selected, which is Aldi's premium private label brand — like what Private Selection is to Kroger or what Sam's Choice is to Walmart. 

The grey appearance and gloopy texture of this mushroom bisque, like that of country gravy, may be a turn-off even for the most adventurous palates. Stick with me, though. Once you get past first impressions and aesthetics, you can appreciate the smooth and creamy bisque that's lying underneath. The level of buttery creaminess almost makes it feel indulgent. Then you pair that with the wildly earthy and savory notes of mushrooms. The tender bits of mushroom themselves are a highlight. They taste like a lightly sauteed version of a standard button mushroom, adding a simple authenticity to the soup.

I only have a few quick critiques when it comes to this bisque. I really don't taste the rosemary, sage, parsley, or other spices that are supposed to be incorporated into the recipe, which makes the flavor feel one-dimensional. There's also a strange acidic bite lingering throughout, even tasting slightly sour in spots, but it could be the batch. I was disappointed by it, though, because without it, this easily would have been one of my top picks.

This is a complete 180 from the bisque that we polished off. Where the Specially Selected soup is more hoity toity, this one is humble and hearty. It's a working-class kind of soup, and that's precisely why I like it.

As a Midwesterner, I grew up on classic ham and bean soup. This German version differs slightly, yet still elicits all those warm and fuzzy feelings from childhood. It's primarily made up of white beans. The jumbo-sized can is packed full of them, with a small amount of viscous broth filling in the extra space — it's about the same amount of goop you would find in a can of baked beans. Playing second fiddle to the beans would be a handful of chopped potatoes, carrots, and onions. There's no ham or other kinds of meat included in the recipe, so it could be considered vegetarian if it weren't for the seafood warnings on the can. However, each bite has a sort of smoky flavor on top of the salt that tricks you into thinking maybe ham, or even bacon, was involved in the making.

This is the definition of a stick-to-your-ribs meal. The 28-ounce can is practically a small vat of soup — about twice the size of your average can. That means it can feed more than one person without breaking the bank. Plus, think of all the fiber and iron you're getting from those beans.

I've never had a vegetable soup quite like this. However, it's every bit as good as it is one-of-a-kind. Let's start by breaking down all of the ingredients squeezed into this 24-ounce jar. Tomatoes are at the forefront (the color of the soup hints at that). They're also accompanied by onions, carrots, zucchini, black beans, spinach, potatoes, celery, and green beans. It really gives the Deutsche Küche Fall Harvest soup a run for its money.

The flavor is as rich and diverse as the ingredient list suggests. The broth itself tastes almost like an extra-sweet pasta sauce — thick, chunky, and packed with slow-cooked tomato flavor. Then you toss in all those vegetables, and suddenly, no two bites are the same. One spoonful is earthy and soft with potatoes and carrots, the next is snappy from green beans or elevated with bits of spinach and zucchini. It's a medley of textures and tastes that all coalesce in the tomato sauce.

The roasted garlic and onion powder layer in even more depth, and whatever blend of mystery spices is added in also gives a subtle kick at the back of the throat. Overall, it's so reminiscent of a veggie-packed pasta sauce that I was tempted to pour it over spaghetti noodles — sort of a chili-over-pasta situation. It could be my Midwest roots talking, but I think that combo would be pretty delicious.

Specially Selected does it again. This soup is the brand putting its best ladle forward. It's fall in a jar. It captures all the seasonal appeal of Panera's Autumn Squash Soup or Trader Joe's Pumpkin Bisque or Autumnal Harvest Soup, but takes things a step further with a surprising blend of curry spices. It's fall flavor like you've never tasted before.

The bisque's vibrant orange base is a mix of pumpkin, tomatoes, carrots, cream, and, believe it or not, mangoes. I was skeptical at first, but they have a really nice, sweet, and fruity influence over the soup. The texture is velvety smooth, and each spoonful bursts with the warmth of curry flavors. Notes of ginger, turmeric, and coriander are bright and aromatic in every bite.

If there's one thing missing, it's a bit of heat to make it pop. A pinch of red pepper flakes or a drizzle of chili oil would easily solve that, fulfilling that spicy kick that curry lovers crave. The jar even suggests that it's "great as a sauce," and I wholeheartedly believe that. You could pour it over a meal of grilled chicken and basmati rice, use it as a creamy base for risotto, or even serve it as a dipping sauce for naan. I love a soup with both character and versatility, and this bisque delivers on both fronts, making it hands-down my favorite Aldi soup.

Soup is a far-reaching category. How can you compare a chunky meat-and-potato stew to a more sophisticated French-style bisque or a simple vegetable medley? The answer is to get back to the core of what a good soup should be. It should be flavorful and balanced, served at the right consistency and the right temperature.

For all nine Aldi selections, I warmed up a bowl of each soup in the microwave to a level just above lukewarm (but below scorch-your-tongue hot). So at least the temperature component was consistent across the board. After pulling them from the microwave, consistency was the first thing I noticed. Soups like bisques or pot pie soups should be creamy, while chicken noodle or vegetable varieties should have a thinner broth, but one that's not too watery or greasy. Some held up to these standards, and others didn't.

Next came the individual ingredients. I looked for veggies that were tender yet not soggy, meat that had a soft bite rather than a tough chew, and noodles that stayed firm without becoming mushy. I wanted flavor coming from all around — in the broth and in the ingredients themselves. The best soups used seasonings and spices (beyond salt) and achieved a great balance overall. Best of all, the top soups wrapped my taste buds in a warm hug. You know it's a good soup when you can't help but say "mmmm" out loud as you go in for another spoonful.