We Asked 3 Chefs to Name the Best Canned Chicken Noodle Soup, and They All Said the Same Thing
As great as a pot full of homemade chicken noodle soup is, not everyone has the time to make an entire batch every time they get a craving. And at the height of winter (when seemingly everyone you know has come down with a cold) the need for chicken noodle soup couldn’t be stronger (at least for me). The solution? Have a can or three of the most delicious chicken noodle soup within arms reach.
Naturally, not all chicken noodle soups are made the same. So to find the best store-bought ones, I asked a handful of my chef friends their favorites. Their unanimous recommendation? Turns out, it’s all about the noodles — the more, the merrier.
The Best Canned Chicken Noodle Soup to Buy, According to Chefs
Sevina Lee, a private yacht chef, also firmly believes that “noodles are the best part” of chicken noodle soup. When she’s making her own, she adds broken up mafaldine noodles. “It’s an A+ addition, the ruffles on the side add some exciting texture, and they have a good thickness without being too thick. They really balance the act between chewiness and suppleness.” But as long as there’s plenty of good, chewy and comforting noodles in the soup, then it’s a good one.
It all started with my friend Freya Hatch-Surisook, line cook at Dinner Party Brooklyn. We were deep in conversation about the Platonic ideal of chicken noodle soup (as two people who work in food do) when she recalled her decades-old affinity for Team Noodles. As kids, she and her brother begged for Campbell’s Double Noodle Soup. “All we wanted to eat were the brothy noodles,” she says. The can is practically all noodles in a thick chicken broth, which sounds like a bowl of pure bliss right now.
I’m not entirely surprised. When I was growing up, my family ate rice or noodles practically every meal. My aunt, Thiraporn Gosinanont, who is also the chef and owner of Peppermint, in Royal Palm Beach, Florida, always favored noodle dishes over the rice ones, and wouldn’t you know that love extends to chicken noodle soup. In fact, for her, “it’s all about the noodles.”
Her go-to pick is Rao’s Italian-Style Chicken Noodle Soup. It “has the best, creamy noodles,” according to her, even calling it the best product Rao’s has to offer (yes, better than the popular jarred pasta sauce, which, coincidentally, chefs also love!)
Buy: Campbell’s Double Noodle Soup, $1.72 for 10.5 ounces at Amazon
Are you #TeamNoodles too? Tell us about it in the comments below.