Category: Sainsbury

Sainsbury

Potato & Leek (Sainsbury’s)

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  • Cost £0.65
  • 23rd December 2022
  • Features:
    • Can is durable

Texture

This soup is a little bit slimy which is a disappointment, as you may imagine. It is also punctuated by strangely hard potatoes which does give a strange effect. This makes for a disconcerting experience as you whiplash back and forth between hard potato and slimy leek for the duration of lunchtime. At least this soup keeps you on your toes.

Flavour

The flavour is acceptable and the leeks aren’t super sweet, but instead lack punchiness. These leeks wouldn’t last half a round against Christopher Biggins, let alone Mike Tyson.

Creaminess

Instead of potato and leek propping things up, we sadly have a milky, creamy base that some may like, but I find is detrimental in a ‘chunky’ soup like this. This is especially true when that cream lacks flavour. Cream of mushroom soup is imbued throughout with mushroom flavour, this just tastes of cream with stringy leek in it.

Tolerability

To wax philosophical for a moment – ultimately, our team at Tinned Soup Review are reviewing soups that are probably not going to be served in Michelin star restaurants. We are under no illusion that these soups regularly outclass homemade or even shop bought fresh soups. Therefore, in some cases we will simply cut some soups a little slack. Yes, we aim for hard-hitting, thoughtful food criticism here, but sometimes when you step back and think about it, a soup is simply ‘fine’.

Conclusion

Would I strongly recommend this soup? No. Is it probably ‘fine’? I guess so.

/ 5

Sainsbury

Sundried tomato, chorizo & orzo (Sainsbury’s)

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  • Cost – £1.00
  • 8th December 2022
  • Features:
    • Carbohydrates
    • Fats
    • Amino acids

The chorizo conundrum

Chori – tso? Chori – tho? Every time I have to say this word out loud, panic sets in. I have Googled how to say it, many, many times, and yet I always forget the correct way to say it. I refuse to look it up again, even when writing this article. Perhaps I should tattoo it, Memento-style, on my forearm so that when I invariably order it at a tapas restaurant, I don’t feel like a complete idiot. This is a shame, as I love chorizo and frequently mention it in everyday conversation. We all have our cross to bear.

Our solemn vow – there is meat in the soup

When I read that a soup is meat-based somehow (i.e. chicken, or beef or whatever), my eyes begin to slowly roll back in my head with cynicism. I am mentally prepared for the tiniest strand of chicken to float by, so insignificant that it doesn’t require chewing of any sort. I did, in this soup find the chorizo chunks, and although very small they are certainly detectable. They have been rendered soft by living in a tin of mostly water, but predominantly just lend a pungent chorizo smell to the whole room you’re eating this soup in.

Al-don’t-e

Pasta in soup is as classic as they come. Soup needs a carb like a car needs a handbrake. You can get by without it, but you wouldn’t really want to routinely. Pasta outside of the Tinned Soupiverse (this is what we’re calling it now) is generally at its best when slightly firmer with a good ‘bite’ to it – you know, just like nonna used to make. This is as sloppy and wet as a fisherman’s trousers. I’ve had jelly firmer than this orzo which you could barely call solid matter.

Wateriness

The scourge of the Tinned Soupiverse (starting to feel natural now isn’t it?) is wateriness. Watery soup reminds you that what you’re eating is mostly liquid, and actually, now that you think about it, not filling at all? “I should have made a sandwich” is all you’ll be thinking after you’ve had some truly watery Tinned Soups. This is on the verge of being too watery, but is saved by the sheer quantity of carrots. It’s thin ice though, as this soup is unrelentingly wet.

Pungenceness

Opening the lid on this soup is like plunging your head into a kitchen garden. Apart from being assaulted by a chorizo sausage (which I think would actually hurt a fair bit) you are showered with herbs of all stars and stripes. When I was a student, ‘Mixed Herbs’ would be thrown into whatever budget food I was cooking that night in the hopes that flavour would just somehow increase with no regards as to which herbs were involved. This soup is just like that basically. It’s Herbier than Hancock.

(this is a jazz joke)

Conclusion

The inclusion of lots of things in your soup doesn’t help when they all just strong flavours that don’t necessarily go together. It’s an all liquid flavour mess that isn’t too unpleasant, but not really a recommend.

/ 5

Sainsbury

Vegetable Soup (Sainsbury’s)

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  • Cost – £0.65
  • 7th December 2022
  • Features:
    • Veg
    • Broth

What are we dealing with here?

These are vegetables my friend, pure and simple. Let’s run them down – carrot *tick*, potato *tick*, beans *tick*, peas *tick*. All the big dogs. These are, by and large, things you would be pleased to find floating in your lunch. The potatoes are decent chunks and aren’t too hard and the other veggies are in decent shape considering they have lived the cooked portion of their afterlife sealed in a metal tomb.

Broth

I am not entirely sure what separates a broth from perhaps a bisque or stew, but this seems very broth-y. It has that kind of oily sheen that makes you think someone actually cooked it in a pan or something. As such, it is thin, but the chunks of veg sailing upon it do help to break up the monotony.

Heartiness

I think garlic is basically the heartiest flavour and is the cornerstone of the tinned soup playbook (and most food). Garlic is the 4-4-2 or missionary position of ingredients. You know where you stand with it. Garlic would probably help you paint your nursery or move a mattress down a flight of stairs. And yeah, we know, you always put more than the recipe asks for in your cooking – everyone does that. It’s fine. This soup is filled to the gunnells with the stuff.

Population control

How much stuff do you want or need in your soup? I think the balance here is decent. For 65p you are getting enough vegetables that most spoonfuls will have some veg on them. Sometimes I play a little game and close my eyes, dip down with the spoon and then open them to reveal what vegetable I have picked up this time. The one I’m most pleased to find, you ask? The humble potato, of course. The game loses mystery as you get near the end as basically the vegetables are barely covered by broth at that point.

So hang on, you just did all your shopping in Sainsbury’s this week?

Yeah I did, actually. I live near a big Sainsbury’s and it was convenient. So maybe the next few soups will be from there, but next week I’ll go somewhere else for my soup, OK? God, I hate it when you’re like this.

Conclusion

This is a really tasty soup that’s good value for money. It has no major frills, but is a solid recommend without any major drawbacks either.

/ 5

Sainsbury

Caulflower Cheese (Sainsbury’s)

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  • Cost – £1.00
  • 6th December 2022
  • Features:
    • Water
    • Ingredients
    • Flavour

Cauliflower-ness

Cauliflower just loves to be soup. It cannot get enough. If you were to blend cooked cauliflower on its own, you would basically have soup. Sainsbury’s have kindly added other things to this, as that would be pretty boring. As it stands, this soup is very cauliflower heavy and also features a lot of pepper, some nutmeg, as well as some much needed garlic, which helps a great deal.

Cheesiness

I think you can detect some cheese in here, but it definitely takes a backseat. It’s as if Clive (Clive works at the soup factory) forgot to add the cheese until very late in the process and just lobbed a Babybel in at the last second.

Cauliflower-cheesiness

If I were to close my eyes and picture eating cauliflower cheese, it does sort of capture that taste despite the different texture. I think you’d be annoyed that Clive (Clive is your husband in this scenario) didn’t grate enough cheddar on it before putting it in the oven and that it’s a bit watery.

Pepperiness

The quantity of pepper already in this soup is quite high, which I really like. I tend to put black pepper in soup almost automatically (for review purposes, I always try without first), so was pleasantly surprised to taste plenty already on board. This may be divisive to some who could be at risk of finding this soup bitter. My peers on the Sainsbury’s dot com website reviewing the soup have sadly fallen foul of this. They may be in fact tasting more of the nutmeg that Sainsbury’s touts as being a feature of the soup as this can be a little bitter. My heart goes out to them.

Christmas-ness?

Something that did puzzle me, was the need to theme the tin in a Christmas style. Presumably this is a limited edition soup that will expire as soon as the clock strikes midnight on the 25th. Personally (and professionally), I consider cauliflower cheese to be an all year round affair and the feature of many a Sunday roast or weekday not-roast.

Conclusion

I think this is pretty good, if not an exact replica of cauliflower cheese. The bitterness-level may divide opinion (we don’t shy away from controversy at TSR – editor), but I will be sad to see this leave the shelves when Christmas has been and gone.

/ 5