Pumpkin soup is more than a meal – it’s an edible sweater, a hug in a bowl, the culinary equivalent of kicking a pile of crisp leaves.
While it’s an easy thing to make at home, there are plenty of ready-to-go pumpkin soups available in supermarket aisles and fridges for those without the time or inclination to simmer pumpkin and stock themselves.
To figure out which heat-and-eat soup is best, I called on chef David ‘Stix’ Allison, co-owner of Sydney restaurant 20 Chapel and owner-operator of Hawkesbury’s Stix Farm, in New South Wales, supplier of meat and veggies (pumpkins included) to plenty of Sydney eateries.
We gathered 11 tinned, pouched and plastic-tubbed pumpkin soups from the major supermarkets, heated them according to their packet directions, then assessed them on flavour, consistency and texture.
Through our tasting, we learned that the packaging method – be it pouch, plastic tub or can – didn’t seem to make a lot of difference to the overall quality of the soup inside. We also discovered that soups that included flavours in addition to pumpkin, like curry paste and coconut milk, had a better chance of making us reach for another spoonful.
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But most importantly we learned that our assumption that there was no such thing as a bad pumpkin soup was very, very wrong.
Dari’s Classic Pumpkin Soup: 550g, $6.80 ($1.24 per 100g), available from Woolworths and Coles
Score: 7.5/10
The vibrant orange hue and aroma of veggies were the first things we noticed about this refrigerated entry. “It’s got a very natural flavour,” my fellow taster said. We were both relieved to taste a pumpkin soup that actually tastes like ripe pumpkins – a surprising rarity across a lot of the soups we tried – though the texture is thinner than we’d expect for what is traditionally a thick and velvety soup. “Still, I reckon you could throw some roasted pumpkin in this one and pretend you made it,” he said as we finished our bowls.
Soup Co. Spicy Pumpkin Soup: 430g for $2.99 ($0.70 per 100g), available from Aldi
Score: 6.5/10
This one smelled and tasted less like pumpkin soup and more like a very wet bowl of Thai red curry, not surprising for a pumpkin soup that contains only 33% pumpkin. Still, as my co-tester said, “while it isn’t particularly pumpkin-y, it’s very tasty”. There are vibrant hints of ginger and coriander, plus a surprisingly punchy chilli hit that fulfils the “spicy” promise on the label. Lack of the headlining vegetable aside, this was a pleasure to eat, and something we’d happily keep in our desk drawers for an invigorating, affordable office lunch.
Hart & Soul Creamy Coconut & Pumpkin Soup: 400g, $4.50 ($1.13 per 100g), available from Woolworths and Coles
Score: 7/10
The rich earthiness of pumpkin and creaminess of coconut milk are always a solid pairing, and they come together nicely in this soup that we found both comforting and refreshing. The texture is smooth, broken only by little pieces of onion and coriander that add depth without being overpowering. “This is one of the most edible ones,” Allison said, weary from trying some of the less agreeable soups further down the list, “and it actually tastes a bit like pumpkin”.
Woolworths Creamy Pumpkin Soup: 300g, $4 ($1.33 per 100g), available from Woolworths
Score: 6.5/10
“Don’t judge a soup by its colour” is the lesson of this entry. This supermarket-branded soup looked alarmingly grey-green, but the flavour, while quite muted, is less artificial than others, warmly spiced with hints of turmeric, cumin and nutmeg all adding a gentle, earthy kick. The texture is slightly rougher and more vegetal than the rest of the bunch, “but in a way that makes it actually feel like there’s some pumpkin in here,” my tasting guest said. Sure, it looks like it escaped from a lab – or a nappy – but it’s creamy, mildly pumpkin-ish and warming, and sometimes that’s all you need.
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Australian OrganicFoodCo. Roast Pumpkin & Sweet Potato Soup: 330g, $4.50 ($1.36 per 100g), available from Woolworths
Score: 6.5/10
This organic entry has an old-school, honest feel to it: no spices, no coconut, not a whole lot of taste at all, just a slightly textural blend of pumpkin and sweet potato. The colour is once again worryingly grey, and a little hit of salt wouldn’t go astray, but its simplicity makes it feel strangely nostalgic, like soup your grandmother might make – if she wasn’t much of a cook.
Coles Kitchen Butternut Pumpkin Soup: 300g, $4 ($1.33 per 100g), available from Coles
Score: 6/10
This pale supermarket-brand soup is thick enough to hold our spoons upright in the bowl. The flavour is fine – pleasantly creamy, with subtle pumpkin notes and no weird aftertaste, but as my tasting buddy said: “there’s no vibrancy”. As soup, it’s fine. As wall filler, it might survive an earthquake.
Heinz Classic Creamy Pumpkin Soup: 535g, $4.40 ($0.82 per 100g), available from Woolworths and Coles
Score: 5.5/10
Pumpkin, stock and spices. That’s all you need to make a good pumpkin soup. Which is what makes it so mystifying that there’s so little pumpkin flavour to this particular soup, especially when the label says the mix contains a generous 62% of the vegetable. Though it manages to nail a Goldilocks consistency – not too thick, not too thin – as well as an appealing colour, my taster said “it tastes like they’ve thrown unripe pumpkins in a pressure cooker”. A beige interpretation of an orange classic – It fills a bowl, but not your soul.
Coles Creamy Pumpkin Soup: 500g, $2 ($0.40 per 100g), available from Coles
Score: 5/10
This soup looks the part – warm orange in colour, smooth as a lullaby – but the flavour plays a different tune. There’s a pronounced bitterness where you’d expect mellow sweetness, as if the pumpkins were picked mid-existential crisis. Unlike the other Coles own-brand entry, the texture in this tinned soup is spot-on, which just makes the taste more disappointing. Not the worst of the day, but as David said, “it’s definitely not going to win people over to tinned”.
La Zuppa Roasted Pumpkin Soup: 400g, $4.70 ($1.18 per 100g), available from Woolworths and Coles
Score: 4.5/10
At last, a soup that actually tastes like the pumpkins were roasted, though maybe a little too enthusiastically. The caramelised vegetable flavour is welcome, but ends up bulldozing the natural sweetness of the pumpkin. Despite the label’s proud 38% pumpkin claim (50% veg overall), this tastes to us like charred carrot soup in pumpkin cosplay. The texture’s fine, the scent is promising, but it feels a bit like burning the toast and pretending you did it on purpose.
Heinz Soup of the Day Buttercup Pumpkin and Vegetable Soup: 430g, $4.50 ($1.05 per 100g), available from Woolworths and Coles
Score: 2.5/10
It’s a cruel trick: this soup looks like the golden standard, with a glowing yellow-orange hue and comfortingly silky mouthfeel. And then … the taste. The only hint of pumpkin here is the photo on the label, and we both noticed a lingering [cigarette?] aftertaste, with my co-taster said he didn’t know “how anyone could taste this and think it’s good.” A masterclass in how something that looks lovely and straightforward can turn to ash in your mouth.
Campbell’s Country Ladle Butternut Pumpkin Soup: 505g, $4.50 ($0.89 per 100g), available from Woolworths and Coles
Score: 1.5/10
Imagine the runoff from a failed beef stew, strained through a sieve of disappointment, and you’re getting close to how we felt about this. We found the texture thin, yet somehow clingy, like diluted Clag glue. “I don’t even know how you would go about making something that tasted like this, let alone why,” my fellow tester said. We managed a single spoonful before the rest of our bowls met their fate in the sink.