Campbell’s Chunky Old Fashioned Vegetable Beef Soup Review

While canned soups are not my favorites for the freshest and most nutritious meal courses, this Campbell’s Chunky Old Fashioned Vegetable Beef Soup   is an excellent stand-in for homemade soups during those times when you don’t have the time to prepare homemade beef and vegetable soup (for me, this is practically all of the time).  The cost is approximately $2 per can, and this product contains way more vegetables than broth. There’s lots of beef as well, making this soup a hearty, satisfying rendition.

This soup is very much like the Campbell’s Savory Vegetable Soup, reviewed here.  It has lots of carrots, potatoes, peas, and green beans.  However, this beef vegetable soup has lower sodium (410 milligrams per serving Vs. 770 milligrams in the savory vegetable), more protein due to the beef (7 grams Vs. 3 grams), and it contains no high fructose corn syrup.  Nice.  The seasoned beef herein reminds me of the beef cubes I fry up for my homemade vegetable beef soup.  While the beef cubes here aren’t as big as my own, and there’s very few of them in this product, what there is tastes splendid.  It’s well-cooked, not tough, and mildly spicy.  I really like this convenient soup from Campbell’s.

 

Advantages, Benefits, Pros, and Features

  • I like the beef.  This soup has beef!
  • It’s convenient.  You just heat and serve.
  • The pull-top lid facilitates easy opening, without a can opener. The printed instructions on the lid for opening are easy to read and understand.
  • The Campbell’s brand is so well established that you can usually find at least some of the Chunky Soup line at any grocery store, large or small. This is one of the most popular flavors, that is carried by most the biggest number of stores.
  • Plenty of potatoes and peas here to satisfy bigger appetites.
  • This is a filling soup.  The inclusion of beef makes this soup a more complete meal if you eat it by itself.
  • You need no additional water to reconstitute this soup.  Indeed, this is not a condensed soup product.  Aside from heating it, the can contents are ready to eat; a signature feature of the entire Campbell’s Chunky Soup line.
  • You get a wide variety of vegetables and spices in this soup, which enhances not only its flavor, but its nutritional qualities too.  Plus, the beef makes this soup even more of the hearty lunch or snack.  The label says that it “eats like a meal,” and “fills you up right.”  I strongly agree.  After eating a can, I’m fully satisfied for several hours.
  • The steel can is recyclable.
  • I’ve kept this canned soup for two years in a cool place in my pantry or basement, and it still tastes and looks fine.
  • The soup is low-fat, in spite of the beef, which not only reduces the calorie content, but makes bowl and pan cleanup easier.
  • It has over eight vegetables and spices, for a plethora of pleasantly complimentary flavors.
  • The label says that this product is made with lean meat, and that this product meats that standards of the American Heart Association for saturated fat and cholesterol, for people over the age of two.

 

Disadvantages, Concerns, Problems, and Cons

  • Though this is definitely a beef vegetable soup, Campbell’s skimped on the beef in my estimation.  In each serving, I found only six to eight small beef cubes.  The cubes ranged in size from your pinky finger nail to your thumb nail.  I make my soup with roughly four times that much beef.  But I admit that my soup is probably not nearly as healthy as this Campbell’s one.
  • Medium-high sodium soup at 410 milligrams per serving.
  • As this product is canned, the vegetables and beef inside are pre cooked.  This mitigates the fresh vegetables taste significantly.  Most of the bright colors of the vegetables as well as their signature crunches disappear.  The carrots and potatoes retain their color well here however.
  • Once opened, the lid as well as the can have sharp edges.  You can easily cut yourself on them if you’re not extremely careful.  Eliminate those sharp edges please.
  • I would not heat this soup in the can it comes in, as this might expose you to dangerous chemicals that may be present in the can’s inner liner.
  • This product is not be suitable for vegetarian or vegan diets, as it contains beef, beef flavorints, and beef fat ingredients.

 

Preparation Instructions

Do not add water.

Stove Directions

  1. Open the can and dump contents into a medium sauce pan.
  2. Place pan on stove.
  3. Heat over medium to medium-high heat until the soup just starts to boiling.  However, to prevent messes, do not bring to a full, rolling boil.
  4. Stir occasionally (once every minute or two) while heating.
  5. Once the soup is hot, remove from heat.
  6. Let stand for a minute or two, to assure that the beef heats up fully, inside as well as out.
  7. Latle into soup bowls and enjoy.

Microwave Oven Directions

  1. Put contents of the soup can into a medium-sized microwave-safe bowl or two single-serving microwave-safe bowls.
  2. Heat with the high power (100%) setting for 2 and 1/2 to 3 minutes.   Times vary depending on the microwave oven being used.  Experiment with yours to determine  ideal heating times.
  3. Once heating is complete, let stand in the microwave oven for a minute or two, to allow any boiling to stop and the heat to evenly distribute itself throughout the soup.
  4. Remove the bowl(s) from microwave oven.  Take care, as they’ll be quite hot.
  5. Stir the soup several times.
  6. Then, serve and enjoy.

 

Ingredients

Water, carrots, potatoes, seasoned beef (beef, water, salt, potassium chloride, potassium phosphate), celery, tomato puree (water, tomato paste), diced tomatoes in tomato juice, corn, green beans, peas.  Contains less than 2% of the following: modified food starch, flavoring, potassium chloride, beef flavor (contains beef stock), yeast extract, vegetable oil, beef stock, salt, beef, gelatin, maltodextrin, fermented whey (milk), beef fat, onions, lower sodium natural sea salt, caramel color, spice, sugar, flavoring (from vegetable oil), sodium phosphate, citric acid.

 

Nutrition Facts

  • Serving size: 1 cup (240 millilitres).  Servings per container: about 2.
  • Calories: 120.  Calories from fat: 20.
  • Total fat: 2 grams, 3% DV.
  • Saturated fat: 1 gram, 5% DV.
  • Trans fat: 0 grams.
  • Polyunsaturated fat: 0 grams.
  • Monounsaturated fat: 0.5 grams.
  • Cholesterol: 10 milligrams, 3% DV.
  • Sodium: 410 milligrams, 17% DV.
  • Potassium: 1100 milligrams, 31% DV.
  • Total carbohydrate: 19 grams, 6% DV.
  • Dietary fiber: 3 grams, 12%.
  • Sugars: 5 grams.
  • Protein: 7 grams, 11% DV.
  • Vitamin A: 25% DV.
  • Calcium: 4% DV.
  • Vitamin C: 2% DV.
  • Iron: 6% DV.

 

Product Rating

Though I do not believe that any fresh vegetable taste exists in this product, and the sodium content though lower, is still a bit high in my view, I still like how quick and simple this vegetable beef soup is to heat up, as well as its cheap price. I prefer beefy vegetable soups to those that have no meat.  So I’d rate this chunky soup at 92 out of 100.

 

Where To Buy Campbell’s Chunky Old Fashioned Vegetable Beef Soup

Look for this soup in the red can with the white lettering, pull-top lid, and a picture of a bowl of this product on the front at your favorite little or large grocery store.

 

References

 

Revision History

  • : Adjusted category and tag assignments, fixed typos, and added white space.
  • 2012-07-09: Originally published.