Hot soup.  Yum.  I love a bowl of hot soup, especially if it's packed with delicious ingredients.  But I don't love canned soups, and I don't always have the time to make soups from scratch.  I find the Alessi brand of packaged soups are a pretty decent compromise.

Their Pasta Fazool soup is one of my favorites.  Loaded with beans, pasta, and veggies, it makes a delicious soup.  Or, add some meat and you could easily call it a meal.  

Making this soup is simple.  Add envelope contents to 4.5 cups of water, bring to boil, then simmer for 12 minutes.  When it's finished, you can add some olive oil and grated cheese to the soup, if you want to enhance it just a bit.  I don't bother - this soup tastes just fine the way it is.

There are plenty of beans (navy, pinto, and red) as well as a generous amount of small, round pasta.  Both the beans and pasta are a perfect texture and taste great.

The veggies are quite varied, according to the ingredients (potato, tomato, onion, zucchini, carrots, celery, peas and broccoli).  But they are such tiny little pieces that really only the peas and carrots are identifiable.  Everything else is just sort of "something veggie-like in there".  I appreciate the variety of veggies that they add, but I wish the pieces were bigger.  The ingredients also say there's dehydrated chicken pieces in the soup, but to be honest I don't see any chicken in there. 

The flavor of the broth is quite nice (no extra seasoning needed).  It tastes a bit like tomatoes, and a bit like chicken. 

The package makes 4 servings, each of which contains 140 calories, .5g of fat, and 6g of fiber.  All of that sounds pretty good, doesn't it!  But, like all packaged foods that I like, the sodium is higher than I would prefer.  680 mg per serving.  So, if you eat the entire package as a meal, that's pretty much your sodium for the day.

Disregarding the sodium for a moment, this is a delicious soup that's reasonable in calories, very low in fat, and high in fiber.  When you add your own meat to it, it can make a delicious meal.  But, of course, the sodium is always going to be a factor.  So, for me, this is an occasional treat, not something I can eat every day.


Alessi Lentil Soup

Alessi Raviolini Chicken Soup

Alessi Sicillian Chicken Noodle Soup

Recommended: Yes