Lately I've been trying a whole bunch of different soup mixes. I like making soups from packets. They provide a nice change from canned soups, but aren't as much work as making soup from scratch.

Alessi makes a soup they call Sicilian Chicken Noodle Soup. If you read their packaging, you would be led to believe that this is an Italian-style chicken soup. But with its very basic pasta and vegetables, I don't really see anything Italian about it.

So what's inside the envelope? 6 oz. of chicken soup mix, including chicken-flavored powder, flat noodles that are curled and twisted, lots of peas, tiny pieces of dried celery, and dried carrots.

How do you turn that into soup? Stir it into 68 oz. (8.5 cups) of boiling water. Reduce heat and cook for 12-15 minutes. That's it!

What you end up with is a chicken noodle soup, broad noodles, and a few veggies. The celery pieces are really small, which is fine for me since I'm not a huge fan of celery. The carrots are medium-sized and have a nice flavor. There are a lot of peas, which I like. The overall chicken flavor is nice, but I wouldn't confuse it with home-made.

The worst part is that there aren't nearly enough solids for the amount of liquid. I don't like soups where, after you eat all the "good stuff" you're left with a giant bowl of broth. The only way this soup works for me, is if I add my own chicken, and some additional rice or pasta.

Made on its own, you get 8 1-cup servings. Each serving contains 70 calories, 0g of fat, and 750mg of sodium. Obviously this is a nice, lo-cal soup, but the sodium is quite high.

There are other soup packets that contain a lot more of the "good stuff", and have a better flavor, one that comes closer to home-made. I'll pass on this product in the future.



Alessi Lentil Soup

Alessi Pasta Fazool Soup

Alessi Raviolini Chicken Soup


Recommended: No