I am always on the hunt for easy-to-prepare soups.  Especially if they are thick, flavorful, delicious, and don't kill my diet.

So I decided to try Uncle Ben's Broccoli Cheese & Rice Soup.  I have to say that the picture on the package looks wonderful.  It shows a very cheesy, creamy soup, with lots of pieces of broccoli and rice.  It really looks like a treat!

But first, the basics: The preferred method of preparation is stove-top, although microwave directions are always provided.  I like the convenience of microwave directions, but not if it means giving something up in terms of flavor or texture.  So if a product's package goes out of its way to tell me that they have a preferred method, that's the one I'm going to use. 

You can also choose to make the soup creamier by substituting milk for some of the water.  I chose to do that, figuring I wanted the soup to be as thick and creamy as the one in the picture.

So, I used 1 ¾ cups of water, and 1 cup of milk, and I even added the optional tablespoon of margarine.  Then it was just a matter of combining ingredients, stirring, and simmering.  It was quite simple, and the whole thing was finished in 15 minutes.

So, how does the actual product compare to the picture? 

Pretty close, I have to say!  The color was right, as was the amount of broccoli pieces.  Even the size of the broccoli pieces matched the picture pretty closely.  The only place where the picture differed from reality was in the rice pieces.  The picture shows lots of plump rice pieces where as in reality, the rice pieces are really small, and tend to sink so they're really not visible at all unless you give the soup a good stir first.

But how did it taste?

I have to say the taste was quite nice.  Made with the milk and the margarine, the broth really was thick, creamy, and cheesy.  The broccoli was plentiful, and the pieces were big enough that you could definitely taste them.  If I have a complaint it's with the amount of rice.  I felt there should have been more.  I like soup to be so full of rice that you're sure to get some in every spoonful, and that simply wasn't the case.  The rice tasted fine, but there just wasn't enough of it.  Still, I enjoye this soup very much.

What type of cheese is in there?  The ingredients list dried cheddar, parmesan, romano, and blue.  I'm not enough of a cheese connoisseur to differentiate all those different types, but I will say that the cheese in the soup is tasty. 

The package makes 2.5 servings, each of which contains 160 calories, 3g of fat, and 1g of fiber.  Not too bad.  Of course, most prepackaged soup products have one thing in common - tons of sodium, and this one is no exception.  Each serving contains 970 mg.  So, limit yourself to one serving, or you'll end up consuming your entire day's worth of sodium!

This really is a tasty soup, one that I would consider an occasional treat.  Thick, creamy, and cheesy, it definitely satisfies on a cold day, or when you just want something really comforting.  See unclebens.com for more info about this product, as well as recipes and coupons.

Recommended: Yes