The best chicken noodle soup tastes like your grandma slow-cooked it in a crockpot for 12 hours, poured in generations of love and secret magical ingredients, and served it to you during the worst flu of your life. Luckily, we found all of that comfort (and more) packed into jars, tubs, and of course, cans. If you don’t have time to babysit a simmering pot of broth all day, we can help you decide what to pop in the microwave instead.
In three separate taste tests, we looked for chicken noodle soup with a savory, spiced broth packed with enough flavor to sip by the spoonful; moist chicken that isn’t dry to the bite; and evenly cooked veggies and noodles that don’t disintegrate into the soup. Plus, to be in the right headspace for our most recent chicken noodle soup taste test, I contracted an illness. That’s right. I had the grace and good fortune to be actually sick with a cold while tasting some of these soups. To be clear, I did not get sick on purpose, but sometimes life has a way of working out that way. Thanks, life. So, believe me when I tell you that I found the best chicken noodle soup for when you’re sick. Here’s our definitive ranking of the best canned chicken noodle soup and the best chicken noodle soup in a jar. These soups might not be homemade like grandma’s, but surprisingly, a few come pretty darn close. –Ariana Losch
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- Campbell’s Condensed Chicken Noodle Soup
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Campbell’s condensed chicken noodle soup remains a classic for good reason. It’s cheap, nostalgic, and salty enough to kill a grown man (in a good way). Obviously, given this is a condensed soup, it’s far from gourmet grocery store chicken noodle soup, but it is still some of the best canned chicken noodle soup we tried. Campbell’s noodles are thin, the chicken is cubed, and there’s not much going on otherwise. But it still tastes good. Not everything has to be fancy to taste good. Sometimes, you just need sodium. —Ariana Losch
Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart
- Campbell’s Chicken and Stars Soup
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When my go-to sushi restaurant betrayed me and I had to recover from some pretty gnarly food poisoning, the only thing I wanted to eat was pastina in chicken broth. Which I made myself. From scratch. Because I didn’t know this existed, and that’s really sad for me. This is the perfect, sickie-approved soup to have when literally everything else grosses you out. It has a thin, salty broth (gotta get those electrolytes somewhere) and firm, slightly chewy pastina that solves a problem most chicken noodle soups have: mushy noodles. The chicken pieces in this are quite small and few and far between—a huge plus in my book. Is there anything particularly appetizing about mechanically separated chicken? No. If the chicken in even the best canned chicken noodle soup has no haters, I’m dead. —Ariana Losch
Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart
- Kirkland Signature Rotisserie Chicken Noodle Soup
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When this Kirkland Rotisserie Chicken Noodle Soup arrived in a giant tub at our office with a fairly imminent expiration date (the biggest downside of store-bought chicken noodle soup not from a can), I knew I was taking this big boy home with me. Luckily, it tastes pretty darn good, so I was happy to lend it some precious fridge space. On first glance, you’ll notice huge hunks of thick-cut veggies and chicken pieces half the size of my fist. Personally, I prefer shredded chicken (more on that later), because large chicken chunks often taste a little dry. So why did this Costco chicken noodle soup make it on our list of the best chicken noodle soup, you ask? The real MVP of Costco’s chicken noodle soup is the choice of noodle. They’re flat-cut and gloriously thick, cooked to the tooth, and taste like handmade egg noodles. Kirkland would be higher on the list, but the broth is one note and that note is pepper. So much pepper (and not much else), the flavor was polarizing across the board. —Ariana Losch
Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart
- Signature Cafe Soup, Chicken Noodle
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Two words: shredded chicken. I’m going to get on my soapbox for a second, okay? The worst part about store-bought chicken noodle soup, nine times out of ten, is the chicken. When cubed or sliced in thick chunks, it’s bound to be dry and, frankly, unpleasant to bite into. Signature Cafe (an Alberton’s brand) succeeds where so many others failed: They included moist, shredded chicken. While the rest of the ingredients are pretty standard, the broth is hearty, well-seasoned, and thick. If you tend to eat around the chicken in chicken noodle soup, give this one a try. In terms of store brands, it’s the best grocery store chicken noodle soup we tried, thanks to that good, shredded chicken. —Ariana Losch
Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart
- Chef’s Cupboard Chunky Chicken Noodle Soup
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This is an Aldi product, and it was a big hit with all of our tasters. Chef’s Cupboard has a unique quality that makes it stand out among all the soups on this list: It’s the fattiest of the soups we tried. There’s a thin layer of oil on the top, and my colleague Jordan Myrick astutely pointed out that the chicken tastes like dark meat. That means this soup is savory and rich. It’s also well salted, with a strong chicken flavor. The noodles are toothsome, as well. This one is up there with some of the best canned chicken noodle soup brands and it’s budget friendly. It’d be a crime to sleep on it. —Danny Palumbo
Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart
- Pacific Foods Chicken Noodle Soup
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We usually have nothing but praise for Pacific Foods soups (their tomato soup is our #1 for a reason). While many canned soups are too salty, greasy, or just plain boring—often packed with mushy, overcooked ingredients—this one sidesteps all the common pitfalls to deliver a soup that tastes like it was freshly prepared. The veggies are nicely cooked, the chicken pieces are perfectly edible (high praise, coming from me), and the broth has a simplicity to it that almost tastes “clean.” Best of all, the egg noodles are somehow thin, springy, and a little al dente. And in a plot twist I’m way too excited about… this soup has peas! Peas, you guys! They add great flavor, to the point where I’m almost convinced the best chicken noodle soups now must contain peas. —Ariana Losch
Credit: Liv Averett / Walmart
- Gardein Plant-Based Chick’n Noodl’
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We all agreed this vegan chicken noodle soup should rank high even though it has no actual chicken in it. Why? Because it tastes like chicken, and that’s kind of amazing. This vegan chicken noodle soup is more flavorful than so many others, and it does so without any meat products. That’s crazy! It’s got MSG listed in the ingredients, so that does the heavy lifting as far as umami goes, and the rest of it is well seasoned and quite nuanced. You get the hearty, comforting vibes of a classic chicken noodle soup despite it being vegetarian. It’s definitely the best vegan chicken noodle soup you can buy. —Danny Palumbo
Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart
- Panera Bread Chicken Noodle Soup
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Allow me to set the scene: My nose is running. My throat feels like sandpaper, and I’m cold. So cold, that no blanket burrito can truly warm me. But Panera Bread’s Chicken Noodle Soup? It was like grandma smiled down from the heavens (RIP, grams). When I sipped my first spoonful, I thought to myself, “Wow, this tastes better than a plate of french fries.” Panera’s Chicken Noodle Soup is top tier. The carrots and celery are thickly cut and evenly distributed. The chicken is moist and shredded in thin slices—it flows seamlessly with the broth, like the broth and the chicken are one, in harmony, in unison, in sync. The only problem with this soup is that Panera’s chicken noodle does not come in a can and it needs to be kept in the fridge. But it’s worth it if you have the space. It’s easily some of the best store bought chicken noodle soup I’ve ever had. –Ariana Losch
Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart
- Rao’s Chicken Noodle Soup
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This is basically homemade chicken noodle soup in a jar. (That’s right—a jar!) The noodles seem homemade—eggy, substantial, and delightfully chewy. And the herbaceousness is on par with what you’d expect from a homemade soup. It’s beautifully aromatic. And what do we say here at Sporked? If it has an appropriate amount of salt and pepper, chances are it tastes great and ranks high. Rao’s nails the seasoning and flavor, and the quality ingredients are all top notch. It’s like your grandma made it and put it in one of her jars. This is the best chicken noodle soup you can buy and it’s well-worth the extra cash. —Danny Palumbo
Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart
Best Condensed
Best Pastina
Best Noodles
Best Grocery Store Brand
Best Rich and Fatty
Best Canned
Best Vegan
Runner-Up
Best of the Best
Other chicken noodle soups we tried: Campbell’s Chunky Chicken Noodle, Annie’s Organic, Healthy Choice, Wolfgang Puck, Pacific Foods, Whole Foods 365, Great Value, Kettle & Fire, Progresso Hearty Chicken and Rotini, Home Chef Heat and Eat Classic Chicken Noodle Soup, Zoup Fresh Soup Company Soup, Chicken Noodle, Chix Soup Co Hangover Spicy Chicken Noodle Soup, Sprouts Homestyle Chicken Noodle Soup, Marketside Chicken Noodle Soup, Campbell’s Slow Kettle Style Roasted Chicken Noodle Soup, Old El Paso Jalapeno Chicken Noodle Soup, Amy’s No Chicken Noodle Soup, Amazon Fresh Chicken Noodle, Amazon Fresh Chicken Noodle Condensed Soup, Love & Ladle White Meat Chicken Noodle Soup With Bone Broth, Health Valley Organic Low Sodium Chicken Noodle Soup, Kroger Chicken Noodle Soup, Simple Truth Organic Chicken Noodle Soup
