Gwynedd Stuart
Soup season is rapidly approaching—and Progresso is ready. In fact, these new Progresso Pitmaster soups seem kinda perfect for late summer. Some piping-hot slop infused with the flavor of BBQ meat and fire roasted veggies? Sounds pretty good. But, of course, we’re dealing with canned soup here, so it’s important to temper your expectations. My expectations were fairly low and I gotta say, I was still left cold. Here are the five new Progresso Pitmaster soups, ranked from worst to best.
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- Progresso Pitmaster Hearty Smokehouse-Style Steak & Potatoes with Roasted Vegetables
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Pros: Okay, let’s get the worst of them out of the way first. I have pret-ty strong aversion to the hunks of “steak” in Progresso canned soups, and this new Pitmaster soup confirmed my biases. They’re tough and downright terrifying to look at. I’m positive I’ve had decent beef in other canned beef stews; the kind that’s loose and shreddy rather than solid. Progresso should look into that. The pro? If you’re accustomed to eating other Progresso beef soups, you’ll be totally fine with the meat. Also, the soup has a little kick of heat—perhaps from the dried chipotle peppers in the mix?—and that’s nice.
Cons: Between the texture of the beef and the sweet-smoky flavor of the base, the Progresso Pitmaster soup reminded me of liquified teriyaki beef jerky. If I ate this again, it would most certainly be against my will.
- Progresso Pitmaster Steakhouse-Style Steak & Bean
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Pros: If you like baked beans, you’ll probably like this soup. It mostly tastes like baked beans with a looser sauce. They went with cannellini beans, which is nice because they tend to be sturdier and more substantial than the smaller white beans in many bean soups (I’m thinking specifically about Campbell’s Bean & Bacon, which is also a bit like glorified baked beans). I do like the addition of fire roasted corn in all of these soups, but it doesn’t make much of an impression here.
Cons: Again, the meat is no good. There are pepper skins galore—all of these soups are teeming with red pepper skins, but this one has green pepper skins to boot.
- Progresso Pitmaster BBQ Style Grilled Chicken and Fire Roasted Corn
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Pros: This Progresso Pitmaster soup combines chunks of chicken, roasted corn (you can see the char marks), kidney beans, and, of course, LOTS of pepper skins in a reddish brown broth that tastes a bit like gumbo. I really do like the corn, and the broth actually tastes pretty good. It’s peppery, salty, a little bit thick, and just a touch sweet, which is what sets it apart from the Smokehouse Style Grilled chicken soup—it’s almost like there’s a teaspoon of BBQ sauce in the mix.
Cons: To drive home the BBQ theme, the cubes of chicken in this soup have grill marks on them, but they feel like a lie. It tastes like the chicken in any other Progresso soup. Same texture, too: dry. I’m sorry to all the diehard Progresso fans out there, but the meat in Progresso soups is not good.
- Progresso Pitmaster Smokehouse Style Grilled Chicken & Potato with Roasted Vegetables
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Pros: This Progresso Pitmaster soup is totally pleasant. It’s kind of like a loose chicken-corn chowder. The broth is a tad creamy, a little smoky, and it’s definitely less salty than the BBQ style soup. The potato chunks are plentiful filling (plus, they’re creamy rather than grainy), and the carrots are mushy, in that comforting canned-soup way.
Cons: Again, despite the grill marks, the chicken is the same ole Progresso chicken that tastes like it came from a can. Also, I’d call the overall flavor of this “murky” but it’s really not terrible.
- Progresso Pitmaster Sausage & Beer Cheese with Potato Soup
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Pros: This is a dark-sided-ass soup. It’s a creamy cheese base with little chunks of spicy sausage, cubed potatoes, and loads of red pepper skins—but I kind of liked it? Have you ever dreamed of having permission to eat Chili’s Queso con Carne with a spoon? Well, that’s kind of what this is (but, like, way less good). I genuinely appreciate that there IS beer listed in the ingredients and you CAN taste it. It’s a nice touch. I truly feel like I need to enlist in witness protection for admitting this, but I ate almost the whole can.
Cons: Well, I ate almost the whole can except for the sausage chunks. Oy. They’re somehow mushy and rubbery at the same time. And they don’t taste like meat, per se. The seasonings that come through most prominently are chili powder and paprika, so, flavor-wise, it has chorizo vibes if you can get past the texture.
New Soup!
New Soup!
New Soup!
New Soup!
Justine Sterling
Vinz Karl
