Buttermilk, onion, sugar, and vegetable oil: These are just some of the ingredients in both Campbell’s Homestyle New England Clam Chowder and Hidden Valley’s Original Ranch. And yet, while the contents of both products are eerily similar, it is only socially acceptable to ladle the clam chowder into a bowl and eat it by the spoonful. If I do the same with the ranch dressing, I am seen as some kind of senseless, no-taste monster. I believe that we should be eating sauce like soup.
I’m here to ask, “Why?” Why can’t sauces, spreads, and dips also be soup? What makes clam chowder more of a soup than ranch dressing? I know good and well that clams alone do not a soup make. So, I turned to Google to find out what makes soup soup. The Cambridge Dictionary describes it as “a usually hot, liquid food made from vegetables, meat, or fish.” Find me a sauce that doesn’t fit that description, and I will apologize for writing this article. I’ll even let you ice me with a room temp can of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom.
There is no inherent benefit in eating soup over sauce. Progresso’s Loaded Baked Potato with Bacon is higher in fat, calories, and cholesterol than French’s Classic Yellow Mustard. Amy’s Organic Chunky Tomato Bisque is essentially Rao’s Marinara Sauce with different branding. And I can tell you from experience that dipping a big piece of crusty bread into a hot mug of Tostitos Salsa Con Queso is just as delicious as Panera’s pre-packaged Broccoli Cheddar. Be honest with yourself: Are you sure you don’t want to eat sauce like soup or are you just bound by the laws of polite society, which dictate that one should not eat a bowl full of sauce?
If you are ready to put down your walls and dip into eating sauce like soup, here are my top recommendations.
Sauces You Should Be Eating Like Soup:
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Microwave Bertolli Vodka Sauce for a tasty and effortless cheesy tomato bisque. Dunk in some toasty garlic bread or top it with a few of the viral TikTok pasta chips. Perfection!
- Trader Joe’s Buffalo Chicken Dip
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Cold or hot, the Trader Joe’s Buffalo Chicken Dip is best eaten by the spoonful. It’s creamy, lightly spicy, and hearty. Dice up a little celery and/or carrot to sprinkle on top. This is a soup.
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This is the Mexican-inspired gazpacho of your dreams. Grab a spoon and you have lunch on a hot summer day.
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More than anything else, this is a sauce we should be eating like soup. Pour yourself a big, hot bowl of this Coconut Korma Simmer Sauce and enjoy with warm naan or kulcha for dipping (preferably Haldiram’s from the frozen section).
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Every single time I have a side salad at a Japanese restaurant covered in fresh, tangy carrot ginger dressing, I think, “Wow. I could drink this.” So I did! An oversized mugful of this carrot ginger dressing with a scoop of hot rice is, in fact, very good.
Listen, I’m not saying I am going to invite you over for a bowl of Frank’s RedHot Wing Sauce, or even that sauces, dips, and spreads are better soup than soup itself. I am, however, saying that I should be able to pour myself a full, meal-sized serving of sauce without judgment, and so should you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a crockpot of Sweet Baby Ray’s Chicken Sauce that needs tending.
Read Sporked’s ranking of the Best Canned Soups
hey i was wondering if this was reliable? can i eat sorce like sop
no irts okay hey fadvid
yes
You can literally make soup with ketchup, it has all the good flavors for a sweet tangy soup.
Just boil ketchup with sliced cabbage and spam and you have a quick and easy cheap but filling soup.
Wait, this sounds incredible and I will do this. Thank you!
PLEASEE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE ELAAASE PLEAASE PEALASEEE
Ketchup is a great base for Chinese tomato egg – cook chopped up tomato and minced garlic on low until they start to look like sauce, squirt some ketchup and oyster sauce in there and give it another minute, then add a little stock and some chopped up scrambled egg 😀 you can THICKEN with cornstarch slurr and top with chopped cilantro or green onion
I have been saying this for years! Never be ashamed of drinking the remaining dips at the bottom of the container!
ok, what about a cold fruit soup? wouldn’t that not fit the definition. Also, it’s not a smoothie and I will not elaborate.
I work at Chick-Fil-A, please remove this article as I don’t need another reason to be giving people 40 CFA sauces for an 8 piece nugget.
Don’t worry, I do not encourage anyone to go to Chik-Fil-A.
It’s called sodium. Packaged sauces usually have high amounts of sodium, even more than industrial soups (which are salt bombs themselves).
Hollandaise/Bernaise, Cognac, Thai Peanut…should I go on?
Yes. This. My favorite foods are just vehicles for sauce and dips!
seek help u maniac
ys 😊
Where do you find that carrot ginger salad dressing? It’s one of my favorite things at a Japanese restaurant, but all I can find at the grocery stores I frequent is sesame ginger.
Wow this is amazing and you’re amazing!
So long, polite society! Pass me a spoon.
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😊
As someone who allows sauce to dictate what meals I’m craving/will eat, I have an immense appreciation for this post. This is a banger Jordan.
There is this ginger sauce at a local Chinese restaurant in my city and I could totally put some crab Rangoon s in there with some dumplings floatin around and that would be some great Chinese soup!!!
Going to trader joe’s tomorrow actually, so the buffalo chicken dip is now on the list!
Buffalo chicken dip yes please. Soup 100%
Aldi’s Spinach Dip is a definite spooner!
I always thought that sauces tend to be reductions or share concepts with soups tbh
This is a great article!! Excited for more.
Ok, but there is such a thing as too much sauce, right??
No!
You’ve gotta pick up some Yum Yum Sauce in the future! It’s the best dipping sauce hands down and it goes on EVERYTHING!
Okay wait, I’m trying the vodka sauce one
Based on this and your mustard spoonfuls, I am concerned you may have a vitamin deficiency. Maybe not, but it’s probably worth getting checked out.
Just had a check up and the only thing the doctor diagnosed me with is loving flavor!
Respectable
This is Amazing!!!!