Healthiest Garden Veggie Soup: Progresso Light Vegetable Soup
Because veggies are low-cal and full of hunger-quelling fiber, vegetable soup is one of the most waist-friendly meals around. Not to mention, it’s also chock-full of other beneficial vitamins and nutrients. But vegetarians beware: just because it says “garden vegetable” doesn’t mean it’s solely full of veggies. Campbell’s choice has both chicken broth, chicken fat, and beef fat. Progresso’s option is by far the best canned soup in this round. It’s completely vegetarian and contains fewer carbs and less sugar than Campbell’s offering.
Othertips To Spicing Up Low
- A good way to give a richer taste to your food is to use fresh onions and garlic as opposed to the granulated versions.
- For a zingy flavour, add a hint of citrus from freshly squeezed limes or lemons. These fruits are very versatile, and you can use them on everything from salads to soups to seafood.
- You dont want to entirely deprive your body of sodium, so you should try to get enough from natural sources. Whole foods like celery, beetroot, chard, spinach and carrots all contain healthy levels of sodium.
Amys Organic Light In Sodium Lentil Vegetable
With only 340 milligrams of sodium per cup , Amys Organic Light in Sodium Lentil Vegetable soup is lower in sodium than most other canned soups. Plus, its made with nutritious organic vegetables and seasonings and is a good . Lentils are a type of legume and are an excellent source of fiber as well. Together with the other vegetables, they contribute 16 g of fiber per can of soup thats 64 percent of the daily recommended amount.
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Healthiest Beef Stock: Kitchen Basics Original Beef Stock
A staple for French onion soups, beef stock is a tricky product to purchase. That’s because store-bought versions are littered with flavor-enhancing chemicals and not much beef. For example: Knorr’s Beef Stock Concentrate contains inflammatory palm oil, four versions of MSG, sugar, two types of gums, and carcinogen-containing caramel color.
If you don’t have time to make a stock at home , go for Kitchen Basics’ Original Beef Stock, which contains real beef stock rather than just beef flavor, vegetable stock, honey, salt, and spicesmuch simpler than Knorr’s. Plus, it’s a surprisingly great source of protein!
My Tips For Making Low Sodium Potato Soup
You can use any potato for your soup Yukon, red or russet potatoes. But I think the Yukon gold potatoes work the best. They seem to hold together better than a russet potato they dont get as mushy after cooking, whereas, a starchy russet absorbs a lot of broth. Yukon potatoes also being a bit less starchy, blend up to nice creamy smooth consistency.
Do potatoes need to be peeled for this soup? No, they dont. You can leave the skin on or peel completely. It is up to your preference. I give them a quick peel and take 50 to 75% of the skin off. I generally like leaving the skin on all my potato dishes so I dont work too hard getting the skin off.
- Cut the potatoes into bite-size pieces no larger than 3/4 and try to keep them around the same size. Most importantly, they will cook more evenly and you dont have to cut a potato in the soup bowl to take a bite.
Use pork belly for bacon. So many people worry about pork belly being some weird cut of pork. Dont! Pork belly is just bacon that has not been cured with massive amounts of salt, un-smoked, and generally not pre-sliced. Have the butcher slice it or freeze it a bit so it is firmer for easy slicing. It is generally not in the meat section of the local grocery store. So you may need to go to a butcher shop to get some though, my local Wholefoods carry it at their meat counter.
- Pork belly slab and slice
- Ingredients cut and ready for potato soup
- Potato soup in Dutch oven pot
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Why Should You Buy Low
If you have ever eaten a salty dinner and woken up with bloated “sausage fingers”, you already know the effects that eating too much sodium can immediately have on your body. Aside from unpleasant bloat, eating too much sodium puts you at risk for developing serious medical conditions, like high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Guidelines from the 20152020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that Americans consume less than 2,300 milligrams of sodium per day as part of a healthy eating pattern. However, the majority of adults in the US eat more sodium than they shouldan average of more than 3,400 mg each daywith more than 70 percent coming from processed food and restaurant meals according to the report.
Sodium In Chicken Noodle Soup
The famous name brand soup is 890 940mg of sodium for just one cup of soup. The differing range is because even though its named chicken noodle they have 2 or 3 different variations or styles of soup. That much would easily put me over my whole days worth of sodium after other meals for my daily sodium goal and I would still be starving with only a cup of soup.
I do have to mention though that the famous brand has a reduced sodium soup that is 25% less but that is still way too high for me. But amazingly in one variety they do have a low sodium chicken noodle that is 120mg per 10.75 can or 1 1/3 cups. This isnt too bad considering, but I have not tasted it to comment on its content or flavor.
My Low Sodium Chicken Noodle Soup recipe is just 26mg of sodium per one-half cup or 104mg for a realistic 2 cup serving! This recipe is low enough that you can still add a complimentary side item and be below most sodium meal budgets.
Also Check: Campbell Soup Chicken And Rice Bake
Tips Help To Increase Flavor Of Usually Bland Low Sodium Souprecipes
Of all the low sodium recipes, low sodium soup recipes can be some of the most challenging recipes to prepare. You try your best to make low sodium soups flavorful and yet they still taste bland. You feel all they need is a little salt and everything would taste fine. Well, when cooking low sodium, adding salt is not an option. You must learn different cooking techniques and a few little tips to increase flavor. This is especially true when preparing low sodium soup recipes.
Here are a few tips to help you add flavor to your soup recipes. These few tips will help take bland tasting soups and turn them into delicious, flavorful soups.
1. Use good, fresh, flavorful ingredients. Many make the mistake of taking old, or leftover ingredients, especially vegetables, to make soup. This approach might be all right when adding salt, as salt will pick-up their flavors, but when cooking without adding salt, you must use good fresh ingredients. These should be at their peak of flavor, usually not leftovers. The basic soup vegetables when starting soups are, onions, carrots, celery, sometimes green and/or red bell pepper, and garlic. Of course you can add other vegetables depending upon your soup recipe.
As you practice and use these tips, your low sodium soup recipes will become more and more flavorful. Also, your taste buds will adjust and enjoy flavorful low sodium soups, instead of the salty soups of the past.
Healthy Choice Hearty Chicken
130 calories 480mg sodium 3g fiber 8g protein per serving
Yes, this one has the highest amount of salt per serving. But beyond the sodium content here, there are health benefits that make this soup worth it for youpromise. It contains one-half cup of vegetables, which makes it a choice for nutritionist Jennifer Dimitriou, M .S., R.D., C.D.N., a nutritionist and bariatric surgery dietitian at New York-based Montefiore Medical Center. Plus, the chicken helps to pack in the protein.
Upgrade: Add one to two cans of water before boiling to dilute the salt. Then, pair a serving with a simple, nutrient-packed salad, says Dimitriou. She suggests spinach , a handful of walnuts , and one-half cup each of strawberries and blueberries .
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How Much Sodium Is In Low
A food can be technically considered “low sodium” if it has less than 140 mg of sodium per serving according to the Food and Drug Administration.
“If a client who is restricting sodium chooses a canned soup that contains less than 20 percent of the FDA’s 2,300-milligram sodium limit, I am happy with that,” says registered dietitian nutritionist Brittany Scanniello, RDN.
She encourages clients to stick to a maximum of 460 milligrams of sodium per serving while choosing varieties that include ingredients that support heart health like beans and vegetables.
If you are managing your sodium intake and are looking for the best canned or pre-made soups, read on to find the 14 dietitian-approved top picks for low-sodium soup.
Parks And Nash Tuscan Vegetable Bone Broth Soup
Sodium content: 390 mg per 1-cup serving
This bone broth-based soup provides under 400 mg of sodium per serving, thanks to the chef-created recipe that uses real vegetables for flavor. Although not canned, it is a shelf-stable, convenient, and rich solution when you need a quick cup of filling soup in the middle of a busy day. Simply add water to the soup powder and heat in the microwave for two minutes to enjoy a rich soup that provides 20 grams of protein and 4 grams of fiber to help keep you fueled and satisfied throughout the day.
Sodium content: 170 mg per 1-cup serving
Another non-canned option that is delivered right to your door, this soup is under 200 mg of sodium per serving and is ready to serve after heating. It is loaded with real pumpkin and butternut squash, two vegetables that help support heart health. In one study published in Scientific Reports, eating one additional yellow-orange vegetable resulted in a 23 percent heart disease risk in a certain population.
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How To Make Low
Making delicious, low-sodium soup at home is easy if you know what youre doing. Although salt accentuates taste, you have other options to make your soup flavorful. MayoClinic.com recommends no more than 2,300 milligrams of sodium daily for an average adults 2,000-calorie diet. Modify an existing recipe, if you have one, or skip the recipe and use what you have on hand to make low-sodium soup.
Homemade Vegan Vegetable Soup
This is a very hearty soup thats delicious and leaves you feeling full and satisfied. Theres nothing in this Vegan Vegetable Soup that you cant pronounce and its perfect served alone with crackers or paired with your favorite sandwich.
We hope you love these Low Sodium Hearty Soup Recipes as much as we do. If you enjoyed these simple and flavorful meal ideas, be sure to check out our other Soup Recipes to help keep you warm and satisfied on a cold, winter day. Subscribe to our newsletter so that you never miss a single recipe, and for daily recipe inspiration, like us on and follow us on . Enjoy!
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The Three Things That Make This Potato Soup Low Sodium
Using no sodium added chicken broth. This is the easiest thing to do. Just using a no sodium chicken broth saves massive amounts of sodium. I like punching up the flavor a bit more with two teaspoons of the Herb-ox no sodium chicken bouillon but it is not required.
Using pork belly for your soup. I used pork belly, which is basically bacon that has not been cured yet with high levels of sodium. Even low sodium bacon has a ton of sodium in it if you are watching your sodium levels. Using pork belly adds just 12mg of sodium per serving.
It still gives a bacony taste to the overall soup, which I think defines a potato soup. Pork bacon may not render as much fat as regular bacon that will be used when sautéing the onions and making your Roux. If not, just add a tablespoon or two of no salt added butter.
It is best if you can get the butcher to slice it, but if not, freezing until the meat is just firm makes slicing much easier. Generally, it will firm up in about half an hour in the freezer.
Adding cheese to your soup. One of the secrets to making this a creamy, cheesy soup is using Mascarpone cheese as a cream cheese substitute. At only 5mg of sodium per tablespoon, it only adds 80mg to the whole dish. Which means it is adding less than 14mg of sodium per serving.
What Are The Other Differences Between Low
Interestingly, though if you take a quick peek at the ingredient lists, you may notice that brands sometimes change up the exact formulation of their low-sodium broth, so that, besides being lower in sodium than the regular version, there may be other differences, too. For example, one mainstream national brand includes MSG in its regular version , but not in its low-sodium counterpart.
We always, always urge you to read labels carefully so you know exactly what youre buying.
But, for the purposes of this article, lets focus specifically just on the fact that low-sodium broths have less sodium and what that means for all of us in our home kitchens.
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How To Choose A Healthy Canned Soup
Soups are a wonderful way to get more plant-based foods into your body, like grains and vegetables, says Stoler. Even better, the proteins can be animal- or plant-based, meaning anyone can get in on the quickest, easiest dinner of all time, no matter their dietary preferences.
Stolers rules of thumb for choosing a healthy canned soup are pretty simple. First and foremost, take a look at whats actually in the soup before obsessing over the nutrition facts. My general guidelines include flavor, taste and ingredients, she says. And thats good advicewhy buy a healthier soup youre not going to genuinely enjoy? She also says broth-based soups are just about always a better choice than cream-based ones.
If youre intent on checking out the nutrition label, follow her lead: I like to look at the calories per serving and if theres any fiber in each serving. But before you keep yourself from your favorite creamy clam chowder, ask yourself: How am I going to eat this? One should consider if the soup is meant to be a stand-alone meal or part of a meal. This way calories and macronutrients can be factored into the meal or days calorie budget, says Stoler.
Keep In Mind The Amount Of Sodium Per Serving
There are many soups labeled as “low sodium,” “reduced sodium” and “light in sodium“. According to the Food and Drug Administration, products that can carry an “official” low-sodium label should have less than 140 milligrams of sodium per serving.
The “reduced sodium” label means that the products contain at least 25 percent less sodium than the regular versions. And the light in sodium designation indicates that the products have 50 percent less sodium compared to what the regular products have.
So, it’s important to check the nutrition facts for the actual sodium content per serving to ensure that it meets your dietary needs. When it comes to canned soups, it’s not easy to find ones that meet the definition of low-sodium set by the FDA.
For the sake of this article, we are defining low-sodium as being under 500 milligrams per serving. Consult with your doctor to find out exactly how much sodium you should include in your diet. You may need to avoid sodium in your other meals or have a smaller portion of the soup to meet your daily goals.
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Trader Joes Organic Low Sodium Minestrone Soup
200 calories 140mg sodium 7g protein 5g fiber per one-can serving
This hearty soup is naturally high in immune-boosting vitamin C, serves as an excellent source of iron, and also contains healthy fats from olive oil, says Dr. Young, whose top overall super-soup picks are minestrone and bean. Plus, a single serving packs vegetables like roasted yellow peppers, red peppers, and zucchini, the likes of which you dont often see in packaged soups. The only drawbacks? The soup does contain some MSG-like ingredients , and this particular variety is not available in BPA-free packaging, like some other Trader Joes products.
Upgrade: To round out your meal, pair with a whole-wheat pita , low-sodium turkey and a slice of part-skim cheese.
Broth As The Foundation Of Soups
Broth forms the base of many soups, whether they are chunky or pureed. While purchasing pre-made broths is time-saving, they are often packed with preservatives and sodium to increase flavor. If you are buying pre-made broths, aim for those marked low, very low or sodium-free. To be considered low-sodium, there must be less than 140 milligrams of sodium per serving, less than 35 milligrams per serving for very low sodium and less than 5 milligrams for a product marketed as sodium-free. If you are concerned, you can make broths at home with chicken, beef, pork bones or vegetables. While these foods contain trace amounts of sodium, the amounts are significantly less than commercially made sodium-free broths.
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Pacific Foods Organic Roasted Red Pepper & Tomato Soup Light In Sodium
Sodium content: 330 mg per 1-cup serving
Pacific foods soups are all organic, with as many ingredients being sourced as locally as possible. Their organic roasted red pepper and tomato soup light in sodium provides 330 milligrams of sodium per serving and is naturally packed with an antioxidant called lycopene. This antioxidant naturally occurs in tomatoes and has been found to support heart health.
