Dr. McDougall’s Carton Soups

Dr. McDougall’s makes soups.  Nothing crazy or fancy – you won’t see pumpkin or chipotle here – but with a focus on sustainability, health, and taste.

Using cartoons instead of cans means that they have a lower carbon footprint.  They have “eco friendly packaging – [their] paper is sourced exclusively from FSC Sustainably Managed Forests.”  Additionally, I like the size of the cartons; each hold two servings (smallish servings, I tend to always eat two servings with soups).  It is inconvenient that they have to refrigerated, rather than shoved in the back of a cabinet, but that is the trade-off for less processing.

According to the company, the soups themselves are -

• Bisphenol A free
• filling and low calorie
• complete protein
• vegan
• (some) gluten free flavors
• good fiber

I also noticed that most of the flavors were lower in sodium and/or sugar than other brands.

Vegetable

If the quality is this good across the board then I am very impressed.  I would say this is probably the best veggie soup I’ve ever had.  I loved the big chunks of potato and carrots, the fact that rice played a small role and lentils played a big one, and that the broth was perfectly seasoned.  I ate the whole carton (2 70calorie servings) and while I would need a side to make it a meal this was definitely filling.

Lentil

I liked this flavor even more than the vegetable, although the constitution was similar.  I love the large chunks of carrots.  The lentils were a little mushy (like every other lentil I’ve ever had) but good.  I loved the robust tomato back-flavor of the “broth.”

Minestrone

I haven’t had much minestrone soup, so I don’t know if this is the norm, but I loved the inclusion of zucchini.  Among the other veggies I was also excited about cabbage and green beans.  A whole box (technically 2 servings) had a mere 140calories and 4g of sugar.  Not quite as good is the 20% of your daily sodium allowance per serving.  I liked that the soup was veggie heavy, with only a bit of pasta.  My only complaint is that there was a little too much broth.

Chunky Tomato

This was the best ‘mato soup I’ve ever had, even better than homemade versions I’ve tried.  The flavor was sweet and smokey, almost like bbq sauce.  It wasn’t chunky at all, little bits of tomato were throughout, so the name is a bit false.  What the texture really was was creamy.  If I didn’t know these were vegan I’d of assumed it was made with cream.

Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato

Adam snagged this one, here’s his review – The texture was smooth and fairly creamy.  The taste gave a baseline of traditional tomato soup but the roasted red pepper added a layer of tangy and savor.  Compared to other ‘canned’ soups it’s an 8 out of 10.

Split Pea

Split Pea Soup is something I’ve always been curious about.  It sounds tasty, but almost always is off-limits to me because of the ham bone inclusion.  Which is why it’s so exciting that this soup was vegan.  Pea soup isn’t like a ribs craving, it’s a silly thing to be off-limits to recent veg-heads.  However, I think I might have discovered this too late.  I can see how the flavor – almost smokey – is good, but it was far too brothy for me.  I won’t be craving this any time soon.

Black Bean

Yums, I’m glad I tried this after the Split Pea failure because this more than kills any of my doubts.  This was the perfect kind of black bean soup – thick but not too think, savory but not too salty, good texture but not too chunky.  The inclusion of rice (not a lot) was a nice touch.  I topped mine with plain yogurt and hot sauce and it ended up being perfection.