Recently I conducted a chicken broth taste test challenge to determine my favorite brand. This post is sponsored by Zoup! Good, Really Good™ Broth. Zoup! provided me with product for the purpose of this post, as well as compensation for my time. As always, all opinions expressed in this post are mine.
I love conducting taste tests like these because the immediate side by side comparison allows you to really notice the differences.
Zoup! started in the soup business as a fast-casual group of restaurants and is now also bringing its restaurant quality broth to supermarkets. The broth is cooked in kettles in small batches. It is low in calories, paleo-friendly, zero carbs, and free of hormones, gluten, GMO’s, fat, trans fat and saturated fat.
Zoup! Good, Really Good™ Broth prides itself on its taste and being a broth that is good enough to drink. To test it out, I went to my local grocery store and picked up several brands of chicken broth available so that I could test them alongside Zoup! Good, Really Good™ Chicken Broth.
The concept of drinking chicken broth by itself may seem unusual to some, but I actually love drinking just broth. I grew up eating Chinese-style chicken soup. Chinese-style chicken soup doesn’t have any of the other ingredients found in American chicken soup like celery, carrots, noodles. Instead it’s just broth, the chicken used to make the broth and some herbs. So for me, it is important to have a really good broth that is drinkable on its own.
The broths were poured out into identical small glass cups by someone else to keep it a blind taste test. The other chicken broths we tasted came from Swanson, Pacific, Imagine, and O Organics.
What immediately struck me were the differences in color. There was such a large range and no two broths were the same color. From left to right: O Organics, Swanson, Pacific, Imagine and Zoup! Good, Really Good™ Chicken Broth.
Each broth also had a very distinctive taste. After a few sips, I was able to narrow it down to two I preferred. My husband also did the taste test and also had two he enjoyed more.
My top two were the ones by Imagine and Zoup! Good, Really Good™ Chicken Broth. His top two were Swanson and Zoup! Good, Really Good™ Chicken Broth.
My brief thoughts on each of the brands:
- O Organics– Low in sodium but also very little chicken flavor. An okay base but it would need a lot of ingredients to build up the flavors.
- Swanson– This tastes like what I imagine when using store-bought chicken broth. Strong chicken flavor but also quite salty after a few sips.
- Pacific– This fell somewhere in the middle of the pack in terms of both sodium levels and chicken flavor.
- Imagine– Very distinct appearance and taste. Unlike the other broths which are clear, this one has a cloudy appearance and is a little bit gritty as a result. It’s very flavorful and tastes like chicken broth that has already been made into chicken soup.
- Zoup! Good, Really Good™ Chicken Broth – The color is much darker than the rest. The flavor is also very unique. It tastes like chicken but also tastes more complex. It’s quite pleasing to drink.
For me, the two brands I like are more complete broths on their own–not really needing any additional layering of flavors or ingredients.
The Imagine brand tastes like they took a classic chicken soup with all the vegetables and chicken and strained out just the broth. The broth itself has a cloudy appearance. It also has a little bit of grittiness to it and I can almost taste the celery and other ingredients in each sip. It definitely was quite unique though I didn’t really enjoy the gritty element. For Mr. K, Imagine tasted too much like vegetables for him which is why it wasn’t one of his top two.
His top two included Swanson, which felt most familiar to him as it’s the brand he grew up with. We both felt it had too much sodium to drink on its own though.
We both chose Zoup! Good, Really Good™ Broth as one of our two favorite broths and when considering which broth we would rather drink by itself, we both chose this one as the winner.
Zoup! Good, Really Good™ Broth has a very concentrated chicken flavor to it. I was convinced it must be full of sodium, but when I examined the nutrition label, it is in the same range of sodium levels as the other brands (340 mg per serving for the regular chicken broth). The deep golden brown color also makes it more visually appealing to be a drink on its own.
Because it has such a rich chicken flavor, I can see this broth working well on its own or as a base for soup. Imagine how much more flavorful a soup can be when the broth is already so deeply flavored on its own.
After tasting Zoup! Good, Really Good™ Broth, I’m going to have a hard time choosing another brand next time I’m in need of chicken broth. Their broth line also includes chicken and beef bone broths, veggie broth and low sodium chicken broth– all of which I will be trying soon.
Zoup! Good, Really Good™ Broth is available nationwide and at grocery stores like Albertsons, Safeway, and Kroger. You can find a full list of retailers and learn more about their broths on their website (https://www.zoupbroth.com), and you can also check them out on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. . If you’d like to try the broth for yourself, here’s a coupon for $1 off any jar.
