19 April 2012

Heinz Squeeze and stir Cream of Tomato Soup (Asda) [By @NLi10]


Of all the convenience foods that we see regularly soup is probably the one that is subjected to the most abuse. It’s most commonly canned for years at a time, powdered and put into mugs, and condensed into a variety of forms. Recently a few companies have tried to push for better soups where it’s refrigerated in a carton or see through plastic tub and has so many varieties and odd flavours you’d suspect that those Innocent people are behind it. Cup-a-soup and it’s variants used to be a great thing to grab for winters at work, but I’d not bought any for a good while when I spotted the Heinz Squeeze and Stir range. I’m sure these must have come out before Winter, but I missed them.

This is a small pouch that looks like it’s a cooking sauce or maybe art materials, but it claims to be a rich instant cup-a-soup and 1 of our 5 a day. From directions it makes up about half a can of soup so seems like a snack sized portion. To be fair to the brand I picked up an easy win Tomato soup, and a far more complex Minestrone (I’m not sure how all the pasta will be the same proportionally in a 70g pouch) and today it’s the turn of the tomato one.


Squirting the contents out of the plastic really is like spreading some acrylic paint – it’s good fun and you can smell the tomato as it fills up the bottom of the cup. Unfortunately I was in a rush and didn’t have my phone on me so no pics of this, but I’ll try to grab one of the Minestrone soon. I did the soup as instructed by the instruction and put the boiling water in over two stages, stirring in-between. I think I overfilled it at the 2nd stage as I have a pretty big mug so I think the final flavours may be stronger.


Flavour wise I didn’t expect much. Cream of Tomato is nice, but not my favourite. Turns out it tastes pretty much the same as the canned variety. There is a good chance that soups are usually made from concentrate anyway and this just brings that final process a lot closer to home. For some reason I also thought that it wouldn’t be as hot as a regular soup. It was certainly hot enough to scald my tongue! It was a nice afternoon snack (once it had cooled a bit) and I was left feeling like I could eat the other half of the can too. Maybe two pouches could fix this. The paste at the bottom of the cup was a little thicker than at the top meaning the flavour intensified throughout which was nice, but as I mentioned I think I overfilled.

Can’t wait to try the Minestrone, and I hope there is a Cream of Chicken one to try too.
By NLi10

2 comments:

bob said...

Heinz continuously loses the plot, here on the company's home turf.
The Squeeze & Stir soups, Salad Cream, Ploughman's Pickle, et al would sell in respectable quantities in America.
Don't get me started on the beans (Hah!) Their Vegetarian variety used to be fairly close to the UK recipe. They pulled it from the shelves and after a nearly six month's absence, replaced it with an uber-sweetened version.
(Why on Earth do Americans think beans should taste like a tomato based sticky toffee pudding??)

Sofia said...

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I think all the Squeeze & Stir soups are tomato-based - at least from what I've seen, I think there are two different cream of tomatoes (one with basil, I believe?) as well as the minestrone and something with Mediterranean vegetables. Perhaps the tomato/vegetable combinations could be due to the fact that it may be difficult to preserve cream-based liquids and meat pieces in plastic pouches for a longer stretch of time? I really don't know. I personally really like the minestrone version, though!