Stock Your Pantry for the Cooler Weather {review}

Sometimes we get excited about the coming cold weather months.

Simply because they are an excellent for hearty comfort foods that warm you up and keep you full!

Delicious soups, stews, and hot casseroles sound so good that you almost don’t miss the warmer weather.

Even better nourishing soups are a great way to get all those healthy veggies and healing stocks into your family’s tummies with little to no effort.

Yumm!

Speaking of soups we got to review a big box of [easyazon_link identifier=”B00NUS00Z4″ locale=”US” tag=”mommybabytool-20″]Frontier Soups[/easyazon_link] this past month.

I have to admit I don’t keep packaged soup mixes in my pantry. Most of the ones I’ve come across in the past I don’t get to taste because they have extra ingredients, like soy, that I’m allergic to. One or two mixes might be nice to have in the pantry in a pinch but as a permanent border in my pantry I have yet to find one.

Until…

I had never heard of Frontier Soups until asked to review them. I did do some reading before agreeing and I’m glad I did agree that is.

These delicious hearty soups with all natural ingredients have proven to be a wonderful addition to my pantry. And this is from someone who makes most of her soups from scratch!

Having a food allergy usually means I have to forgo luxurious such as soup mixes so yaaayy when I find something that I CAN EAT!

Frontier Soup sent me a nice bib box to test and try along with a cute spoon and a kitchen towel (which I love).

Their mixes feature all natural ingredients, no added salt or preservatives, and no MSG.

Being the generous being that I am I shared my mixes with some family member.  It was hard to give them up though ’cause they all sounded so good.

These are the ones we tried in our home…

Little Schoolhouse Alphabet Soup Mix

My daughter requested this soup right away so I set it up for the next night. I use a chicken stock base in much of what I cook that needs chicken stock (until after Thanksgiving when I fill up my freezer with turkey stock) so I started up with mixing together the specified amount for the soup. This stock has salt added BTW.

This particular soup calls for precooked, cut up chicken which I had on hand. The soup cooked very quickly. It was so fast that we weren’t quite ready. The table wasn’t set and my family was still milling around do other things as they usually are right before dinner.

Not to worry I sat them down asap and we commenced with dinner.

The soup was delicious but because I used salted stock it came out a little bit too salty. We all still gobbled it down though but everyone agreed it came out just a tad too salty. Since the soup itself had no added salt it was probably the combination of my precooked chicken and maybe a bit too much stock.

The soup was thick and hearty. That was a nice surprise. I think I always expect soup mixes to be thin and bland. And what kind of mom am I that my daughter was so enamored with the alphabets because I’ve never served her alphabet soup! Even with the tad bit extra salt the soup was still really good and we finished up the whole pot that night!

Red Pepper Corn Chowder Mix

Next up was the Red Pepper Corn Chowder Mix. I was interested to make this because it’s not the kind of soup I would just make on a regular basis. Not because I wouldn’t think it was good but it just wouldn’t cross my radar. But now that it has I would like to put corn chowder in my repertoire.

Since this is a dairy based soup (you know chowder) it can come out thick. I admit to using milk ’cause I just can’t seem to bring myself to put cream in a dinner soup. Per the instructions you can add seafood which will make it very hearty. I made salmon sandwiches to go with it. It was a little hot, peppery hot, but still very good. And very easy to cook up. I added 3% milk as opposed to cream but it was still good. Ready in just the amount of time that they say, 30 minutes.

Mississippi Delta Tomato Basil Soup Mix

I actually made this soup to round out a recipe I make that uses tomato soup and then you simmer it with chicken and onion and spices and serve it over pasta. I think I won’t do that again because the soup is great on it’s own and actually too thick and substantial to work with the recipe. I felt like I was trying to merge two recipes that are great on their own into one and that was a fail. It actually wasn’t bad (it was actually so delicious we had it again the next night) but I would have rather had the soup on it’s own.

What I really liked….

about these soups was that I didn’t feel like I was compromising on taste for convenience. That’s usually the case when you’re talking mixes but I think the little touches like home cooked meat, your preferred stock, and seasoned to taste help with that.

I would definitely like to have a couple of my favorites in the pantry for a great comforting dinner on a night I’m too tired to cook from scratch.

Interested to try?

You can find Frontier Soup Mixes at the following stores: Whole Foods, The Fresh Market, Kroger Natural Stores, Central Market in Texas, Great Harvest Bread Stores, Omaha Steaks, Braum’s Fresh Markets and 1500 other independent and specialty stores across the country, and in Canada at Sobey’s and Whole Foods. And if that doesn’t work the products are also available online at Frontier Soups, Abe’s Market and on [easyazon_link identifier=”B00NUS00Z4″ locale=”US” tag=”mommybabytool-20″]Amazon[/easyazon_link].

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