Best tinned vegetable soups for fibre

We looked at 25 tinned vegetable soups available across UK supermarkets, plus nine fresh varieties, to see which do well on fibre and which fall flat. Which? nutritionist Charlotte Phillips gives her expert opinions on spotting low-fibre traps and boosting your daily fibre intake.

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Key findings

• Large variation in fibre content, with the highest nearly four times that of the lowest
• Soups packed with pulses outperform those relying on root vegetables
• Inconsistent serving sizes: most brands list half-can portions, but others state full tins
• Chilled vegetable soups average lower fibre levels than tinned, despite being more expensive

Our nutrition expert

Charlotte Phillips is a Which? nutritionist and senior researcher with a special interest in gut health. 

She is passionate about debunking wellness trends, helping consumers to cut through the noise and navigate the complex world of nutrition science.

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Top 3 tinned vegetable soups for fibre

Out of the 25 tinned vegetable soups evaluated, these three options delivered the highest fibre per 100g. Here's how they did it:

Mr Organic Garden Pea and Vegetable Soup — 3.4g fibre per 100g

Almost 40% of the tin is peas, which makes it a source of fibre and high in protein. Other vegetables include carrots, celery and potatoes (each 3%). A 200g serving gives you 6.8g of fibre, supplying 22.7% of the NHS daily 30g recommended fibre target.

Asda Chunky Vegetable Soup — 2.4g fibre per 100g

This supermarket own-brand soup contains an impressive 42% vegetable ratio of carrots, potatoes, garden peas, green beans, and onions, plus an extra fibre boost from 5% haricot beans. A 200g serving (as per the serving suggestion) gives you 4.8g of fibre.

Crosse & Blackwell Winter Vegetable Soup — 2g fibre per 100g

This recipe is more than one-third vegetables (35%), including carrots, peas and green beans, but its fibre content is further boosted by pulses and grains. These include yellow split peas (7% of the recipe) and pearl barley.

How much is a portion of soup?

Virtually all the cans we evaluated specify a 200g serving (half a tin) on their labels. However, brands like Crosse & Blackwell and Baxters designate an entire 400g tin as a single serving.

There is no legally enforced portion size for canned soup so manufacturers can state suggested serving sizes. As a result, comparing two different tins based purely on their ‘per serving’ declared numbers can be misleading.

Charlotte explains: ‘Checking portion sizes on soup labels can be confusing because there’s no one standardised portion size, so comparing a 200g bowl of one soup to a full 400g tin of another is like comparing apples to oranges. The most reliable benchmark is the 'per 100g' column on the back-of-pack nutrition label. It allows you to make an accurate, like-for-like comparison for fibre, salt, and calories regardless of how generous or conservative the manufacturer's suggested serving size is.'

Can you eat a whole tin of soup to boost fibre?

Eating an entire 400g tin of soup, which is higher in fibre, could help you to get closer to your 30g of fibre a day, but it could mean you max out on ingredients you might want to limit.

For example, if you ate the entire 400g tin of the Mr Organic product, that’s 13.6g of fibre (45% of your daily requirement). However, you’d consume 2.6g of salt, which is 43% of your recommended maximum daily salt intake in one sitting.

Similarly, while a 200g serving of Crosse & Blackwell Winter Vegetable Soup contains 0.98g of salt, putting it in the amber zone, eating the 400g they state as a serving size would be 1.96g of salt - 32% of an adult's 6g daily maximum.

Charlotte says: ‘When you’re browsing the supermarket aisle, look out for front-of-pack claims to help you spot higher fibre options. Under UK labelling regulations, a product can claim to be a 'source of fibre' if it contains at least 3g of fibre per 100g, or 'high in fibre' if it reaches 6g of fibre per 100g. If you choose to eat a full can of soup to maximise your fibre intake, just be mindful of that shift in salt intake.’

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Tinned veg soup: the best fibre boosters

Looking across the 25 soups, the highest fibre scores were driven by the inclusion of one or more specific ingredient types:

Legumes and peas

The single biggest driver of high fibre in the tinned vegetable soups we looked at is legumes like haricot beans, lima beans, green peas and split peas. The top three performers all relied on these ingredients. 

Pearl barley and whole grains

Whole grains are rich in soluble fibre, which helps to slow digestion, promote satiety and support cholesterol management. Found in Waitrose Essential, Sainsbury’s Chunky Country and Tesco Chunky vegetable soups.

Red split lentils

Lentils boost plant-based fibre and protein while naturally thickening soups without cream or butter. In our cluster of soups, split red lentils form the basis of fibre-rich standouts like Waitrose Lentil & Vegetable and Baxters Lentil & Vegetable soups.

A mixture of pulses

Recipes that combine peas, beans and lentils provide a range of fermentable fibres that help to feed good gut bacteria. Some of the top performers do this, but others further down the table do too, including Waitrose Essential, Tesco Low Fat Lentil & Vegetable, Sainsbury’s Stamford Street Vegetable, and Morrisons Vegetable soups.

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Tinned veg soup: the low fibre traps

We found that soups with the following as primary ingredients (among the most abundant on the ingredients label) tended to have lower fibre content than those with higher levels of legumes and pulses.

Tomato (including pureé or paste)

These add flavour to soups but offer little fibre. Of the 25 tins we looked at, 20 listed tomato pureé, concentrate, or tomatoes as one of the main ingredients. For example, Heinz Vegetable Soup has 24% tomatoes but only 0.9g fibre per 100g, the second lowest of the bunch.

Root vegetables as the main bulk

Carrots, potatoes, swede and parsnips have less fibre than legumes, so without added beans, lentils or whole grains, they tend to have lower fibre content. Standard options like M&S Chunky Vegetable and Morrisons Chunky Vegetable supply 2.2g and 2.4g of fibre per 200g bowl respectively.

Refined starches

Some soups contain refined pasta, wheat flour or modified maize starch, for example as a thickener for water-based soups. This can make a soup seem heartier than it is, without adding meaningful fibre.

Although two of our top three contain modified maize starch, they also contain whole pulses for fibre.

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How much fibre should you have per meal?

The UK Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) and NHS guidelines recommend that adults aim for 30g of fibre a day. Spread out over a day, this 30g intake might look like the following:

• Breakfast: 50g rolled porridge oats made up with milk with 1 tbsp chia seeds, topped with 50g raspberries (approx. 10.5g fibre)
• Lunch: 200g Asda Chunky Vegetable Soup served with 1 slice of 100% wholegrain bread (approx. 8g fibre)
• Dinner: 1 large baked potato eaten with its skin, served with homemade bean chilli and cheese (approx. 13g fibre)

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How to boost the fibre in your tinned soup

Charlotte says, ‘If your favourite tinned soup falls on the lower end for fibre, you can easily transform it into a high-fibre meal with a few simple additions’:

• Stir in half a tin (around 120g) of canned pulses like haricot beans, lentils, or chickpeas to add an extra 6-8g of fibre and boost protein.
• Pairing your bowl with a single slice of 100% wholemeal bread contributes around 3.3g of fibre.
• Sprinkling a tablespoon of mixed chia, flax, or pumpkin seeds on top adds another 3g to 4g.

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Is fresh shop-bought vegetable soup better for fibre?

Charlotte explains, ‘Not necessarily. While chilled aisle soups carry a ‘fresh’ halo, when we looked at nine chilled vegetable soups, their fibre figures were modest, ranging from a low 0.9g of fibre per 100g (Morrisons Creamy Vegetable) to a peak of 1.8g (Waitrose Chunky Vegetable).’

Despite their higher prices, an analysis of the ingredients lists revealed that most of the chilled soups we looked at rely heavily on water, root vegetables and cream or oil for texture, rather than fibre-dense legumes.

Ultimately, the back-of-pack ingredients matter a lot more for your daily fibre intake than whether a soup sits in the chilled aisle or a store shelf.