Pitango - Chicken & Vegetable Soup REVIEW

Chicken soup has long been recognised as the soup of choice during the colder months. This classic soup is the perfect companion to warm us up on a cold day or a meal of choice traditionally served by our mums when we’re struggling through a cold.

Pitango, famous for creating delicious, organic and fresh chilled soups and meals, have released their own spin on this loved classic: Pitango Free Range Chicken and Vegetable Soup.

‘This is a classic, a well-loved soup”, comments Lisa White, Brand Manager at Pitango, “and it was incredibly important to us to make sure we were loyal to the recipe by using real, fresh ingredients and the best free range chicken. Our aim was to create a product that had an honest homemade taste and flavour, something that Pitango is recognised for. And we believe we have achieved this!”

Winter hasn't really been a thing of having soups for me only because I have always hated that if I was to purchase a soup from the shop it was always too salty and I couldn't bare to begin thinking as to how bad it would actually be for you.

Pitango has changed my mind and sold me on their soups! Pitango are ready to go soups that are located in the refrigerated section in Woolworths, you know that buying soups which are cold and from the fridge section are not full of those extra nasty and unnecessary additives like the shelf stocked soups to make them last longer.

Pitango is a New Zealand soup and ready-meal maker who are now stocked in Aussie shelves. They're made fresh with organic vegetables, is 99% fat free, gluten free, free range chickens and has no added preservatives. - no false claims there, I read the label!

Pitango's cooking process includes hand cutting the vegetables, using only the freshest meat, cooking in small batches and packaging and delivering the end product chilled to maintain the freshness.

Pitango soups are purchased in a 600g pouch with has panelling that allows you to see the soup through the packaging - something I really like to see when purchasing these sorts of things, it gives you a sense of knowing what to expect and seeing what you're actually buying.

Pitango soups last up to 6 weeks (stored in the refrigerator unopened) and will last a few days once opened. Pitango can be heated up either via the stovetop or microwave. We went with using a saucepan on the stovetop as I think there's a big difference taste wise between the two ways and the stovetop just tastes more fresh.

BEFORE

AFTER

I was told to purchase ingredients that I thought would go well with the soup but to be honest once I picked up the Pitango Chicken & Vegetable Soup and read the back label (which I do with all foods now) I was happy with everything that was in the soup and couldn't think of anything more then just some celery, fresh thyme and crusty bread to compliment it.

I sliced up a stick of celery and popped it in at the start with the soup. Pitango Chicken & Vegetable soup took about 7 minutes to boil and cook up on my oven, it is advised that you just slowly bring to the boil and stir frequently.

The smell straight away when heating up from the Pitango, was a flavoursome smell that had the belly rumbling!

When it came to serving I placed the chopped breadstick on the side and added some fresh thyme on top of the soup.

First few sips was me trying to pick up on every bit of vegetable that was added in and what I could spot from the ingredients; pepper, chicken stock and vegetables. Hit the nail - no overly salty taste, which is what I expected and thankfully didn't get otherwise it would have been straight to the bin.

At first I wasn't too much of a fan of the finely shredded chicken like strings that was in it as I'm used to having bits of chunky chicken pieces throughout the soup but as I went on through my dinner I actually enjoyed the shredded chicken strings and appreciated that they went to the effort of doing that as it just made the soup, a soup - no chewing necessary.

Pitango will give you the look of a homemade from scratch cooked meal that you can claim! They'll never know!

The leftovers from dinner we allowed to sit in the pot and do the watery oil test and I was really surprised coming back a few hours later to see that it hadn't really changed consistency it was still a delicate thin runny soup that looked good.

Pitango have a gorgeous range available that consists of many more types of ready made soups that I am definitely going to need to give a go!