14 Canned Foods That Will Upgrade Slow Cooker Soup

Slow cooker soups may take a while, but they're worth the wait. If you're smart enough to prepare ahead, you can have a delicious, warming bowl of soup by dinnertime, and you barely have to do anything to achieve it. Normally, slow cooker soups are as simple as just throwing a few ingredients into your appliance, switching it on, and waiting until it's done. Hardly difficult, right? Well, we know one way to make slow cooker soups even easier, and that's by using canned foods. Canned foods take the hassle out of making your soup, and are as simple to add as just opening them up and pouring them in.

However, that's not all they're good for. There are plenty of canned foods out there that can give your slow cooker soup a huge amount of depth nearly instantly. From smoky ingredients like canned peppers to bright, sweet ones like canned pineapples, and all the way to unexpectedly creamy items that thicken your soup without any dairy, canned foods are the way to go. If that wasn't good enough, you'll likely have a lot of these foods sitting in your pantry, begging to be cooked.

You'd be amazed what canned chipotle peppers can bring to a dish — and that's why you've probably seen them cropping up in more and more recipes. From using them to make a streamlined version of homemade al pastor to adding them to your adult PB&J, these spicy additions give your food a delightful kick. They can do exactly the same thing in slow cooker soup. Canned chipotle peppers come packed in adobo sauce, which gives them a spicy, tart edge. They also have a delightful, dusky smokiness that gives slow cooker soups a huge amount of depth without having to fry anything beforehand.

Using canned chipotle peppers is simple: Just open the can and add them. Before you do this, though, you may want to taste-test them, and chop them up a little first. Some canned chipotle peppers can be incredibly spicy thanks to the adobo sauce, and so you'll want to make sure you're not overpowering your dish with them. Plus, if you don't break them up before putting them in, then you may inflict large chunks of the peppers on your guests. This is less of an issue if you're going to blend your soup, but if you're making a chunkier one it's best to chop them.

Want to make your soup creamier? It's time to bust out the evaporated milk. Yep, that's right, folks: That neglected can sitting at the back of your pantry can finally have a use. Evaporated milk is exactly what it sounds like, with the milk inside each can being cooked until the majority of its water content evaporates. This gives it a thick consistency and a deeply creamy flavor, which is similar to condensed milk but without any of the sugar.

The best thing about using evaporated milk is that you don't have to go out and buy it especially. While heavy cream serves a similar function, it needs to be used when fresh, which sometimes necessitates a trip to the store. Evaporated milk is shelf stable when canned, so you can keep it on hand until you next need it. The best part, too, is that you can add it at the beginning of the cooking process. You normally have to wait until the end to add cream to slow cooker soups so that it doesn't split while it cooks — but evaporated milk doesn't have that same issue, so you can set it and forget it.

Okay, look: We know. The idea of using canned soup to make, well, soup seems a little lazy. However, hear us out on this one. Cream of mushroom soup may be a soup in itself, but it can also be an addition to slow cooker soup thanks to its gently savory flavor, thickness, and neutral color. As such, it serves much of a similar function to stock or broth, providing you with a base taste that you can add loads of different ingredients to. The difference is that it also does so while giving your soup extra creaminess, so you don't have to worry about adding cream.

However, if you're using cream of mushroom soup in your slow cooker, then you need to avoid one key mistake. It's tempting to add it at the beginning of the cooking process, but this can cause the soup to split as your dish cooks, due to the continuous high heat. To avoid this, we'd always recommend adding cream of mushroom soup at the end, stirring it through to gently heat it before serving. If it thickens things too much, you can always add a dash more broth.

The problem with slow cooker soups is that a lot of the time, they can lack depth. Because you're often not sautéeing ingredients before you add them in, the soups can have no caramelized or smoky notes. All of that changes when you use canned roasted red peppers. These peppers, which are usually made with pimentos, are roasted until they're blistered and blackened, and then popped in the can. Pimento peppers are ideal for roasting because they have an inherent sweetness and tartness that turns into a deep smokiness when cooked, while still retaining that sugary note. They also don't have any heat to them (unless you're buying a spicy version), making them an accessible ingredient.

As with other canned peppers, you may need to slice your roasted red peppers up before you add them to your soup. Plus, keep an eye on what they're canned in. If the red peppers are canned in brine, then they can be pretty salty, and this can affect the flavor of your dish. You may wish to reduce your seasoning elsewhere to account for this.

If you're making a fall soup, there's only one canned ingredient you need to thicken it up. Pumpkin purée is an awesome way to thicken slow cooker soups, both for its flavor and for its nutritional benefits. It has a gently nutty, slightly sweet taste that capably rounds out any of the other flavors in your soup without getting in their way. As well as this, it's packed with vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants, giving your meal a boost of healthiness.

Our favorite thing about using pumpkin purée, though, is that it can provide smoothness and creaminess without the need for any dairy. It's a great substitute for cream in slow cooker soups, and it remains stable as it cooks. If you want to make it even creamier with plant-based ingredients, try mixing it with a little almond or soy milk. You can also add it at any point in the cooking process: If you want to keep things simple, pour it in at the start and forget about it. Given that pumpkin purée is already cooked, though, you can also just add it at the end — and doing this will help retain its gorgeous orange hue.

If you haven't started adding water chestnuts to your slow cooker soup, now's the time to start. The problem with slow cooker soups is that they can be texturally pretty bland. If you're not blending your soup, then you'll find that every vegetable you put in it has reduced to a soft, somewhat mushy consistency. Water chestnuts (which really aren't what they sound like) manage to resist this. These little vegetables retain their crunchiness even when cooked for a while, and even if you're simmering your soup all day they'll stay crisp.

Water chestnuts also have a delightfully subtle sweetness to them, which gives any soup a little pop of sugar without being too intrusive. That sweetness is paired with a light nutty note that, again, doesn't impose itself too much. Although water chestnuts are typically used in Asian recipes, they can also be used in pretty much any soup you want without standing out too much. They're particularly good in mixed vegetable soups, but they're also a fine addition to meat-based recipes like beef and barley. If you're having trouble finding them, try your local Asian supermarket.

Canned tomatoes are one of the most common ingredients in slow cooker soup recipes, but they sometimes don't have the intensity and punch that you're hoping for. So if you want to amp things up a notch, reach for the tomato paste. Tomato paste will give your slow cooker soup a boost of umami and tartness, without adding too much of the moisture that canned tomatoes deliver. On a visual level, it will also give your soup a deeper color.

Tomato paste goes with most soups, and unless you're making a dish based around another paste entirely (like a miso-based or a Thai curry soup), then it will likely do nothing but augment your meal. Canned tomato paste is similar to tomato paste in a tube, so you can also opt for the latter if that's all you have. You may well find that tomato paste in a tube has a slightly more intense flavor as it's often double concentrated, and it can frequently be way more salty. Therefore, you may wish to use slightly more of the canned version if your recipe called for the tube-based kind.

To be totally honest with you guys, we think that mixed beans should be put in everything — but they shine in few places as strongly as in slow cooker soups. Tipping in a can of mixed beans can give your soup an instant boost of protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals. As well as this, they also give your soup a boost of nuttiness and earthiness, and they hold their shape well as the soup cooks, meaning that the end result remains chunky, substantial, and varied thanks to the different bean types.

Although you can of course use canned beans to make a bean soup, they work just as well in soups that put other flavors at their center. Pop them into a chicken soup to give it more bulk, or pour them into a spiced carrot and lentil soup to give your teeth something to get around. You can also use mixed beans to thicken your soup without the need for flour or cream. Blending mixed beans with an immersion blender will give your soup a thick, smooth consistency — or you can mash some of them with a spoon and leave the others whole to introduce a textural variation.

Canned potatoes are one of those ingredients that we buy on a whim, and then never quite get around to using. Well, your slow cooker soup is practically begging for them, folks. Canned potatoes are virtually imperceptible from regular potatoes in slow cooker soups, and they hold their shape and texture surprisingly well. They're a cost-effective way of bulking out soup, add an earthy and creamy flavor note, and come in a variety of different sizes, from diced, to sliced, to whole.

Canned potatoes are also often pre-seasoned, thanks to being canned in salted water, so they can frequently have more flavor than the raw version. Having said this, it's important to remember that they can make your soup more salty than you'd bargained for, so make sure you're not adding too much salt elsewhere. Additionally, you should bear in mind that canned potatoes need to be cooked: Unlike many other canned vegetables, which can be eaten straight from the can, canned potatoes are only partially cooked and will need to simmer for a while.

Coconut milk is one of the best ways to make your soup creamy without any dairy. This ingredient is already a standard addition to soups around the world, from laksa to tom kha gai, a Thai coconut chicken soup that's ultra-smooth and gently spicy. However, it can also be used in almost any other soup that calls for cream, and in many cases you probably won't be able to tell the difference.

Coconut milk has a gentle coconut flavor, but when it's cooked this tends to mellow out. Its high fat content keeps things smooth and mellow. If you want to reduce the fat content you can opt for light coconut milk, but just bear in mind that this is a swap that would never be made in many Southeast Asian recipes, for the sheer fact that it gives you less flavor. Coconut milk is also a great addition if you want to smooth out any spiciness in your soup.

A lot of people would raise their eyebrows at the thought of adding anchovies to slow cooker soup. However, if you want to give your soup an intense pop of umami, few ingredients do it better. Anchovies are almost impossibly savory, and by adding just one of two you can create a huge amount of depth. Although they're incredibly fishy when eaten straight out of the can, when they're cooked that fishiness mellows out and infuses through your dish, leaving nothing but umami and saltiness.

You really don't have to use a lot of anchovies to get the desired result, either. A little goes a long way, and generally speaking a couple of fillets will add the savoriness you're seeking. You don't even need to cook anchovies, although you probably should. Canned anchovies are technically raw, but their curing process renders them edible (and is what makes them so salty and intense). However, they need to be cooked both to reduce their fishiness and soften them enough so that they dissolve through your soup, spreading their flavor far and wide.

Few things add immediate heat and flavor like hatch chiles. Hatch chiles are unique because of their tantalizing smokiness, which is developed through a fire roasting process and combined with a good amount of heat. When both of these things are in play, they can give your soup a lot of flavor. Canned diced hatch chiles tend not to be as fiery as jalapeños and are a little closer in heat to poblano peppers, but they can occasionally be much hotter than you think. As such, it's always a good idea to do a taste test before tipping the whole jar into your soup — or if you like them to be a little less intense, try to find a mild version.

Hatch chiles also have a slightly grassy edge to their flavor, which gives them a touch of freshness and a herbal dimension that pairs well with parsley and coriander. Some canned diced hatch chiles may be packed in salted water or brine, so just keep an eye on how much sodium they'll be adding to your dish. If you need to, rinsing them in water can slightly reduce their saltiness, and may help to remove some of their heat too.

There are plenty of ways to add sweetness to a slow cooker soup, and unless you're adding too much it's hard to go wrong. However, our preferred vehicle for these soups is pineapple. One of the canned fruits you really should be buying, canned pineapple gives your soup a light, bright sweetness that complements without overwhelming. It also adds a sunny visual appearance to slow cooker soups, with a tropical appearance and flavor.

One of the best things about using pineapple is how versatile its shape is. You can leave it in rings to create a bold impact in your soup, or slice it into smaller chunks that are peppered through your broth. Alternatively, mince it into tiny pieces to spread sweetness more evenly. We'd recommend leaving it slightly chunky, though, as one key advantage of using pineapple over other canned fruits is that it retains its texture. Even when cooked for many house, pineapple still has a slight crunchiness and firmness that gives your soup a little extra bite.

If you want to create immediate thickness in your soup while still adding a little nuance, reach for a can of creamed corn. Canned creamed corn is an underrated option for thickening slow cooker soups, but when added to these dishes it can perform much the same function as cream or coconut milk. It is usually thickened with starch instead of dairy, and this allows it to remain stable when heated in the pot (although you may still want to add it at the end to prevent it from loosening, especially if you're using the high heat function).

Although canned creamed corn is plenty thick already, you can thicken it up quickly with some added starch or flour. This will make it even richer, bulking out your soup further. Plus, when you use canned creamed corn, you get all of that bright sweetness from the corn itself. Don't be afraid of adding it to more unexpected slow cooker soups, either. Although it naturally works best with corn-based soups or chowders, corn's inherent flavor is fairly neutral and it can work well in curried broths or meatier, duskier options. In a beef soup, for example, canned creamed corn can provide a counterpoint to the deep umami flavors without distracting from them too much.