The Washington Post's
Canned Chicken Broth Tasting
with Jeanne McManus, food editor for The Washington Post
December 1, 2001

In an ideal world, we would have little containers of rich and flavorful homemade chicken stock tucked away in our freezer waiting for the next batch of soup, gravy, or pan sauce. The reality is few of us take the time to make stock from scratch these days and rely instead on whatever we find on our supermarket shelves. What's available can range from canned to boxed, from low fat to high sodium, and from good to bad to downright ugly.

So the folks in the food department at The Washington Post decided to check out what's available to see if any are worth using. They limited their blind taste test to 27 varieties of chicken broths that are ready to use without diluting or reconstituting, that come in cans or boxes and are not powdered, frozen, reduced or compressed into cubes.

Here's their top-rated broth, the one they consider "exceptional:"

College Inn Chicken Broth: This hands-down winner is light colored but not watery, has a pleasant opaqueness that suggests substance, and it smells like real chicken. The rich, smooth flavor isn't tainted by artificial seasonings, and, while it has moderately more fat than some broths, other competitors had even more and tasted horrible.

Brands rated "acceptable" include:

Butterball Chicken Broth, 99% Fat Free: a lot of taste considering there's almost no fat.

Butterball Reduced Sodium Chicken Broth, 99% Fat Free: weak flavor but without a hint of artificial flavoring.

Hain All-Natural Chicken Broth, 99% Fat Free: It says 99% fat-free, but 15 of its 25 calories per 8 ounces still come from fat according to its nutritional labeling.

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