Most soups are relatively low in calories, but the range is wide. A cup of vegetable soup can run as low as 50 calories, while a cup of cream-based chowder can hit 230. The type of soup you choose matters far more than the fact that it’s soup.
Calorie Ranges by Soup Type
Broth-based vegetable soups sit at the bottom of the calorie spectrum. Garden vegetable soup comes in around 50 calories per cup. Minestrone, tomato rice, and French onion hover between 80 and 90 calories. Even heartier options like lentil soup or Tuscan vegetable stay in the 110 to 120 range. If you’re looking for a genuinely low-calorie meal or side dish, these are the safest picks.
Classic comfort soups fall in the middle. Chicken noodle runs about 90 calories per cup, chicken gumbo around 120, and chicken and dumplings about 140. Bean-based soups like black bean, split pea with ham, and pasta e fagioli tend to land between 170 and 180 calories per cup. These are denser because of the protein and starch, but still modest compared to most entrées.
Cream-based soups are where the calories climb. Broccoli cheddar comes in around 200 calories per cup. Clam chowder and corn chowder push past 225. Bisques vary: a tomato basil bisque might be 140 calories, while a corn and green chile bisque hits 170. The difference comes down to how much cream, butter, and cheese goes into the base. A single cup of corn chowder has nearly five times the calories of a cup of garden vegetable soup.
Why Soup Feels More Filling Than Its Calories Suggest
Soup punches above its weight when it comes to satiety, and the reason is partly mechanical. Blended and broth-based soups leave your stomach more slowly than solid food does. Research has found that smooth soups produce greater feelings of fullness than equivalent solid meals, largely because the liquid stays in the stomach longer and creates a sustained sense of distension. Your stomach essentially registers “full” for a longer stretch of time.
This slower emptying also means the nutrients in soup become available to your bloodstream at a different pace than they would from a solid meal, which can influence how satisfied you feel in the hour or two after eating. The practical upshot: a 100-calorie bowl of soup often keeps you comfortable longer than a 100-calorie snack bar.
Soup as a First Course Cuts Total Calories
One of the most useful things about soup isn’t just its own calorie count. It’s what happens to the rest of your meal. In a controlled study from Penn State, people who ate a soup course before lunch reduced their total calorie intake for that meal by 20%, eating roughly 134 fewer calories overall. That includes the soup itself. The effect held across different soup textures, whether chunky, pureed, or broth with vegetables.
This makes soup a practical tool if you’re trying to eat less without feeling deprived. A 90-calorie cup of chicken noodle before dinner can trim well over 100 calories from your total intake, netting you a calorie reduction without any real sense of restriction.
The Sodium Problem in Canned Soup
While most soups score well on calories, sodium is a different story. Among all packaged food categories, soup has the highest sodium density at 18.4 milligrams per calorie. That means a modest 200-calorie serving of canned soup could deliver over 3,600 milligrams of sodium, well above the 2,300 milligrams recommended as a daily maximum.
More than 10% of soup products on the market exceed 1,150 milligrams of sodium per serving, which is half the daily limit in a single bowl. Low-sodium and reduced-sodium versions exist for most major brands, but the standard versions are consistently among the saltiest foods in the grocery store. If you’re making soup at home, you control this entirely, and the calorie count stays the same.
Lowest and Highest Calorie Choices at a Glance
To put the full range in perspective, here’s how common soups stack up per 8-ounce cup:
- Under 100 calories: Garden vegetable (50), French onion (80), Portuguese kale (80), tomato rice (80), vegetarian minestrone (80), chicken noodle (90), carrot ginger (90), vegetable beef barley (90)
- 100 to 150 calories: Thai coconut curry (110), Italian wedding (110), chicken gumbo (120), lentil (120), old fashioned tomato (130), southwestern tortilla (130), chicken and dumplings (140), tomato basil bisque (140)
- Over 150 calories: Cream of chicken and wild rice (160), potato cheese (170), split pea with ham (170), black bean (170), pasta e fagioli (170), red beans with sausage and rice (180), broccoli cheddar (200), potato leek (200), clam chowder (225), corn chowder (230), baked stuffed potato (230)
How to Keep Soup Low Calorie
The simplest rule: the more water-based the broth, the fewer calories. Vegetable soups built on clear broth are almost always under 100 calories per cup. Adding lean protein like chicken breast or white beans bumps the count modestly while making the soup more of a complete meal. The calories start climbing when cream, cheese, coconut milk, or butter enter the recipe.
Thickening matters too. Restaurants and packaged brands often thicken soups with cream, flour-and-butter roux, or pureed potatoes, all of which add calories that are invisible to the eater. A potato leek soup that tastes light and smooth still delivers 200 calories per cup because of the starch and fat blended into that velvety texture. If you’re making soup at home, blending some of the vegetables into the broth creates thickness without added fat.
Serving size is the other factor to watch. Most bowls at restaurants hold 12 to 16 ounces, not 8. A “bowl” of clam chowder at a restaurant could easily be 450 calories or more once you account for the larger portion and any bread served alongside it. The per-cup numbers above are a starting point, but your actual bowl may hold two cups or more.