The Best and Worst Supermarket Chicken Broths | The Taste Test
Store-bought chicken broths vary drastically from one brand to another. Which is best? Lisa and Valerie share their top picks.
Read our Chicken Broth review:
Buy our winning Swanson Chicken Broth:
Buy Better Than Bouillon:
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Taste it. Make a cup and see if it's good.. If not …toss it. I did. I use College Inn. Lower salt.
I always use the Swanson broth when making stuffing, and usually keep a carton on hand for a quick fix if I'm sick. Even without adding anything to it it's a nice mild soup to eat that is good for anything from a simple chicken and vegetable soup to a more hearty chicken chilli or casserole.
The best thing is to make stock at home. But we can't always do that, can we? I don't have any stock in my fridge right now. What I do have, and I always have, is Better than Bouillon. We always try to have their reduced sodium chicken and their mushroom on hand. The roasted garlic is very good, too. They all pack a lot of salt, so you have to avoid salting anything else until you see how everything comes together, but they're great products. Wouldn't be without them.
Did anybody else just realize that College Inn could be a play on words for "collagen"?
This host is awful. Thank god for Lisa joining in to save the day.
This format is not really doing it for me. I don’t know if they’re trying to take the old tasting segments that Jack and Adam would do and make them lengthier to take advantage of YouTubes pay structure, or if chicken stock is more complicated and deserves more attention to detail than the likes of soy sauce or ketchup.
No Lee Kum Kee? I buy the big can, lol.
I was always a Swanson only user until I discovered Better Than Boullion.
Better than bullion user. Didn't care for the first host's presentation.
Btw. I always have chicken, beef and sometimes turkey on hand. The frig has both chipotle and adobo. I used one of them in a great chicken creamy pasta dish with roasted veggies. Btw makes gravy a snap. I use it in soups, pot roast, cottage pie, rice dishes, the list is endless.
I buy the Swanson chicken stock as well as Better than Bouillion.
I keep at least three varieties of BTB in the fridge at all times.
I use the Knorr powder in recipes that use it as seasoning, like a lot of my Mexican recipes, where I need some chicken flavor, but I'm not doing a reduction.
The mushroom & veg BTB flavors are my favorite go to’s
Even before watching I'm gonna guess Better Than Bouillon, and I don't even actually cook. Edit: Woah! Good for Swanson's!
I'm sorry but you should have people who speak English fluently in this videos. "Valerie"''s accent was hard to get past and you could tell she didn't feel comfortable in a dialogue with Lisa. It was awkward and off putting for the viewer.
Yay! I’ve been using the Swanson! I will also buy the better than bullion. I’m a bit bummed about the Knorr tho. I’ve always enjoyed the cubes and recently have bought the powder version!
Worth watching for the ‘how to pour from a box’ tip alone.
I love Better Than Bouillon . I always keep beef and chicken jars in my fridge, and I'm never left high and dry when needing a little something to add flavor to dishes. I haven't had time to go grocery shopping lately, but beef Better Than Bouillon saved the day last night because I was able to quickly whip up some beef with noodles and gravy in less than half hour.
Note to vegetarians – Better Than Bouillon also makes wonderful no-chicken and no-beef bases. They can be hard to find – I order them online and share with my vegetarian friends and family) but they are a terrific alternative for gravy, pot pie, stroganoff, etc!
I bounce around between Swanson's and Better Than Bouillon and cooking my own chicken stock freezing them in ziplock bags.
Should have had Lee Kum Kee chicken powder, one of the best
We had the Better Than Bouillon and it went bad in the fridge after a short time. It grew moldy.
Knorr powder is found in every real Mexican abuela’s kitchen I’ve ever been in. I keep a giant jar of Knorr in my cupboard too, for anything bulky, like for boiling rice, or anything that needs an extra kick of chicken flavor, like a traditional Mexican whole-chicken boil soup like Pozole Verde.
I save the Better Than Bouillon whenever I need something fancier, but I still don’t want to make a broth from scratch.
Better Than Bouillon
the knorr needs to boiled at least 5 mins, it's seem they use cold water and mixed it
I do the harder work… boil up Costco Rotisserie chicken bones. You get the collagen out of the bones also, which adds the depth you don't get some boxed broth. In a pinch, Better than Boullion.
Better Than Bullion is a kitchen hack.
Red apron lady has one of the most irritating voices ever … horrible choice to have her on a program like this…
Valerie did a great job hosting this video! I’d love to see more from her!
I love this new video format! Very well done!
The video format of zooming in and out of frames and constant cuts is really irritating. Very amateur film student vibe.
Turkish chickpeas & rice is my go to broth dish
This was a hard video to watch
Broth and Stock are not interchangeable. That is just a function of the BS on store shelves that is nothing more than broth, that then calls itself stock. Broth is typically made from meat and/or vegetables, it is simmered for a relatively short period of time. Stock is typically made from bones with some meat and/or vegetables. Stock is simmered slowly to extract the gelatin from the bones, resulting a a slippery unctuous mouthfeel for stock. This segment that promotes the lie that they are the same, is perpetrated by people who have never bothered to make real stock. Real stock is excellent and results in soups and sauces that are so much better!
I use Knorr for flavoring other things like rice or soups and stews that need salt and umami. Better than Bouillian is my go to when it needs to stand alone more
I use the Swanson chicken stock. I want to try the better than bouillon but it’s always sold out 😩
A tip when using the liquid broth Tetra packs is to make sure you shake them before pouring them. Some have sediments that settle to the bottom when in storage.
Better Than Bouillon! I always put in a teaspoonful when cooking grains: quinoa, farro, barley, whatever. They sell a vegetable version suitable for vegetarian dishes, and I use the chicken version a lot, too, but my favorite is the mushroom version — unfortunately that's hard to find in most supermarkets.
Better than bouillon used to be good, however they now put yeast extract in their stock like the rest of the industry. When they first entered Costco, to hit the price Costco wanted they cheated with better than yeast extract. However the better than bouillon at the grocery store used to still not contain yeast extract. Unfortunately at some point during covid lock downs, they changed their grocery store offering to the same yeast extract filled crap they sold at Costco, likely because it sold well at Costco and no one noticed. We'll I noticed and am very angry that Costco ruined such a great product.
Always use Better Than Bullion. I have also used Swanson and others, but I love to keep a jar of BTB IN THE FRIG.
Curious what about kettle & fire you didn’t like- it’s the top of the price point out of all of these and while we as a family don’t buy the broth; we DO purchase their bone broth for the added protein so this was surprising. I would love to know what you think about Kirkland Chicken Bone Sipping broth from Costco and where that’s stacks up
Where is Jack?………
Better than Bouillon is my favorite I only get the chicken and beef but definitely need to try some of their others they sound great. I always add little dollop (1/4 tsp) in my water when making rice.