Butternut squash is one of my current favourite ingredients. I recently experimented with a butternut mac & cheese recipe (which I’ll share online soon!), and I’ve also made butternut squash chips to serve with evening meals. Continuing in the same vein, I’ve also recently tried the New England Butternut Squash soup from the Skinnylicious range from GLORIOUS! – a range of soups that are designed to be low fat (all under 2% fat and 150 calories per portion) but still taste great, inspired by the GLORIOUS! team’s adventures from across the globe.
Coming in at 103 calories for half of the 600g pot and with no saturated fat (2.7g of fat in total) and promisingly described flavours of butternut squash and cumin, it certainly sounded good. I was a little worried about the salt content, though – at 1.4g per half pot, that’s 23% of your RDA…
The ingredients list boded well: plenty of vegetables, potatoes to thicken and mango chutney, cumin and a range of other spices for flavour. On opening the tub, the smell of cumin is strong – almost overpowering – and there are big flecks of parsley visible, along with specks of the spices that the soup contains.
It pours VERY thick, as you’d expect, but thins a little on heating through. That cumin smell is still strong, but you now get the sweetness of the squash coming through too.
But, most importantly, what does it taste like? Well…not like a soup described as “Skinnylicious”, that’s for sure. It contains enough single cream to give it a smooth, silky texture, but with a decent thickness too. Sadly, for me, the flavours of cumin and salt were a little too overpowering, but I loved the slight chilli kick that came with every mouthful. The spices took away some of the sweetness of the squash (a positive – it can sometimes be too much), and despite being low calorie, it’s certainly filling enough for lunch and would be for an evening meal if bread or similar was added.
I think the award for my favourite in the GLORIOUS! Skinnylicious range has to go to the Texan Four Bean Chilli, closely followed by the Fragrant Thai Carrot. We’re loving working our way through the range, though – with so many different flavours inspired by so many global locations, it means that our palates are travelling even though we’re stuck at home…
Please note: this post was commissioned by GLORIOUS!, but this in no way impacted on our opinion. We were not obliged to write a positive review, and the company did not see this review before it was put up on the site.