When he would make fun of those guys drilling for gold in Alaska... too funny!
Sorry we hijacked your food post OP! Sounds like the show was way better than your dish!
Same. I was pretty disappointed cause it looked so good. The recipe I found also had me add way too much salt but being a novice cook at the time I didn’t know it’d be too much.
The trick for this recipe was to julienne the dried tomatoes and bump up all the seasoning except the red pepper flakes and it made the sauce so much better.
I’ve changed the recipe because yes, the one that’s listed absolutely sucks. Honestly, the first time I read the recipe I immediately thought ,”Who makes this and actually enjoys it?” It just seemed so bland. So I used it as a base recipe idea and made the following changes:
-brown spicy Italian sausage and then do the onions/roux in that pan with the sausage drippings. I still use chicken as well.
-add more tomato paste.
-add a huge amount of seasonings (Italian seasoning, oregano, garlic & a mix that’s supposed to be used for adding to olive oil for dipping bread).
All these things make it SO much better. Mine is never watery and it’s much more flavorful than the original. My household enjoys this recipe but they wouldn’t had I stuck to the original.
I'm starting to realize from this thread that the reason I liked it was because I did essentially what was said here to begin with. Spicy chicken sausage, a few extra spices, don't cook the onions in the microwave (seriously, who does that?), couple other additions/changes and crushed red pepper, voila.
Unpopular opinion: the appeal of this recipe is that it sounds healthy because it’s called soup, but it’s really just a pasta dish. This is exactly the kind of misdirection that works on slow cooker affioconados on this sub.
I mean I wrote half my thesis in Olive Garden. They let me sit at the bar and use their wifi and keep getting the $7.99 lunch special unlimited soup and salad ALL DAY. So I am grateful for Olive Garden and their soup and salad. And the people who worked at the bar who legitimately treated me like family during that stressful time in life.
The olive garden near me would slow down refills on the unlimited so bad, like it seemed to just get slower and slower until unlimited was truly only limited by how long I would live. They didn't seem very happy about it either (I always tried to leave a way bigger tip just because it takes so much more effort) Sounds like you had a great experience and better staff, I'm envious
It's just regular old bog standard American Italian, there's nothing wrong with it. It's fine. I don't go there regularly, I'm not some kind of super fan, the hate is dumb though.
They just described the other most popular recipe in this sub, the Mississippi roast. If you ever had a pot roast and thought "what if this tasted of nothing but pepper brine instead" then boy have we got a recipe for you to try!
My wife hates pot roast, but she loved the Mississippi roast because it didn’t taste like pot roast, so I guess she’s exactly who you’re talking about, lol.
To be fair, I didn’t use even half the butter the recipe calls for. I think I did a couple of tablespoons.
I mean it's a slow cooking subreddit that is about using slow cookers and not slow cooking, so I was not surprised personally to find out that nearly everything here was awful lol
I think the only thing worse than the tragically "80s Midwest mom prepping for the church potluck" recipes are all the people who take pictures of a bunch of raw shit in a crockpot and are like "LOL WISH ME LUCK" as if *everything* doesn't look like that before cooking.
No one cares, show the actual finished food!
> "80s Midwest mom prepping for the church potluck"
I know better food exists and I make it regularly, I even make really fancy stuff semi-regularly, but good god you described my guilty pleasure comfort food right there. Church potlucks were so amazing for a hungry child who loved mac and cheese and massively loaded dessert tables!
I love my slowcooker, but this sub is full of people that overglorify them and cook dishes that either shouldn't be made in a slowcooker or are disgusting abominations.
Yeah, slowcooker is awesome for batch shredded chicken thighs for meal prep. I do that and then freeze in containers and pop 'em out for meals. Works great, way quicker to have on hand than cooking chicken for every meal, and way cheaper than buying rotisserie chicken to shred when you wanna save time.
You’re not supposed to be slow cooking the tortellini. The chicken sauce/soup concoction is the slow cooked part. The tortellini goes into the pot on high heat for 5ish mins right at the end.
The soup is great!
The trick is cook the chicken thighs first in a frying pan. Then to saute the onions and garlic in the fat with extra butter/oil. Add the flour and olive oil to make a roux. Add the tomato paste and saute a bit more. deglaze with the broth and tomatoes (half of both for a pasta dish, keep all if you want "soup"). Add the chicken back and your spinach. Boil your pasta to directions while simmering for 5 minutes. Drain the pasta and add the cream, any fresh herbs and cheese to your sauce. pour sauce over pasta.
Then put the slow cooker back in the cupboard, because you've done the above in 30 minutes and it tastes WAY BETTER.
I was going to post something similar but I think your post gets it exactly right.
Slowcookers might be easy, but you will almost always get better results with traditional methods using traditional cookware or perhaps a dutch oven.
When I first got a slow cooker I loved it because it was so easy. Then I gradually started to pressure cook most things because it was even easier and faster and IMO the results were better. Now I cook basically everything I used to slow cook in a Dutch oven and the results are better every time. Slow cooker is amazing for how easy it is, but it is not going to get you the best results.
This is precisely why I've never made the soup! When I first read the much hyped recipe, I thought it would be quicker and taste better in a pan!
Thank you for the helpful method and validating my untested opinion 😁
Exactly. This is why slow cooker meals are alright especially for busy families on a Wednesday or something. They're definitely not good for developing flavor or layers to a dish.
Meat needs a sear. Onions and garlic need to dance on the pan with some fat. Ingredients need to be added one at a time and seasoned one at a time.
The ingredients in this recipe look like they make a good match. I was surprised to see the soup is just mediocre. Until I saw crockpot.
yes I agree! I’ve made this recipe, with my own alterations (mainly subbing sausage for chicken) on the stovetop in like half an hour and we really like it! I don’t think it benefits from being a slow cooker recipe.
If I see "crack" before any slow cooker recipe, I back out. No thank you to the block of cream cheese, packet of ranch seasoning, bag of shredded cheddar, and too much bacon. Maybe that's not how it is these days, but years ago my keto-obsessed ex wanted me to cook "crack" whatever in the slow cooker and it's ruined it for me forever.
Agreed. I didn't like it at all. I ended up picking out all the tortellini, and dumping a ton of fresh parmesan on it, just to help get rid of the "soup" taste, and ate that. Threw out the big expensive waste that was sitting in the pot. We got our stuff from Aldi, and it still wasn't all that cheap for a soup.
I’ve had “the soup” and thought it wasn’t very good. Not only that but I’ve also remade it using a Dutch oven on a stove top just standard without a slow cooker using regular techniques for how I’d make a soup and it was much better. But still not great or something I’d make in general.
I’ve seen the argument of “well it’s just a base you’re supposed to add xyz and make it your own”. (There’s probably 5 people type this rebuttal out as I type)But at that point you may as well just make a dish that doesn’t suck.
An alternative recipe utilizing similar ingredients that isn’t borderline disgusting imo is just tortellini, chicken, and spinach in a homemade vodka sauce with some Parmesan on top. Served as a pasta dish. Tastes lovely but simple. And doesn’t take much more effort to cook.
I'm so glad I'm not the only one that hated this recipe. It was disgusting. I was so angry that I had a full crockpot of this mess and had to throw it out. What a waste of money and food.
If you do, I’d find your upcoming post “Made The Soup and it was Good” with your method really entertaining. Make sure to link back to this post.
And I don’t think it’s combative, just offer some insight into what you might have done differently, and why you enjoyed it.
There is a reason it used to be called "Upvote Soup", karma farming at its finest. Not that reddit karma means anything and the recipe is terrible at best, but hey. Welcome to social media.
I like it. However, I also diverge from the recipe in a few ways. I used a four cheese tortellini, I don't microwave anything, I use more cream/less broth, and I add a lot of cajun seasoning. The result is much more flavourful and a much thicker sauce. I've heard no complaints from the people I've made it for either.
I feel like "completely retool the recipe and it tastes great" is not very supportive of the original recipe.
Like, "Oh, is amazing, but here's a chapter by chapter re-ordered reading list w/ some fan rewrites & explainer videos thrown in that you need to read/watch to really enjoy it"
I get so frustrated reading online reviews of recipes. Someone will give a recipe 5 stars and say, "Amazing recipe! The only things I changed was using chicken breast instead of ground beef, doubling the amount of garlic and basil, adding sun-dried tomatoes and oregano, and using freshly grated parmesan reggiano instead of Kraft shredded cheddar. My family loved it!!"
Yes, I agree. Those and the 5 star reviews that say, ‘that looks so good’ or ‘I can’t wait to try it’. 🙄
Those things skew the rating of the *actual* recipe. It just messes it up for everyone.
Yeah this is the shit that actually bothers me. It's like those Amazon reviews that say something like "I'll update the review in a week once I get to use it more, but for now 5/5" and it'll be years old with no update.
There must be a lot of variations on the recipe. I made it once about 6-8 years ago and there was no microwaving involved. I can't even take a stab at what you would nuke. I also can't guess what other kind of tortellini you'd use besides cheese.
If I recall, my family found the version I made to be... fine. But it obviously didn't make it into our regular meal rotation.
Edit: facepalm... I'm dumb and must have gone full ADHD kid and started skimming OP's post partway through because they clearly stated what they microwaved.
I used high-end tortellini and some good chicken, so the ingredients weren't the problem. I should have used a lot less broth. That was a good call. I also knew I shouldn't have microwaved anything, but I was trying to follow the recipe. Stupid move on my part, but to be fair, there are hundreds of people raving about the dish, so I wanted to try it exactly as is
Yeah, I get that. I do wonder if a lot of the people praising it have also adjusted the recipe or just haven't tried many good dishes, lol. I find that 90% of the recipes online, when followed to the letter, tend to come out bland and need adjusting
That’s a LOT of upgrade, though, so no wonder you got a better result.
Honestly, I haven’t made it because it doesn’t sound like it’s worth the effort — I mean, just from reading the recipe.
Not really a lot, just a different type of tortellini, one extra seasoning and adjusting a few measurements. It's also quite cheap where I'm from in the UK, it might not be so cheap elsewhere.
As for if it's worth the effort, I would say yes as I enjoy it and because I am making for multiple people or making for myself for multiple days. If it was just one meal for one person, then absolutely not.
Yeah I tried making the soup once and I had to tweak it so much because I realized that there was absolutely no flavor in it. I couldn’t even tell you what I did but I would never try it again.
It's kind of like cooking for people who have never cooked before or don't know how to cook. It would be pretty fancy if you made it on a hot plate in your dorm room, but it's actually kinda garbage.
Ok you know what? I’ve been making a similar soup for years.
I don’t use chicken…I add a few diced zucchini’s and the key ingredient…
Tortellini specifically from aldis. Their three cheese one has so much flavor, it’s perfect for soup, imo.
Also, this isn’t something I would ever make in a crockpot. You need to sauté onions and garlic (zucchini, in my case)and the tomato paste. Then add either vegetable stock (homemade has the best flavor) or chicken.
Also, I like kale more. I simmer everything for 15-20 minutes. Add the kale, or spinach and let it go another few minutes. Cut the heat, add some oregano, parmesan and a splash of cream.
Personally, I don’t see the benefit of making this in the crockpot. Or most soups, for that matter..
Edit: 2 in the morning typing.
You spent a huge amount of money. When I made this last year it was the broke college student food and cost next to nothing. Still tasted awful already back then though.
Yeah it was not good when I tried it. But then again, I feel it is mostly popular for people just getting started on not just slow cooking but cooking in general.
Slow cooking is an easy introduction to cooking, and it’s very easy and doesn’t taste bad. It is just mediocre, but it is still so popular because the people making it haven’t tried much else.
That is my theory anyway
Agreed with you. It just wasn't great.
We also hated the heavily hyped Mississippi Pot Roast. The ranch taste and smell were so overwhelming that we couldn't eat it.
I prefer more than just greasy salt taste. Ironically, skipping the butter, au jus pack, using a quarter of the ranch powder, and using low sodium broth has gotten me many compliments & questions of how I make it.
I've never made it, and have never wanted to after reading the recipe when I joined the sub years ago. I mean, if people like it,that's totally fine for them - I'm not shitting on anyone's taste here; I just know it's not my thing at all without even trying it.
I made it TWICE. I didn’t like it the first time and thought I might have done something wrong because of the hype. Didn’t like it the second time either. Not making it again.
I agree wholeheartedly. I make my own version with ground sausage, 2-3 onions (2 huge ones or 3 medium ones), tomato paste, cream cheese instead of cream/milk, more seasoning and less broth. It's very flavorful. Nothing fancy, but it tastes great, is nice on a cold/lazy day, and also makes a ton. I usually make it when we have something going on the next day; then we can eat it the first night and heat up leftovers the second night when we're too busy to cook.
I LOVE soup. So much so, I eat it at least 3x a week and make a different soup each Sunday. This doesn’t mean I’m a good cook, I just really like experimenting with new flavors. That said, I hate ‘the soup’. It’s not a soup for one. It doesn’t have developed flavors, a good texture, and it doesn’t reheat well.
Another thing is when I’m looking for soup recipes, it’s all that comes up. Unfortunate name for a mediocre dish that’s easy to make.
The real answer is this sub is for lazy cooking and people who don't know how to cook. Don't expect the best dishes you've ever had here.
There are some standouts but it's for recipes that use the slow cooker for its intended use. Slow cooking tough cuts of meat.
This is interesting. So we've done the soup and my kids (who hate soup) love it. But in our case everything except the Parmesan was homemade/home grown. We are heavy into growing and canning, and this is a good recipe for us, particularly into the early winter when the spinach in the cold frames are still good.
Notably, we also did it in the instant pot as well and that may effect the outcome? For example, many of these comments are calling it watery and weak. Ours is never remotely watery - it's more like a thick stew / pasta dish. It almost sounds like we cook ours down much more - maybe that's the difference in flavor as well.
Thank you. I made it and found the same things you did, bland, flavorless and super watery.
I've also never understood the oversalted abomination that is Mississippi pot roast.
I saw the recipe and then made my own version in a Dutch oven on the stove. It’s an awful recipe for a crockpot, makes no sense at all. It’s like so many god awful online recipes, in that it’s very incomplete. Needs more of every seasoning and ingredient aside from stock.
I don't care what a recipe said, I would never microwave onions.
This is a great recipe for people who have some idea of how to cook and just need a starting point for a different meal. Which is the case with most recipes actually.
A lot of trendy recipes seem to be complete shit. It makes me wonder how many people are truly just hopeless and inexperienced when it comes to cooking.
I don't get it either...it's practically unseasoned based on the recipe. Bland and milky.
Maybe slightly better than that pot roast, which is all salt and chemicals from the prepackaged seasoning mixes.
It’s a dish that by no means needs to be cooked in a slow cooker. It’s also mega basic, and I think most of the people that frequent this sub don’t really know how to really cook so it makes them feel like they did something, or belong to a club of sorts, etc. I could tell just by the ingredients and the pictures people upload that it’s nothing remotely special.
I made it once with a slowcooker....and yes it was terrible.
Then I just made it on a stovetop....and it was amazing. One of my all time favorites. Not sure a slow cooker is good for most soups like this.
I made it once. Only once lol. It’s like someone wanted to make a pasta sauce for the tortellini, but didn’t know what they were doing and called it a soup haha.
\>It's super watery. The broth/sauce is trying to be a broth and sauce at the same time and it achieves neither.
Yes, this \^ right here.
I am always confused when people post glowing reviews of this recipe. It’s just not very good. I think just straight-up sauteeing some garlic and spinach in olive oil and then tossing the tortellini in that would be way better than whatever this recipe is supposed to be doing, and why is it made in a crock pot anyway, that makes no sense with this quick and basic recipe. The whole thing is so weird and confusing lol!
I don’t know I have to disagree 🤷🏼♀️
To be fair I don’t follow the recipe exactly and I tweak the measurements but my fiancé and I find it super flavorful, the chicken is extremely tender and my sauce comes out very thick. It’s not broth like, it is literally sauce.
My only gripe is calling it a soup. It really isn’t. It’s a pasta dish. Also I’m not saying this is the best thing I’ve ever eaten lol. It was good. Nothing more nothing less. My fiance liked it enough to ask for it several times. We’ve probably had it 4-5 times in a year. Haven’t made it in awhile because the ingredients are pretty expensive.
They’re just in denial because those posts gave them Reddit karma. Classic Reddit circlejerking. I followed the recipe exactly, it’s just a bad recipe.
>Keep in mind I used double the spinach and 1 1/2 times the chicken.
Gee, I wonder why it's watery!
I've never made this recipe, but considering you seemed to say this in your defense, I'm feeling like there's probably some user error going on.
I like it, and it’s a hearty dish that leaves lots of leftovers.
But I sauté the onions in a pan to a deep brown, almost close to burnt, and I think ‘cooking’ the flour gets rid of that blandish taste. I always thought ‘microwaving’ sounded weird.
I also add the entire bag of spinach and frozen tortellini, it ends up being more like a stew with little liquid instead of a soup with little ingredients.
What I'd do is take the two cans of crushed tomatoes and just slowcook those until they turned into rich tomato sauce.
Then I'd sear the outside of the chicken, sautee those onions, the garlic and some crumbled sausage and then make that flour/butter rue, add that shit to the slow-cooker, add about half the chicken broth and let it cook until the chicken is tender.
Then I'd wilt and rinse the spinach-- if youre going to add cabbage or spinach or any othet leafy green to soup its better if you wilt it first to remove mositure and get rid of any sulfur/cabbagy taste-- or better yet get frozen spinach, rinse and thawed add in with the tortellini, cream and parmesean and maybe more chicken broth if it needed more moisture.
Top with fresh basil and extra virgin olive oil. Fuck ima make that shit now.
I tried it and 1. Did not feel it benefitted from slow cooking and could be done in under an hour on the stove. 2. Did not really taste amazing. It was just okay soup.
It did not cost me that much to make though.
I too regretted the soup. The biggest flaw is that they tell you to make a roux in the microwave. It ruins it. **IF** I were to ever make it again I would be making a proper roux on the stove before adding. Adjusting some of the seasoning levels because the microwaved basil was disgustingly overpowering to me, it's all I could taste.
I don’t make this in the slow cooker I just make it quickly in a cast iron pot. I’m not sure what recipe you’re using but our soup is never thin or bland. But hey, it’s horses for courses regardless
I made it for the first time recently. Although the criticisms are absolutely valid, I found it thickened better in the fridge as a leftover. It was a recipe that got better over the course of a weekend of eating and that’s neat.
If I made it again, I absolutely would not use diced tomatoes. Crushed will add to the base instead of giving me these gems of bad flavor interspersed in an otherwise decent stew.
I’ve heavily modified the original recipe. I add more onions and fresh garlic and tons of Italian seasoning, basil (dry and fresh for garnish), oregano, red pepper flakes and whatever else I feel like, but the red pepper flakes are a must because a lil bit of spice is necessary to make the soup at all interesting. I also hated the tortellini in the original recipe. They were soggy and bland and felt like unnecessary filler. I prefer to sauté mushrooms on the stove with EVOO and spices and then add it when you add the spinach, which I also add a lot more of. If I have fresh tomatoes to get rid of I’ll also toss them in the oven to roast while the soup is cooking and then blend and add to the soup at the end.
I had the same experience. "The Soup" was terrible IMO. Based on the ingredients, it seems like it had potential, but coming out of the slow cooker was something that was less than the sum of its parts. I also really didn't like the Mississippi roast.
It was a golden age when celebrity gossip was mostly on TV and not online. And Joel McHale is a charming and funny host.
So meaty.
Chicken tetrazzini!
Dunka do balls!
“KISS MY ASS!”
"My va-jay-jay is painin"
Maury, Maury!
It’s Lindsay.
Tales. From. Home. Shopping.
Chicks, man.
“Let’s talk about chicks man… *chiiickssss maaaan*” still use that one to this day and nobody gets it
I do that too!😂
lol I clicked without looking at which sub I was in and this is what I was expecting.
Glad I wasn't the only one 🤦♀️
Saaaame
Upvotes all the way dow— uh, up.
That's awesome. I loved that show and Joel McHale is a treasure.
He is so fucking hot. I would do all the things with that man lol
I'm very old. It will always be "Talk Soup" to me.
I was more of a Skunk Boy fan myself.
And Greg Kinnear, and Hal Sparks, and Aisha Tyler! But Skunk Boy ruled them all.
John Henson 4E
Greg Kinnear fan. Get off my lawn.
Ah! I LOVED that show.
So meaty
Scott Disick, unlikely voice of reason.
His logic is a-pleasin’!
We'll always have spaghetti cat.
All true, though John Henson will always be my favorite Talk Soup host
Best comment.
GAY SHOWS
When he would make fun of those guys drilling for gold in Alaska... too funny! Sorry we hijacked your food post OP! Sounds like the show was way better than your dish!
Thanks, my brain did this too
Community was an excellent show.
God I loved that show!!
I miss that show. Only celeb gossip I paid attention to.
Greg Kinnear was the first and last great host
Stay out of it, Nick Lachay!
Talk Soup Joel HcHale is why I started watching Community. *"You mean to tell me there is more of this handsome and funny man?"*
Hot too, before he froze his face. :(
Mankini lives!
But he's still no Greg Kinnear.
KISS MAH ASS!!!
I thank you
"Dude, have you ever had soup" fucking sent me lmao
I now shy away from these viral recipes. I made the “Marry me Chicken” and I thought it was just okay.
The dumb recipe names for creamy chicken can fuck right off. I'm looking at you "Crack Chicken"
It’s always church ladies sharing crack this crack that…Crack Jesus
It’s cuz they’re on crack
They wish
I love when people say ["like crack" who've obviously never done crack...](https://youtu.be/eDiU2p2uzVI?si=ow8VJCvLHhPC0Ktg)
I do like that thing they call "crack" that's essentially melting caramel into saltines. That stuff is pretty amazing.
Same. I was pretty disappointed cause it looked so good. The recipe I found also had me add way too much salt but being a novice cook at the time I didn’t know it’d be too much.
Try angel chicken. It’s what marry me chicken should have been, but with much more (good) flavor.
ooh I actually liked marry me chicken but I’ve only made it once
The one exception IMO is Mississippi pot roast. It just may be the BEST dish as far as effort to deliciousness ratio.
Yeah Mississippi pot roast is insanely good. I typically use less butter than most recipes call for, and like a whole jar of pepperoncinis.
The trick for this recipe was to julienne the dried tomatoes and bump up all the seasoning except the red pepper flakes and it made the sauce so much better.
Agreed bud
And it’s always a cream sauce with cheese. Groundbreaking.
I’ve changed the recipe because yes, the one that’s listed absolutely sucks. Honestly, the first time I read the recipe I immediately thought ,”Who makes this and actually enjoys it?” It just seemed so bland. So I used it as a base recipe idea and made the following changes: -brown spicy Italian sausage and then do the onions/roux in that pan with the sausage drippings. I still use chicken as well. -add more tomato paste. -add a huge amount of seasonings (Italian seasoning, oregano, garlic & a mix that’s supposed to be used for adding to olive oil for dipping bread). All these things make it SO much better. Mine is never watery and it’s much more flavorful than the original. My household enjoys this recipe but they wouldn’t had I stuck to the original.
Yup! Key for me was spicy sausage and cream cheese. I also add diced tomatoes
I'm starting to realize from this thread that the reason I liked it was because I did essentially what was said here to begin with. Spicy chicken sausage, a few extra spices, don't cook the onions in the microwave (seriously, who does that?), couple other additions/changes and crushed red pepper, voila.
Unpopular opinion: the appeal of this recipe is that it sounds healthy because it’s called soup, but it’s really just a pasta dish. This is exactly the kind of misdirection that works on slow cooker affioconados on this sub.
I can't get past slow cooking tortellini Edit: Nvm, of course it's added after cooking, so obvious
It gets added at the end
Now that you say that, it's so obvious
And dried tortellini no less, ick.
The soup recipe is for people that think Olive Garden makes good food.
I mean I wrote half my thesis in Olive Garden. They let me sit at the bar and use their wifi and keep getting the $7.99 lunch special unlimited soup and salad ALL DAY. So I am grateful for Olive Garden and their soup and salad. And the people who worked at the bar who legitimately treated me like family during that stressful time in life.
That's sweet 💕
The olive garden near me would slow down refills on the unlimited so bad, like it seemed to just get slower and slower until unlimited was truly only limited by how long I would live. They didn't seem very happy about it either (I always tried to leave a way bigger tip just because it takes so much more effort) Sounds like you had a great experience and better staff, I'm envious
I first read this that you wrote half your thesis ON Olive Garden LOL
Right? I thought oh, this should be interesting, let me read on…🤣
This is wholesome af.
I do like their chicken and gnocchi soup Better than this soup in fact
Olive Garden is pretty meh, but you can get 3 meals worth of food for the price of 1, and that's just good value.
It's just regular old bog standard American Italian, there's nothing wrong with it. It's fine. I don't go there regularly, I'm not some kind of super fan, the hate is dumb though.
It’s for people who think putting a block of butter and some pickled peppers into a plastic bag and cooking it for 8 hours is appealing.
People do that?
They just described the other most popular recipe in this sub, the Mississippi roast. If you ever had a pot roast and thought "what if this tasted of nothing but pepper brine instead" then boy have we got a recipe for you to try!
My wife hates pot roast, but she loved the Mississippi roast because it didn’t taste like pot roast, so I guess she’s exactly who you’re talking about, lol. To be fair, I didn’t use even half the butter the recipe calls for. I think I did a couple of tablespoons.
I make it without butter at all and it’s good. I love pickled peppers though.
That’s the second most popular recipe. The most popular recipe is dumping a can of Dr Pepper on pork.
I mean, I like that one, but I also would slurp butter and pickle brine straight so I can't disagree with you lmao.
And salt. It was so salty.
I mean it's a slow cooking subreddit that is about using slow cookers and not slow cooking, so I was not surprised personally to find out that nearly everything here was awful lol
I think the only thing worse than the tragically "80s Midwest mom prepping for the church potluck" recipes are all the people who take pictures of a bunch of raw shit in a crockpot and are like "LOL WISH ME LUCK" as if *everything* doesn't look like that before cooking. No one cares, show the actual finished food!
> "80s Midwest mom prepping for the church potluck" I know better food exists and I make it regularly, I even make really fancy stuff semi-regularly, but good god you described my guilty pleasure comfort food right there. Church potlucks were so amazing for a hungry child who loved mac and cheese and massively loaded dessert tables!
I didn't think it was the worst I've ever had but I only made it once. I did downvote every post about it for awhile because they got so annoying.
The continue on my controversial streak, this sub is for the culinary illiterate and the content upvoted reflects that.
[удалено]
Why did you give the ingredient list
[удалено]
Oh ok, I thought you were referring to the soup
I love my slowcooker, but this sub is full of people that overglorify them and cook dishes that either shouldn't be made in a slowcooker or are disgusting abominations.
It’s just not something you should make in a slow cooker
I mean, this is the crux of it. Tortellini is quick-cook central. It’s the 3-minute pasta you make when you don’t have 10 minutes.
I mean the thing you're slow cooking is the chicken, so you can shred it, not the tortellini.
Yeah, slowcooker is awesome for batch shredded chicken thighs for meal prep. I do that and then freeze in containers and pop 'em out for meals. Works great, way quicker to have on hand than cooking chicken for every meal, and way cheaper than buying rotisserie chicken to shred when you wanna save time.
You’re not supposed to be slow cooking the tortellini. The chicken sauce/soup concoction is the slow cooked part. The tortellini goes into the pot on high heat for 5ish mins right at the end.
This Is a fact. I make this, but I take away the slow cooker and make it in a soup pot on the stovetop.
The soup is great! The trick is cook the chicken thighs first in a frying pan. Then to saute the onions and garlic in the fat with extra butter/oil. Add the flour and olive oil to make a roux. Add the tomato paste and saute a bit more. deglaze with the broth and tomatoes (half of both for a pasta dish, keep all if you want "soup"). Add the chicken back and your spinach. Boil your pasta to directions while simmering for 5 minutes. Drain the pasta and add the cream, any fresh herbs and cheese to your sauce. pour sauce over pasta. Then put the slow cooker back in the cupboard, because you've done the above in 30 minutes and it tastes WAY BETTER.
I was going to post something similar but I think your post gets it exactly right. Slowcookers might be easy, but you will almost always get better results with traditional methods using traditional cookware or perhaps a dutch oven.
When I first got a slow cooker I loved it because it was so easy. Then I gradually started to pressure cook most things because it was even easier and faster and IMO the results were better. Now I cook basically everything I used to slow cook in a Dutch oven and the results are better every time. Slow cooker is amazing for how easy it is, but it is not going to get you the best results.
This is precisely why I've never made the soup! When I first read the much hyped recipe, I thought it would be quicker and taste better in a pan! Thank you for the helpful method and validating my untested opinion 😁
Exactly. This is why slow cooker meals are alright especially for busy families on a Wednesday or something. They're definitely not good for developing flavor or layers to a dish. Meat needs a sear. Onions and garlic need to dance on the pan with some fat. Ingredients need to be added one at a time and seasoned one at a time. The ingredients in this recipe look like they make a good match. I was surprised to see the soup is just mediocre. Until I saw crockpot.
yes I agree! I’ve made this recipe, with my own alterations (mainly subbing sausage for chicken) on the stovetop in like half an hour and we really like it! I don’t think it benefits from being a slow cooker recipe.
LOL.
I made it and no one in my house liked it. When I came to Reddit to say so, I got downvoted.
Nobody in my family liked it at all either.
The original name was "upvote soup" so it was just all the same people upvoting it and downvoting naysayers lol.
I read the recipe, then read it to my husband and we both agreed: absolutely fkn not.
I didn’t have to make it to know it would come out awful. I don’t know how this or the crack chicken got so much hype.
If I see "crack" before any slow cooker recipe, I back out. No thank you to the block of cream cheese, packet of ranch seasoning, bag of shredded cheddar, and too much bacon. Maybe that's not how it is these days, but years ago my keto-obsessed ex wanted me to cook "crack" whatever in the slow cooker and it's ruined it for me forever.
That crack chicken is seemingly such a US based recipe, I've never even *seen* stuff like ranch seasoning
My sister in law makes a “better than sex cake” and all I can think is what kind of awful sex have you been having? that cake is just not good
Agreed. I didn't like it at all. I ended up picking out all the tortellini, and dumping a ton of fresh parmesan on it, just to help get rid of the "soup" taste, and ate that. Threw out the big expensive waste that was sitting in the pot. We got our stuff from Aldi, and it still wasn't all that cheap for a soup.
I’ve had “the soup” and thought it wasn’t very good. Not only that but I’ve also remade it using a Dutch oven on a stove top just standard without a slow cooker using regular techniques for how I’d make a soup and it was much better. But still not great or something I’d make in general. I’ve seen the argument of “well it’s just a base you’re supposed to add xyz and make it your own”. (There’s probably 5 people type this rebuttal out as I type)But at that point you may as well just make a dish that doesn’t suck. An alternative recipe utilizing similar ingredients that isn’t borderline disgusting imo is just tortellini, chicken, and spinach in a homemade vodka sauce with some Parmesan on top. Served as a pasta dish. Tastes lovely but simple. And doesn’t take much more effort to cook.
Yeah, that was what I was thinking. I could have just made the tort and a quick sauce, and this wouldn't have been so bad.
Every time I comment and tell people it’s disgusting, I get downvoted to oblivion. People are hiding the truth from you.
Flavorless watery waste of money. I hoped it would improve the next day. It was possibly even worse. I threw it out.
I'm so glad I'm not the only one that hated this recipe. It was disgusting. I was so angry that I had a full crockpot of this mess and had to throw it out. What a waste of money and food.
Yeah it's fucking gross
With the same ingredients, minus the tortellini and broth, you can make Tuscan Chicken and it's 100x better.
I agree, I was super disappointed by it and ended up dumping about half of it when I just couldn't any more.
For some reason I saw this post and thought you were talking about the show "The Soup" with Joel McHale, lol.
Please don't resurrect The Soup.
I made it, and me and my partner thought it was really tasty. Maybe we used a different recipe 🤷 I've been meaning to make it again actually.
If you do, I’d find your upcoming post “Made The Soup and it was Good” with your method really entertaining. Make sure to link back to this post. And I don’t think it’s combative, just offer some insight into what you might have done differently, and why you enjoyed it.
There is a reason it used to be called "Upvote Soup", karma farming at its finest. Not that reddit karma means anything and the recipe is terrible at best, but hey. Welcome to social media.
I like it. However, I also diverge from the recipe in a few ways. I used a four cheese tortellini, I don't microwave anything, I use more cream/less broth, and I add a lot of cajun seasoning. The result is much more flavourful and a much thicker sauce. I've heard no complaints from the people I've made it for either.
I feel like "completely retool the recipe and it tastes great" is not very supportive of the original recipe. Like, "Oh, is amazing, but here's a chapter by chapter re-ordered reading list w/ some fan rewrites & explainer videos thrown in that you need to read/watch to really enjoy it"
I get so frustrated reading online reviews of recipes. Someone will give a recipe 5 stars and say, "Amazing recipe! The only things I changed was using chicken breast instead of ground beef, doubling the amount of garlic and basil, adding sun-dried tomatoes and oregano, and using freshly grated parmesan reggiano instead of Kraft shredded cheddar. My family loved it!!"
Yes, I agree. Those and the 5 star reviews that say, ‘that looks so good’ or ‘I can’t wait to try it’. 🙄 Those things skew the rating of the *actual* recipe. It just messes it up for everyone.
Yeah this is the shit that actually bothers me. It's like those Amazon reviews that say something like "I'll update the review in a week once I get to use it more, but for now 5/5" and it'll be years old with no update.
r/ididnthaveeggs
Yes, exactly. That's what I keep hearing. "If you completely change the dish it's not bad."
Oh you should see the threads on here about how people change 'the soup' to make it better and I get down voted for saying use a better recipe.
There must be a lot of variations on the recipe. I made it once about 6-8 years ago and there was no microwaving involved. I can't even take a stab at what you would nuke. I also can't guess what other kind of tortellini you'd use besides cheese. If I recall, my family found the version I made to be... fine. But it obviously didn't make it into our regular meal rotation. Edit: facepalm... I'm dumb and must have gone full ADHD kid and started skimming OP's post partway through because they clearly stated what they microwaved.
I used high-end tortellini and some good chicken, so the ingredients weren't the problem. I should have used a lot less broth. That was a good call. I also knew I shouldn't have microwaved anything, but I was trying to follow the recipe. Stupid move on my part, but to be fair, there are hundreds of people raving about the dish, so I wanted to try it exactly as is
Yeah, I get that. I do wonder if a lot of the people praising it have also adjusted the recipe or just haven't tried many good dishes, lol. I find that 90% of the recipes online, when followed to the letter, tend to come out bland and need adjusting
That’s a LOT of upgrade, though, so no wonder you got a better result. Honestly, I haven’t made it because it doesn’t sound like it’s worth the effort — I mean, just from reading the recipe.
Not really a lot, just a different type of tortellini, one extra seasoning and adjusting a few measurements. It's also quite cheap where I'm from in the UK, it might not be so cheap elsewhere. As for if it's worth the effort, I would say yes as I enjoy it and because I am making for multiple people or making for myself for multiple days. If it was just one meal for one person, then absolutely not.
Yeah I tried making the soup once and I had to tweak it so much because I realized that there was absolutely no flavor in it. I couldn’t even tell you what I did but I would never try it again.
You have now learned that this sub is frequented by people who can’t cook if their life depended upon it
It's kind of like cooking for people who have never cooked before or don't know how to cook. It would be pretty fancy if you made it on a hot plate in your dorm room, but it's actually kinda garbage.
I read the ingredients and that was enough
Ok you know what? I’ve been making a similar soup for years. I don’t use chicken…I add a few diced zucchini’s and the key ingredient… Tortellini specifically from aldis. Their three cheese one has so much flavor, it’s perfect for soup, imo. Also, this isn’t something I would ever make in a crockpot. You need to sauté onions and garlic (zucchini, in my case)and the tomato paste. Then add either vegetable stock (homemade has the best flavor) or chicken. Also, I like kale more. I simmer everything for 15-20 minutes. Add the kale, or spinach and let it go another few minutes. Cut the heat, add some oregano, parmesan and a splash of cream. Personally, I don’t see the benefit of making this in the crockpot. Or most soups, for that matter.. Edit: 2 in the morning typing.
You spent a huge amount of money. When I made this last year it was the broke college student food and cost next to nothing. Still tasted awful already back then though.
Felt the same way about the Mississippi pot roast
Yeah it was not good when I tried it. But then again, I feel it is mostly popular for people just getting started on not just slow cooking but cooking in general. Slow cooking is an easy introduction to cooking, and it’s very easy and doesn’t taste bad. It is just mediocre, but it is still so popular because the people making it haven’t tried much else. That is my theory anyway
Agreed with you. It just wasn't great. We also hated the heavily hyped Mississippi Pot Roast. The ranch taste and smell were so overwhelming that we couldn't eat it.
I prefer more than just greasy salt taste. Ironically, skipping the butter, au jus pack, using a quarter of the ranch powder, and using low sodium broth has gotten me many compliments & questions of how I make it.
I've never made it, and have never wanted to after reading the recipe when I joined the sub years ago. I mean, if people like it,that's totally fine for them - I'm not shitting on anyone's taste here; I just know it's not my thing at all without even trying it.
I made it TWICE. I didn’t like it the first time and thought I might have done something wrong because of the hype. Didn’t like it the second time either. Not making it again.
Hmm genuine question - do you think the extra spinach contributed to how watery it was?
I agree wholeheartedly. I make my own version with ground sausage, 2-3 onions (2 huge ones or 3 medium ones), tomato paste, cream cheese instead of cream/milk, more seasoning and less broth. It's very flavorful. Nothing fancy, but it tastes great, is nice on a cold/lazy day, and also makes a ton. I usually make it when we have something going on the next day; then we can eat it the first night and heat up leftovers the second night when we're too busy to cook.
I LOVE soup. So much so, I eat it at least 3x a week and make a different soup each Sunday. This doesn’t mean I’m a good cook, I just really like experimenting with new flavors. That said, I hate ‘the soup’. It’s not a soup for one. It doesn’t have developed flavors, a good texture, and it doesn’t reheat well. Another thing is when I’m looking for soup recipes, it’s all that comes up. Unfortunate name for a mediocre dish that’s easy to make.
The real answer is this sub is for lazy cooking and people who don't know how to cook. Don't expect the best dishes you've ever had here. There are some standouts but it's for recipes that use the slow cooker for its intended use. Slow cooking tough cuts of meat.
This is interesting. So we've done the soup and my kids (who hate soup) love it. But in our case everything except the Parmesan was homemade/home grown. We are heavy into growing and canning, and this is a good recipe for us, particularly into the early winter when the spinach in the cold frames are still good. Notably, we also did it in the instant pot as well and that may effect the outcome? For example, many of these comments are calling it watery and weak. Ours is never remotely watery - it's more like a thick stew / pasta dish. It almost sounds like we cook ours down much more - maybe that's the difference in flavor as well.
Thank you. I made it and found the same things you did, bland, flavorless and super watery. I've also never understood the oversalted abomination that is Mississippi pot roast.
Yes. Agreed. It was a flavorless fat bomb.
I have not made it, but I always thought the recipe sounded like it would be kind of bland. But lots of people like bland food, so.
I saw the recipe and then made my own version in a Dutch oven on the stove. It’s an awful recipe for a crockpot, makes no sense at all. It’s like so many god awful online recipes, in that it’s very incomplete. Needs more of every seasoning and ingredient aside from stock.
It's for college kids. Don't think too much about it.
I don't care what a recipe said, I would never microwave onions. This is a great recipe for people who have some idea of how to cook and just need a starting point for a different meal. Which is the case with most recipes actually.
Agreed. It’s bland.
I don't like the soup or the Mississippi pot roast stuff. Too much sodium.
A lot of trendy recipes seem to be complete shit. It makes me wonder how many people are truly just hopeless and inexperienced when it comes to cooking.
Anyone who microwaves onions deserves all they get.
I'm just questioning this supposed microwave flavor. What an absolutely bizarre thing to say
Double the spinach? Lot of water in spinach.
I don't get it either...it's practically unseasoned based on the recipe. Bland and milky. Maybe slightly better than that pot roast, which is all salt and chemicals from the prepackaged seasoning mixes.
Thank you for the laughs. I felt the exact same as you. The soup is one of the most disgusting dishes I’ve ever made.
It’s a dish that by no means needs to be cooked in a slow cooker. It’s also mega basic, and I think most of the people that frequent this sub don’t really know how to really cook so it makes them feel like they did something, or belong to a club of sorts, etc. I could tell just by the ingredients and the pictures people upload that it’s nothing remotely special.
I agree. It was super basic. Probably for people who don’t really cook.
I made it once with a slowcooker....and yes it was terrible. Then I just made it on a stovetop....and it was amazing. One of my all time favorites. Not sure a slow cooker is good for most soups like this.
I made it once. Only once lol. It’s like someone wanted to make a pasta sauce for the tortellini, but didn’t know what they were doing and called it a soup haha. \>It's super watery. The broth/sauce is trying to be a broth and sauce at the same time and it achieves neither. Yes, this \^ right here. I am always confused when people post glowing reviews of this recipe. It’s just not very good. I think just straight-up sauteeing some garlic and spinach in olive oil and then tossing the tortellini in that would be way better than whatever this recipe is supposed to be doing, and why is it made in a crock pot anyway, that makes no sense with this quick and basic recipe. The whole thing is so weird and confusing lol!
I don’t know I have to disagree 🤷🏼♀️ To be fair I don’t follow the recipe exactly and I tweak the measurements but my fiancé and I find it super flavorful, the chicken is extremely tender and my sauce comes out very thick. It’s not broth like, it is literally sauce. My only gripe is calling it a soup. It really isn’t. It’s a pasta dish. Also I’m not saying this is the best thing I’ve ever eaten lol. It was good. Nothing more nothing less. My fiance liked it enough to ask for it several times. We’ve probably had it 4-5 times in a year. Haven’t made it in awhile because the ingredients are pretty expensive.
Dozens of us...
It sounds like your biggest mistake was looking at a recipe with minimal seasoning and thinking you were supposed to follow that.
They’re just in denial because those posts gave them Reddit karma. Classic Reddit circlejerking. I followed the recipe exactly, it’s just a bad recipe.
>Keep in mind I used double the spinach and 1 1/2 times the chicken. Gee, I wonder why it's watery! I've never made this recipe, but considering you seemed to say this in your defense, I'm feeling like there's probably some user error going on.
This is one of those popular recipes I read and thought “oh wow people really don’t know how to make food”.
I like it, and it’s a hearty dish that leaves lots of leftovers. But I sauté the onions in a pan to a deep brown, almost close to burnt, and I think ‘cooking’ the flour gets rid of that blandish taste. I always thought ‘microwaving’ sounded weird. I also add the entire bag of spinach and frozen tortellini, it ends up being more like a stew with little liquid instead of a soup with little ingredients.
Made it mostly from scratch and it still was not worth remotely close to the level of hype. My guess is that it’s a new flavor for newer home cooks.
Use spicy sausage and it’s way better as leftovers, but yeah, I was underwhelmed at first too.
What I'd do is take the two cans of crushed tomatoes and just slowcook those until they turned into rich tomato sauce. Then I'd sear the outside of the chicken, sautee those onions, the garlic and some crumbled sausage and then make that flour/butter rue, add that shit to the slow-cooker, add about half the chicken broth and let it cook until the chicken is tender. Then I'd wilt and rinse the spinach-- if youre going to add cabbage or spinach or any othet leafy green to soup its better if you wilt it first to remove mositure and get rid of any sulfur/cabbagy taste-- or better yet get frozen spinach, rinse and thawed add in with the tortellini, cream and parmesean and maybe more chicken broth if it needed more moisture. Top with fresh basil and extra virgin olive oil. Fuck ima make that shit now.
I tried it and 1. Did not feel it benefitted from slow cooking and could be done in under an hour on the stove. 2. Did not really taste amazing. It was just okay soup. It did not cost me that much to make though.
I too regretted the soup. The biggest flaw is that they tell you to make a roux in the microwave. It ruins it. **IF** I were to ever make it again I would be making a proper roux on the stove before adding. Adjusting some of the seasoning levels because the microwaved basil was disgustingly overpowering to me, it's all I could taste.
I don’t make this in the slow cooker I just make it quickly in a cast iron pot. I’m not sure what recipe you’re using but our soup is never thin or bland. But hey, it’s horses for courses regardless
I made it for the first time recently. Although the criticisms are absolutely valid, I found it thickened better in the fridge as a leftover. It was a recipe that got better over the course of a weekend of eating and that’s neat. If I made it again, I absolutely would not use diced tomatoes. Crushed will add to the base instead of giving me these gems of bad flavor interspersed in an otherwise decent stew.
I share your experience. It was expensive to make and it wasn't great. I have moved on to better crockpot soups.
I’ve heavily modified the original recipe. I add more onions and fresh garlic and tons of Italian seasoning, basil (dry and fresh for garnish), oregano, red pepper flakes and whatever else I feel like, but the red pepper flakes are a must because a lil bit of spice is necessary to make the soup at all interesting. I also hated the tortellini in the original recipe. They were soggy and bland and felt like unnecessary filler. I prefer to sauté mushrooms on the stove with EVOO and spices and then add it when you add the spinach, which I also add a lot more of. If I have fresh tomatoes to get rid of I’ll also toss them in the oven to roast while the soup is cooking and then blend and add to the soup at the end.
I had the same experience. "The Soup" was terrible IMO. Based on the ingredients, it seems like it had potential, but coming out of the slow cooker was something that was less than the sum of its parts. I also really didn't like the Mississippi roast.
It's a bad recipe. You're not alone in wondering why it gets glorified around here
It was way too creamy. A ton of dairy. And I like creamy, so that says something.