Best soup maker 2021: reviews of our top 5 for seasonal soups

It’s the perfect time of year to invest in the best soup maker. We’ve reviewed top soup makers from Morphy Richards, Lakeland, Judge, Drew & Cole, and Salter to bring you our top picks for making seasonal soups in under half an hour. When testing we made all sorts of delicious lunches, from a simple leek and potato to a spicy curried butternut squash soup. 

Each and every one of the best soup makers in our guide has been tested hands-on by Millie Fender, our small appliances expert, and ranked for ease of use, capacity, and features. Although none of them can go in the dishwasher because they come with electric-powered bases, many of the best soup makers have a self-clean button that blitzes any remnants of your soup from the blades or sides of the jug. Some of the soup makers in our guide can also be used in the place of the best blender to make smoothies and even crush ice. 

Other features we enjoyed were delayed start settings, which allow you to add your ingredients and come back in up to 12 hours to find a jug of freshly-cooked soup, and clear designs so you can see your food cooking. 

What is the best soup maker?

We tested five of the best soup makers on the market, and the one that came out on top was the Drew & Cole Soup Chef Pro. We were seriously wowed by the soup it produced, which was smooth and creamy, and it offers a delay start mode. If you’re looking for a soup maker that’s got a clear cooking container, we love the Morphy Richards Clarity Soup Maker. It’s got a clear tritan jug and heats very fast.

1. Drew and Cole Soup Chef Pro

Best soup maker for delay starts

Capacity: 1.6 litres
Modes: 3
Features: Saute, delay start

Reasons to buy: 

• Saute setting
• Memory function (perfect for adding ingredients)
• Delay start of up to 12 hours
• Takes only 20 minutes

Reasons to avoid: 

• It’s quite large

If you like the sound of coming home to a fresh cooked soup that you prepared before you left home, the Drew & Cole Soup Chef Pro is the best soup maker for you. It’s easy to delay the start by 30-minute intervals up to 12 hours, and the smooth cooking mode takes just 19 minutes. There’s also a smooth+ setting for seriously velvety soups, but even on the regular setting, we had zero issues with lumps or grainy ingredients. Everything was perfectly silky and cooked just how we like it. 

Another major perk is the saute setting, which is on the handle of the soup maker. You can sear your onions or garlic using this mode before adding stock and starting the blending setting. For the quality of the design, we also think it comes at a great price. 

Ideal Home rated 5 out of 5 stars

2. Morphy Richards Clarity Soup Maker

Best soup maker with a clear jug

Capacity: 1.6 litres
Modes: 3
Features: Clear tritan jug, straightforward controls
Power: 1000 watts

Reasons to buy: 

• Watch your soup as it cooks
• Speedy meals in 21 minutes
• Effective self-cleaning
• Keep warm function

Reasons to avoid: 

• The working capacity isn’t the largest

The Morphy Richards Clarity Soup Maker warns you that ingredients could stick to the bottom when cooking, but we had no issues with this when making our soups in it. Straight out of the box, it’s very easy to assemble. We were surprised to find that the jug is not glass, but felt like plastic. In fact, it is tritan, which is a very durable but lightweight material free from BPA. 

The smooth soup setting is only 22 minutes, which means you can set your soup up to cook and finish your bowl within the same lunch break. Cooking was very speedy, and the ingredients were simmering within five minutes of us turning it on. The controls at the top are straightforward to use, and there is one for smooth, chunky, and smoothie, and clean. The quality of the blending was great, and it also has a keep warm function that kept our soup perfect for drinking after it had finished blending. 

Ideal Home rated 5 out of 5 stars

3. Lakeland Touchscreen Soup and Smoothie Maker

Best high-end soup maker

Capacity: 1.75-2 litres
Modes: 4
Features: Self-clean, can also crush ice
Power: 1000 watts

Reasons to buy: 

• Transparent tritan jug
• Easy controls
• Recipes included
• Speedy soup making

Reasons to avoid: 

• An expensive option that won’t fit under counters

The Lakeland Touchscreen Soup & Smoothie Maker is by far the most premium-looking option we tested. It has a price tag to match, though, so if you drink a lot of soup then it will be a great investment.

With a modern design and a blender-like jug, it has modes for smooth and chunky soups as well as sauces and even iced drinks. We really enjoyed the control panel, which made the process very easy, and the timer also helped to know when to add any extras. We were able to add cream to our tomato soup once the blending started thanks to a removable lid insert. If you want an extra smooth finish you can also just blend without heating once your soup has finished. The auto-clean function was also very effective. 

Ideal Home rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

4. Judge Soup Maker

Best soup maker for extra functions

Capacity: 1.2 litres
Modes: 6
Features: Can steam eggs and reheat

Reasons to buy: 

• Heats very fast
• Easy to pour
• Comes with an egg cooker
• Removable cap in lid

Reasons to avoid: 

• Smaller capacity than some
• The lid is quite fiddly

The Judge Soup Maker has a capacity of 1.7 litres, but if you’re making soup it will only take up to 1.2 litres. We found that it heated up very fast, and because the jug is plastic and see-through it’s possible to watch your soup as it cooks. 

We enjoyed the powerful blending modes which left us with a very smooth soup, and because it’s got a classic blender-style design you can also use the Judge Soup Maker to make chilled drinks. The removable cap allows you to add ingredients while it’s cooking, but we did find that the lid was sometimes tricky to lock into place. 

Ideal Home rated 4 out of 5 stars

5. Salter Electric Homemade Healthy Soup Maker

Best value soup maker

Capacity: 1.3 to 1.6 litres
Modes: 2
Features: Self-clean, blend button

Reasons to buy: 

• Budget-friendly option
• Heatproof handle
• Simple controls

Reasons to avoid: 

• Some ingredients burnt to the bottom

Salter’s soup maker is the most budget-friendly option in our guide, and it’s a trusted choice to make either chunky or smooth soups. You are warned that ingredients can burn to the bottom before use, and a good way to fix this is to add some oil to prevent sticking, but we still found that there was a little burning after our soup was finished.

There are two soup modes: smooth, chunky, and one for blending or self-cleaning. The self-clean mode is very effective at removing residue from the blending blade. We also liked using the blend setting to add an extra blitz for soups we wanted a little smoother. 

Ideal Home rated 4 out of 5 stars

How we tested the best soup makers

Making broccoli and stilton soup in the Lakeland touchscreen soup maker

Soup makers can be used to make all types of different soups, including chunky, smooth, and even gazpacho. When testing the best soup makers we cooked a variety of recipes to make sure they were all up to the task of making even tricky soups. Some classics, like butternut squash or leek and potato, will blend very easily into velvety smooth soups, whereas others like pea soup or broccoli and stilton, will need to be very well cooked and blended to achieve the consistency you’re after.

Making butternut squash soup in the Judge soup maker

We also made a lot of tomato soup using tomatoes and red peppers to see if the skin would pose a challenge to the cooking and blending, and while we used the same recipes, it was amazing to see the slight (or sometimes not-so-slight) differences that arose between different soup makers upon testing. 

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