The greatest clam chowders usually come from a dockside restaurant, but if you don’t live in a Lifetime movie, you might not have access to one. The next best thing on a rainy day is the canned stuff.
Wondering what to grab off the shelf the next time you’re craving the creamy comfort of clam chowder? I tried six popular brands of clam chowder and ranked them from best to worst to help you find the best New England clam chowder at the grocery store.
Prices and availability are subject to change.
Best: Trader Joe’s New England Clam Chowder
$4.99 at Trader Joe’s
Trader Joe’s really sneaks up on ya, sometimes. It seems they exclusively dominate in areas that you’d never expect, such as clam chowder, being one of them. Believe it or not, this was one of my first forays into the Trader Joe’s refrigerated soup lineup, and I sure wasn’t disappointed. Of all the clam chowders I tasted, this reminded me most of a dish from a real restaurant.
It’s not too creamy, extremely well-seasoned, and loaded with full pieces of clams. Nearly every canned soup out there uses chopped-up little bits rather than whole pieces. Good on ya, Teej. I’ll get this again.
2. Bar Harbor New England Clam Chowder
$6.99 at World Market
Here’s what happened with Bar Harbor. I ran out of milk when I made Campbell’s and Snow’s. After tasting a bunch of mostly mediocre but indistinguishable chowders, I thought to myself, hey, you deserve this. So I decided to use butter instead of milk to thicken this Bar Harbor’s chowder. The can even says this is allowed.
Guess what? The secrets of cooking aren’t that hard to figure out. If you melt an entire stick of butter into something, it’s gonna make it taste extremely good. I kind of lost myself in this one for a moment, eating spoonful after spoonful right out of the pot on the stove. Yeah, I guess there were clams and potatoes in there. But I dunno, I was mostly just thinking about how insanely delicious butter is.
3. Snow’s New England Clam Chowder
$3.49 at Albertson’s
Like Bar Harbor, these clams and potatoes are of significantly higher quality than most of the major brands. You’re getting whole clam chunks in this thing, and they taste like something that was caught recently, not something that’s been sitting in a can at your grocery store.
Careful with your milk, though. You need to add some to this, and though I used even less than the directions say, this thing was just a bit too milky for my liking. Maybe you should use butter instead. Uh oh, I have a problem.
4. Campbell’s Chunky New England Clam Chowder
$2.26 at Walmart
This is the perfect, simple, grab-off-the-shelf clam chowder as far as I’m concerned. Campbell’s isn’t kidding with the word chunky; the taters in here are massive, and the clams are far heartier than the smaller can. It knocks Progresso firmly down a few pegs.
5. Campbell’s New England Clam Chowder
$8.99 at Walmart
Unless larger bites in soup put you off, I see no reason why anybody would buy this over the Chunky version. This is just smaller and more bland. If creamy soups and clams aren’t for you, maybe clam chowder is the wrong choice for dinner tonight.
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6. Progresso New England Clam Chowder
$2.18 at Walmart
It’s fine. No crimes here. It’s just bland and a little boring, with the tiniest chopped clams of all. The potatoes are also noticeably less enjoyable than Campbell’s, with a more starchy texture. There’s a lot of cream too. Yeah, I’d still eat this if it was in my cupboard, but with even a little bit of effort, I can do better.
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