Cast your vote for your favorite veg and non-veg soups! Top winners take home the 2025 trophy!
My Midwestern Mom
This bowl shows up like a casserole queen in tight jeans and a themed apron: cut-up hot dogs bobbing in cozy broth with beans, veggies, and way too much enthusiasm. It’s hearty, cheesy, and just a little suggestive like the mom who brings her “famous hot dog soup” to the church potluck, laughs too loud at every joke, and somehow has all the dads volunteering to help her carry the crockpot back to her car.
Not Vegetarian
Hometown Girl with a Past
All the flavors of homecoming in Batavia, not Buffalo: wing-night heat and a whisper of blue cheese, wrapped up in a girl who still sings along in church and cries at the national anthem. She loves her mama, she loves Jesus, she loves America too and she absolutely got felt up in the back of a ’95 Dodge Neon behind the bowling alley while “The Final Countdown” blared like an anthem for her never-ending farewell tour of high school.
Not Vegetarian
A May-December Situationship
In this pot, the cheddar is the older, slow-melted sophisticate: sharp, seasoned, and absolutely done with everyone’s nonsense. The jalapeño is the young (but legal - 20s really) menace....bright, hot, and swaggering in with all its seeds intact, daring you to get close. Together they simmer into a creamy, dangerous affair where wisdom softens the edges of heat, but everyone knows the rule: respect the pepper, mind the seeds, or get burned by the romance.
Not Vegetarian
The Perimenopausal Princess
She’s all blended herbs and shy greens, trying to pass herself off as “light and cleansing” while absolutely going through it. One sip is bright and hopeful, the next is salty and a little bitter for no clear reason—mood-swinging between spa day and bar rant. She’s cooling, then suddenly warm, absolutely convinced she’s starting a new chapter but still telling the same old stories, a perimenopausal goddess in a mug, trying to stay fresh while the tides shift underneath her.
Not Vegetarian
Doing the Most and the Least
The coconut milk runs the show: precise lemongrass, orderly mushrooms, disciplined lime...nothing out of place, every flavor in its lane. It offers warm, tangy comfort to everyone invited to the table but behind the scenes, it's indulgent and quietly reminding you that if you want another ladle of this creamy, chili-kissed perfection, you’re going to have to earn it.
Not Vegetarian
The Village Inn Copycat
This chowder shows up like a regular at the bar in Grand Island: creamy base trying to act respectable while lemon cuts through like sharp judgment and Tabasco pops off like someone starting shit at trivia night. The clams are just along for the ride while the citrus and heat tag-team your sinuses awake, the exact soup you order when you swear you’re “taking it easy tonight” and somehow still end up oversharing your whole life to a bartender who already knows your order.
Not Vegetarian
The Generational Trauma Resolver
This is the soup that shows up at 11 a.m. still wearing last night’s eyeliner, made of hominy that’s absolutely seen some things, shredded pork clinging like it swore it was done with you, and a chile broth that tastes like generations of unresolved family drama. Lime, onion, cabbage, and radish just stand on top like emotional support garnish while the whole bowl screams “you said you could handle spicy” and then proves you very, very wrong.
Not Vegetarian
The Family Favorite
This is the righteous Georgian stew that has never done a single thing wrong: beef, rice, walnuts, and tkemali all simmered into pure beauty. It shows up tangy, perfectly spiced, and putting dinner on the table for the thousandth time. It doesn’t crack, it just keeps bubbling, confident history will remember who actually held this family together.
Not Vegetarian
Rotisserie Chaos in a Pot
Built on a rotisserie chicken that’s stripped like it owes someone money, this soup is pure North Buffalo legacy: glossy broth, noodles cooked just past al dente, carrots and celery doing background vocals. It’s not sacred, it’s not old-country, it’s just unapologetically delicious.
Not Vegetarian
A Scalding Mixtape
Smoke on the nose, pepper in the back of the throat, this soup walks in like it already went platinum. Jerk spices riding the broth, chicken falling into the beat, scallions and thyme cutting through like ad-libs. First sip is a warning shot, second sip is a hook, by the third you’re sweating, sniffling, low-key questioning your life choices while still going back for more. This isn’t comfort food, if it were a song, it would hit in A minor and you need a full-body key change you definitely weren't ready for.
Not Vegetarian
Feral Cottagecore
Golden broth prowls around pillowy gnocchi and tender chicken like a sly fox in the treeline—woodsy, buttery, and absolutely not to be trusted. Herbs and vegetables float through like forest understory, while the whole thing feels like Little Red Riding Hood “going to grandmother’s” but somehow ending up at the cabin of a big, very naughty wolf who wants one more spoonful.
Not Vegetarian
Meet your Burger King
All the comfort of a drive-thru burger in a bowl that just got it's life back: beefy, cheesy, potato-y, and absolutely done settling. It’s got pickles, onions, and zero interest in “sharing a bowl” ever again just living it's best salty, satisfied life, refilling itself and cackling at how much better everything tastes now that it's for pleasure, not compromise.
Not Vegetarian
Soft-hearted Submissive in a Crock
Where the vegan beef stew shows up to fight your expectations, this one arrives with its head bowed and apron on: tender beef, falling apart at the slightest pressure, potatoes and carrots dutifully soaking up all the broth they’re given. It’s nonconfrontational, all gravy and no challenge, letting you set the pace, take the first move, decide how deep the spoon goes. This is the stew that says “yes” before you even ask, happy to be second, happiest when the bowl is drained.
Not Vegetarian
The Swamp Witch
Dark roux, moody broth, and collard greens simmered down into something firm, salty, and absolutely done with your excuses. Sausage, okra, and whatever else wandered in just fall in line with every spoonful a smoky little sermon about showing up, shutting up, and letting the gumbo handle your soul.
Not Vegetarian
The Red Scare
Beet-red and unapologetic, this soup walks into the room and immediately gets accused of being un-American. Every spoonful tastes like being dragged before a 1950s committee and grilled about “exactly how long you’ve been this red,” while you just sit there, earthy and gorgeous, refusing to name names and getting hotter under the collar anyway.
Not Vegetarian