Thanksgiving Turkey Dinner Soup

So we're approaching the holiday season, and despite retail stores wanting us to think that the next big event is Christmas, I'm glad to see Hale and Hearty offer a Thanksgiving based menu item. Their monthly soup special for November is Thanksgiving Turkey Dinner Soup. They describe it as "Why wait for Thanksgiving? Everything you like about the day after our favorite holiday can be had now, without your uncle snoring." While that all sounds nice, the description itself is really lacking. I decided to get this soup anyway, and I did so without tasting it first.

I made that decision because I want to start being more objective about my reviews. If I taste a couple soups beforehand, it will affect my decision on which soup to get and also almost ensure that all of my reviews are good. I want to take some risks with this and give as unbiased an opinion as I can.

The first thing I noticed about this soup was the rich, buttery flavor. I overheard one of the employees talking to another customer noting that there was butter in the soup, but there was no other dairy added, and on my first taste that was the biggest flavor I got. As I dug further into it, I started getting heavy herbaceous hits from the parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. Or at least, that's what I think I was tasting. I will admit to not being the greatest at distinguishing all of the flavors of various spices. The rest of the soup consisted of the turkey stock, chunks of really soft turkey, carrots, peas, celery, sweet potato, and cranberries.

The cranberries and sweet potatoes added a subtle sweetness to the overall flavor of the soup. Overall the soup was very balanced. It wasn't too salty, and the sweetness really mellowed everything out. The only major component of Thanksgiving that they didn't throw in was some potato element (baked, mashed, etc.) but I get that they couldn't since that would have really thickened this soup up a lot, and there was already a lot going on.

This was a tasty soup that really captured a lot of the essences and flavors of what goes into a traditional Thanksgiving meal. I really enjoyed the blend of "dishes" and spices that coalesced into this festive soup. I would definitely consider getting this again later this month.