Soup season might not start when you'd think, and it might not peak when you'd think either. Instacart dug into its 2025 orders to find out when people stock up, which states buy soup most often, which can each state reaches for, and what ends up in the cart next to it. From the first cold snap to the green bean casserole rush, here's what 2025 Instacart orders reveal about how people shop for soup. Fair warning: It involves a surprising amount of crispy fried onions.
Key takeaways
If your guess is January, you're close, but the calendar says otherwise. Soup's share of the cart rises steadily through the autumn months and peaks the week of Nov. 17, when it runs +42% above its yearly average, the week before Thanksgiving.
- Soup peaks before Thanksgiving, not in January. Soup's share of the cart hits +42% above its yearly average the week of Nov. 17.
- North Dakota buys soup most often. Its share of soup (not counting broth) runs +43% above the national average, ahead of Wyoming (+33%) and Alaska (+30%), while New Jersey (-26%) and Massachusetts (-20%) sit near the bottom.
- Idaho started soup season first. It kicked off on Sept. 29, 2025, more than a month before the U.S. as a whole (Nov. 2) and Arizona and Texas (Nov. 7).
- Cream of mushroom dethrones chicken noodle, for exactly two weeks. It peaks at +220% above its yearly average around Thanksgiving, and orders with it are 39 times as likely to include crispy fried onions.
- Four cans run the canned aisle. Chicken noodle, cream of chicken, cream of mushroom and tomato make up 63% of canned soup.
- The Pacific Northwest out-chowders New England. Washington (+83%) and Oregon (+80%) buy clam chowder more often, relative to the nation, than any New England state.
When Do People Actually Buy Soup?
The low point is the week of June 30, when soup's share sits 38% below its yearly average. Far fewer people are ladling up soup ahead of the Fourth of July.
Instacart
Methodology: Instacart calculated the weekly share of items sold on the Instacart platform that were soup in 2025 and compared it to soup's 2025 average share. Soup excludes chili.
Which States Buy Soup Most Often?
For this question, the research focused on bowl soups: everything in the soup aisle except broth, stock and bouillon, which often go into other recipes rather than straight into a bowl.
The coldest states aren't the whole story. North Dakota reaches for bowl soups more often than any other U.S. state or Canadian province, with a share +43% above the national average, followed by Wyoming (+33%), Saskatchewan, Canada (+32%) and Alaska (+30%). Rounding out the top eight are Arkansas (+27%), Nebraska (+26%), Missouri (+24%) and Kentucky (+23%).
On the other end of the map sit New Jersey (-26%), Massachusetts (-20%), Connecticut (-19%) and New York (-18%). This one looks less like north versus south and more like the heartland versus the coasts.
Instacart
Methodology: Instacart calculated the percentage difference between the share of items sold on the Instacart platform that were bowl soups (soup excluding broth, stock and bouillon) in each U.S. state and Canadian province compared to the respective national share in 2025. Data from select retailers removed from certain states as legally required.
Does It Hold Up City by City?
Mostly, yes. Wichita, Kansas (+38%) and St. Louis (+35%) top the list of soup capitals, followed by Macon, Georgia (+32%), Louisville, Kentucky (+32%), Lincoln, Nebraska (+31%) and Fargo, North Dakota (+30%).
Nine of the 10 cities buying the least soup are in California or the Northeast, led by Beverly Hills, California (-49%), Newport Beach, California (-33%), Newton, Massachusetts (-33%), Sunnyvale, California (-33%) and New Rochelle, New York (-32%).
Instacart
Methodology: Instacart calculated the percentage difference between the share of items sold on the Instacart platform that were soup in each U.S. city compared to the national share in 2025. Limited to the 250 highest-volume cities. Data from select retailers removed from certain states as legally required.
Does Soup Season Start at the Same Time in Every State?
No. To find out when soup season starts, researchers marked the first day each state's bowl-soup buying ran at least 20% above its yearly norm and stayed there for two weeks. Idaho kicked off soup season first in 2025, on Sept. 29, followed by Utah (Oct. 2), Montana (Oct. 3) and Washington (Oct. 15).
Most Midwest and Northeast states got there between Oct. 24 and Nov. 2, and so did the U.S. as a whole (Nov. 2). The last states to start were California, Nevada, North Dakota, Rhode Island and Virginia (Nov. 6), and Arizona and Texas (Nov. 7). In other words, the Mountain West gets the first spoonful, and the Sun Belt gets the last.
Instacart
Methodology: Instacart calculated the trailing seven-day share of items sold on the Instacart platform that were bowl soups (soup excluding broth, stock and bouillon) in each U.S. state in 2025, and identified the first date from Aug. 1 on which it ran at least 20% above the state's 2025 average share and stayed there for the following 14 days. Wyoming did not reach this threshold. Data from select retailers removed from certain states as legally required.
Does Every Soup Peak at the Same Time?
Look closer at that single curve from the top of this report, and it splits in two. Thanksgiving soups are mostly cooking soups: cream of mushroom (+220% above its yearly average at its peak), cream of chicken (+81%), broth and stock (+72%) and bouillon (+61%) all peak the week of Nov. 17 or 24.
January soups are classic bowls of soup: vegetable beef (+77%), tomato (+76%), clam chowder (+72%), chicken and rice (+66%) and chicken noodle (+64%) all peak in January.
Instacart
Methodology: Instacart calculated each soup type's weekly share of items sold on the Instacart platform in 2025 and compared it to that type's 2025 average share. Soups are grouped by the week of their 2025 peak.
How Big Is the Thanksgiving Swing?
Big enough to knock chicken noodle off its throne. Among bowl soups (not counting instant ramen), it's No. 1 on Instacart in 50 of 52 weeks. The two exceptions are the weeks of Nov. 17 and 24, when cream of mushroom takes over.
A lot of that cream of mushroom looks headed for a casserole dish: Orders with it are 39 times as likely to include crispy fried onions (+3,795%) and 13 times as likely to include canned green beans (+1,219%).
Instacart
Methodology: Instacart ranked bowl soups (soup excluding broth, stock, bouillon and instant ramen) by their weekly share of items sold on the Instacart platform in 2025 and charted the top five. Basket comparisons use a sample of orders on the Instacart platform from July 2025 to June 2026.
What's Actually in the Cans?
To compare states on an even playing field, researchers zoomed in on one shelf: canned soup. Four cans make up 63% of the canned soup aisle: chicken noodle (20.9%); cream of chicken (15%); cream of mushroom (14.5%); and tomato (12.2%). No other flavor reaches 3%.
Instacart
Methodology: Instacart calculated each canned soup flavor's share of canned soup items sold on the Instacart platform in 2025. Flavors are grouped by product name; chili is excluded.
Which of the Big 4 Wins Where?
Chicken Noodle is the top can in 36 U.S. states and Canadian provinces. The other three each have a home turf: cream of chicken across the South (plus Ohio, Indiana, Oklahoma and Utah); cream of Mushroom across the Upper Midwest and the Prairie provinces; and tomato in Quebec, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Edward Island.
Instacart
Methodology: Instacart calculated each canned soup flavor's share of canned soup items sold on the Instacart platform in each U.S. state and Canadian province in 2025 and identified the flavor with the largest share in each. Data from select retailers were removed from certain states as legally required.
What Is Each State's Standout Soup?
Being No. 1 mostly comes down to overall popularity, so researchers also looked at which can each state buys far more of than the rest of the country. Cream of mushroom is the standout in 12 U.S. states and Canadian provinces, from Iowa and Minnesota up through the Prairies (and, somewhat unexpectedly, Hawai‘i). Cream of chicken takes 10, mostly across the South.
Then come the regional specialties. Italian wedding is the standout from New Hampshire down to Delaware (plus Ontario); and corn chowder leads in Maine, Vermont, Idaho and Prince Edward Island. The biggest personalities belong to South Carolina, which buys consommé at +255% the national share, North Dakota with cheddar cheese soup (+250%), and Rhode Island with Italian wedding (+161%).
Instacart
Methodology: Instacart calculated the difference between each flavor's share of canned soup items sold on the Instacart platform in each U.S. state and Canadian province and its national share in 2025, and identified the flavor with the largest combined absolute and percentage difference in each. The list ranks each state's standout flavor by its percentage difference. Data from select retailers removed from certain states as legally required.
Surely New England Owns Chowder?
Not quite. Clam chowder over-indexes in New England (Massachusetts and Connecticut are both +68%, New Hampshire +60%), but the two states that buy it most often relative to the rest of the country are on the other coast: Washington (+83%) and Oregon (+80%).
Instacart
Methodology: Instacart calculated the percentage difference between clam chowder's share of soup items sold on the Instacart platform in each state and its U.S. national share in 2025, and charted the states with the largest differences. Data from select retailers removed from certain states as legally required.
What Does Each Can Travel With?
Each of the top cans has a sidekick. Orders with clam chowder are nearly 16 times as likely to include oyster crackers (+1,483%). Chicken noodle carts lean sick day, with saltines (+859%) and cold and flu medicine (+540%).
Tomato soup travels with sliced cheese (+224%) and sourdough (+202%), which sounds a lot like grilled cheese. And orders with cream of chicken are nearly 12 times as likely to include egg noodles (+1,073%).
Instacart
Methodology: Instacart compared the share of orders on the Instacart platform containing each item among orders with each canned soup flavor to its share among all orders, using a sample of orders from July 2025 to June 2026. Sliced cheese, saltines and oyster crackers are grouped by product name.
The Last Spoonful
So whether you're stocking up on cream of mushroom for the green bean casserole, keeping a can of chicken noodle (and the saltines) ready for a sick day, or pairing tomato soup with a grilled cheese, soup season is just about here... unless you're in Idaho — there you might already be late.
Methodology: Soup in this report includes canned, deli, frozen, instant and dry soups, broth and stock, bouillon, and instant noodle soups on the Instacart platform, and excludes chili. Bowl soups exclude broth, stock and bouillon. Soup types and canned flavors are grouped by product name. Basket comparisons use a sample of orders on the Instacart platform from July 2025 to June 2026. Data from select retailers were removed from certain states as legally required.
This story was produced by Instacart and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.