How To Host The Souper Bowl

The best part about the Super Bowl is the food. But, hear me out, what if it was the only part? This year make your Super Bowl party all about food by hosting The Souper Bowl, a competition to see who can make the best soup. Instead of the grown men tackling each other on the field, a creamy tomato soup and a rich seafood stew duke it out to see who is tastier.

Soup season and the NFL playoff season happen at the same time. Coincidence? I think not. But, Super Bowl Sunday isn’t the only time to host your Souper Bowl. The bitter cold of February is the perfect time to cozy up with a bowl of soup.

The beauty of the Souper Bowl is the opportunity to taste many soups. It feels like ordering a curated beer flight at a brewery but instead of ice-cold beer, your cups are filled with warm goodness.

In this guide, we’ll go over everything you need to know to host your very own Souper Bowl.

The Souper Bowl

At the Souper Bowl, everyone gets a taste of each soup and ranks them. Before the tasting begins, each competitor introduces and describes the story behind their soup. After everyone has tasted the soup, people cast their votes by ranking the soups through a Google form. The winner is then crowned with a golden ladle (or other prize of your choosing).

Getting the soup

For the Souper Bowl to be successful, you need people to commit to bringing a homemade soup to your house. In my case, four people including me, the host, made a soup. Ask your friends what soup they’re planning to make so there are no duplicates.

Because 16 people were attending my Souper Bowl each chef was instructed to make 4 to 6 servings of soup. Make sure to do the math on how many serving sizes you need based on the number of people attending.

If you have a big group, you don’t want everyone to make a soup because then it’s too many to taste. I would stick to 4 to 6 soups, no matter the party size.

Contestants brought the soup in glass containers and big mason jars. The soups were then reheated when they arrived.

Could you order soup from a restaurant? Yes, but it sucks the competitive spirit out of the Souper Bowl.

Serving the soups

When all your guests have arrived, warm up the soups on the stove or in the microwave. If you’re warming the soup in the microwave, heat it for 3 or more minutes so the soup is piping hot and stays warm.

Luckily, the soup won’t have enough time to get cold because everyone will want to eat it so quickly.

You can also leave some soups on the stovetop for people to serve themselves.

Make sure you have enough ladles or large spoons to serve each soup. You can ask your guests to bring a ladle from home.

You can order mini disposable soup bowls and cups for servings on Amazon. We used these disposable bowls for bigger servings and these mini cups for smaller tastings. Plus, biodegradable disposable spoons. (There are even football-themed bowls.)

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Pairings and accompaniments

Nothing goes better with soup than a warm piece of bread to dip into it. Whoever isn’t bringing soup, can bring fresh bread from a bakery. As people arrive, keep the bread warm in your oven at 250 degrees.

Because my friends are overachievers, everyone brought their own unique pairing for their soup. A tomato soup came with a grilled cheese. The kimichi seafood stew was paired with a Korean seafood pancake. And, pickle soup had whipped cream to top it. (I’m not kidding).

Encourage your Souper Bowl contestants to get creative and bring a pairing. They can even team up with someone else invited to the party to help them bring a pairing.

Voting for the best soup

After everyone has tasted each soup, it’s time to vote. You can do this one of two ways: the old-fashioned way by putting names in a bowl or on Google form.

Google Forms allows your guests to easily cast their votes and rank their favorite soups on their phones. To create a Google Form with a ranking system, create a multiple-choice grid. On the bottom left of the question widget, there will be three dots. Click it and select “Limit to one response per column.” In the rows, write 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc., and in the column section write out all the names of the soups.

The ranking system will allow you to see who got first, second, and third place.

Tallying up the score

If you used a ranking system on Google Forms, you’ll need to do a bit of math to determine the winner.

You’ll need to allocate a score to each ranking and soup. For example, if a soup receives a ranking of 1st place, it will be given 10 points (the highest), but if it was ranked 4th by someone else, it will be given 6 points for that ranking. You need to add together all the points of each ranking to determine a final score. The soup with the highest score will be crowned the winner. You can use ChatGPT to help with the math.

If you just put names in a bowl, count to see which soup had the highest number of votes.

The prize

You can compete for bragging rights or give out a prize. The winner of my Souper Bowl won a golden ladle. You can buy an affordable golden ladle on Amazon here. You can also opt to give out a digital gift card to the winner.