Canned soup is ........................................ sorry, fell asleep there.

Because canned soup is boring. It's the edible equivalent of every scene in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies that isn't a battle scene. And, like those LOTR non-battle scenes, canned soup can guide you off into peaceful, if inadvertent, slumber.

So it's time to enliven our canned soups people! It's time to add some much-needed routine to a tired staple. It's time to Richard Simmon-ize chicken noodle! It's time to go Ultimate Warrior on cream of tomato! It's time to Tom-Cruise-on-a-couch-ize the hell out of minestrone!

Canned soup doesn't have to be boring and nap-inducing. It can be delicious and satisfying and healthful and substantive and taste way, way better than the lukewarm puddle of puppy tears that you're usually used to.

All it takes to make canned soup taste better is a few extra ingredients you likely have hiding somewhere in your kitchen, a few spare seconds of your time, and a little culinary ingenuity.

Here are the five best ways to make canned soup taste amazing. Use one, or go wild and use them all at once. Each one makes your bowl exponentially better.

Heat your soup. Dump it in a bowl. Then take whatever is the BEST olive oil you have in your pantry, pop the top, and go ahead and give that soup a little twirl of luscious liquid fat.

The fruity-grassy flavors of the olive oil will help to balance the sodium of the canned soup and make the whole meal taste richer.

A squeeze of citrus is like waving a wand over humdrum soup. It perks up the vegetables. It elevates the proteins. It freshens up the entire act. Suddenly, everything tastes more magical.

Lemon and lime juice are the two go-to citrus additions here, but if you're feeling particularly wild, go ahead and freestyle with others.

I know what you're thinking: But what happens if a seed spurts forth from the fruit and into the soup? My meal will be ruined!

Thought of that. There's only one right way to squeeze a lemon and it's this way.

Ohhhhohoho yeah now we're talking. Like olive oil, the fat in heavy cream can round out the salty-tinny flavors of canned soup. But heavy cream also brings with it something olive oil doesn't: a powerfully comforting creaminess.

If your favorite part of chicken noodle soup is the chicken, get out of here. Everyone knows the best part of chicken noodle soup is the noodles. And there are never enough of them. So add more.

Egg noodles, udon noodles, fettuccine, ditalini, rigatoni, heck even some ramen noodles from those plastic-wrapped bricks you have in your pantry—whatever noodle you want to add, just do it.

Yeah, okay, this one's a little weird. But seeds operate on the same premise as croutons in soup: They lend a nice crunch. Only croutons only offer a sort of half-assed crunch, as they quickly grow soggy in the liquid. Seeds, by comparison, stay crunchy. Plus, they're way more delicious than croutons.

Some good soup seeds: pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and flax seeds.