Classic Tomato Soup (Lightened Up!) (2024)

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This soup is everything I want tomato soup to be! It’s rich and creamy, yet doesn’t weigh me down. It’s bursting with amazing tomato flavor, yet it’s made from canned tomatoes.

That’s right, canned tomatoes. The season for ripe tomatoes (summer) is not the season for tomato soup (fall through spring). It’s a real conundrum, and this homemade tomato soup recipe is the perfect solution.

I developed this recipe for my cookbook, and wanted to bring it to life here on the blog as well. I bet you have all of the ingredients in your kitchen right now.

Tomato soup is perfect for rainy days. It’s even more perfect with a grilled cheese sandwich. Are you ready?!

Why You’ll Love this Tomato Soup

Here are four reasons why this tomato soup recipe will become your new favorite:

• This recipe offers classic homemade tomato soup flavor, and it’s made with basic pantry ingredients. Winning!
• It’s rich and creamy, yet cream-less. It uses a combination of white beans (I promise you can’t taste them) and butter to achieve this feat.
• This soup is special diet-friendly. It’s gluten free, since it doesn’t need any flour for thickening. It’s also easily made vegan—see the recipe notes.
• You can turn this recipe into tomato basil soup, if you have fresh basil on hand. It couldn’t be easier.

How to Make the Best Tomato Soup

This recipe is so easy to make! If you’re serving more than a couple people, I recommend doubling the ingredients.

1) Cook chopped onion in olive oil until tender, then add tomato paste.

Every great soup starts with an onion! Once it’s tender, we’ll stir in a dollop of tomato paste and let it cook for a couple of minutes. Tomato paste offers deep tomato flavor and adds a lot of intensity to this soup.

Tip: You can freeze leftover tomato paste in an air-tight container for several months.

2) Add whole canned tomatoes and vegetable broth, and gently simmer for 30 minutes.

Next, we’ll add one big can of whole tomatoes. Did you know that whole tomatoes are the highest-quality canned tomatoes? Canning companies reserve the less ideal tomatoes for diced and crushed varieties. Don’t worry about breaking up the tomatoes as they cook, because we’re going to blend them next.

This is the perfect time to clean up the kitchen or kick back with a glass of wine. You know which one I’m rooting for.

Tip: Stock up on Muir Glen tomato products, because they consistently taste the best.

3) Transfer the soup to a blender, and add a few more essential ingredients.

I always recommend using your stand blender for soups (vs. an immersion blender), because stand blenders produce much creamier soups.

Now, we’re going to add a few key ingredients: Great Northern beans (for creamy texture), butter (for amazing rich flavor), a little sugar (it balances the acidity of the tomatoes), salt and pepper. I don’t add sugar to savory dishes often, but just 1 teaspoon makes a big difference.

Tip: This recipe won’t use up a whole can of beans. You can freeze the leftover rinsed and drained beans in a resealable bag (silicone or Ziploc) for future batches of soup.

4) Blend until completely smooth, and serve.

There’s nothing better than tomato soup with a grilled cheese sandwich. You could also enjoy this soup with a big green salad. I actually think it would go great with this lentil and carrot green salad.

Watch How to Make Tomato Soup

Tomato Basil Soup Variation

This is so easy and delicious. Once you have blended your soup, simply add a handful of fresh basil leaves and blend until they’re broken into tiny bits.

If you’ve ever had Nordstrom’s tomato basil soup—this option tastes like a more fresh version of it. Yum.

Please let me know how your soup turns out in the comments! I love hearing from you.

Looking for more creamy, lightened-up soups? Here are a few more favorites to bookmark:

• Creamy Roasted Cauliflower Soup
• Creamy Roasted Carrot Soup
• Creamy Roasted Pumpkin Soup
• Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

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