Homemade Tomato Basil Soup makes for a lovely comforting dinner and I can never get enough of this recipe.
This soup is for you if you are looking for an easy dinner meal prepared with fresh tomatoes within 20 minutes.
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Originally back in 2012, I called it a soup a la provencale.
The soup is inspired by the south french, Provence region, which means it's a Mediterranean soup.
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💡 Time-saving and Dietary plus points
This tomato basil soup has many advantages. Here are some of them:
- homemade from scratch preparation with whole ingredients making it a healthy soup
- quick, easy and simple to prepare within 20 minutes in just one pot
- vegan and dairy-free
- gluten-free which is an advantage if you have celiac disease
- low sodium if you use a homemade vegetable broth or a low sodium canned broth
- low calorie which is great for weight loss
🔪 How to make it?
This is roughly how I have been making this delicious tomato basil soup.
This will help you to decide at a glance if you want to make this tonight.
The complete recipe with ingredients and instructions can be found at the bottom of this post.
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Step 1
Sautee onion and garlic and add the tomato.
Pour in broth and season.
Step 2
Cook ingredients soft covered.
Step 3
Blend soup to a smooth consistency or leave it chunky.
Serve hot.
📜 Flavor variations
I usually like to stick to the basic tomato basil soup recipe but you can pep up or make the following changes to your soup:
- spice up the soup with a pinch of cayenne pepper, cumin powder, and coriander powder. Use them together or alone.
- add pasta such as small pastina noodles to the soup
- use peeled Tomatoes or without seeds (see in FAQs below why)
- roast your tomatoes first to bring out the sweet intense flavors of your fruits (yep the tomato is actually a fruit)
- serve it cold like gazpacho or my orange tomato soup
The suggestions are all optional but a great way to upgrade your tomato soup!
🥣 Serving
At home, we serve up this soup with a green salad and toasted bread.
It's a light dinner meal but feel free to enjoy your tomato soup with a "heavier" protein-rich salad such as a shrimp louie, caesar salad and similar.
Another favorite addition to this soup is garlic bread or a nutritious whole grain bread such as this spelt bread.
Craving more comfort flavors? Then I recommend a cheesy grilled cheese sandwich with this soup or a Croque monsieur or madame.
💭 FAQs
I think the soup turns out quite thick but if yours is too liquid for your taste, just cook it down further to the desired thickness after blending it smooth. If you want it to be more creamy, you can add thick cream or vegan cream.
Yes, tomato soup can give you heartburn BUT this is only true for some people. Turns out all the men that I know (on 2 continents) don't like tomato soup because tomato soup is causing them stomach acid reflux. The solution that worked so far: Peel the tomatoes. Usually peeling the tomatoes helps but it's not always a guarantee.
No, you don't need to peel your tomatoes BUT some people don't like the little shreds in their soup and others seem to have a problem digesting the skin. See the heartburn question.
No, you don't need to but some folks don't like the seeds in the soup. Keeping them in the soup won't make your soup bitter or something.
Use a homemade tomato coulis instead of the onion, garlic, and tomatoes. The broth quantity can be reduced too. You can even skip the olive oil and just pour the coulis into the soup pan. Season the soup recipe with thyme and basil. You don't need to add the bay leaf. Also, taste first if you need to season with salt and black pepper. Parsley is optional. Using this tomato coulis will reduce your cooking process by 5-8 minutes so that you can make a soup within 8-10 minutes.
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📖 Recipe
20 min Tomato Basil Soup Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
- 1 Onion sliced
- 4 Pieces Garlic Cloves chopped
- 1.6 Pounds Tomato diced or roughly cut smaller
- 2½ Cup Vegetable Broth
- 10 Basil Fresh fresh
- 2 Teaspoon Thyme or Italian Seasoning
- 1 Bay Leaf
- ¼ Teaspoon Black Pepper Ground
- Salt to taste
- Parsley Fresh to garnish
Instructions
- Heat up a pot with the olive oil and sautee sliced onion soft.
- Add the chopped garlic too and stir cook for a minute.
- Place diced tomatoes into the pot and keep over low heat.
- Pour vegetable broth over the tomatoes in the pot.
- Add fresh whole basil leaves, the bay leaf to the pot and season with thyme.
- Stir and combine everything in the pot and keep over medium heat.
- Cover the pot and leave the soup to cook for at least 10 minutes.
- When the ingredients are cooked through, pick out and discard the bay leaf.
- Blend the soup to the desired consistency.
- Season with black pepper and salt to taste.
- Serve hot. I like to garnish with fresh parsley.
