Easy Tomato Soup Recipe

“A world without tomatoes is like a string quartet without violins.”
~ Laurie Colwin, ‘Home Cooking’

Sorry I didn’t post a blog yesterday.I finally slept, and slept and slept. And when I woke up, I made soup. 🙂

This soup can be made with fresh or canned tomatoes, and takes just a few minutes to assemble, plus cooking time. It’s a healing flavoursome meal, jam-packed full of this amazing substance called lycopene from the cooked tomatoes.

Lycopene is a powerful anti-oxidant that has been proven to cut the risk of lung, stomach, breast and prostate cancer. It is also good medicine for the immune system and for a general cancer-preventantive diet. You can get small amounts of lycopene from raw tomatoes, but cooking them makes so much more of this good stuff available.

Most importantly though, this recipe tastes better than any soup out of a can!

You can have this soup two ways. It can be a fresh tasting, low-fat soup OR you can add cream to make a mouth-watering creamy soup just like the ones you loved when you were a child.

Do use a good stock or bone broth. That way you’re getting all that extra flavour and nutrition!  The soup will keep for 5 days in the fridge, and can be frozen. Reheat any leftovers over low heat.

Ingredients to serve four:

2 cups of chicken stock*, one chopped onion, 2 cans of tinned diced tomatoes or 1 kilogram of very ripe fresh chopped tomatoes (if your tomatoes aren’t bursting with flavour then use tinned!), 2 heaped tablespoons of tomato paste (about 100 grams), 2 level teaspoons of raw sugar or your favourite sweetener, salt and pepper to taste. Fresh parsley or basil to garnish.

Note: For a creamy version of this soup (pictured) you’ll need 1/2 cup of cream plus a little more as a garnish. You can also use milk or evaporated milk if you don’t have cream to hand. For a creamy dairy-free soup use coconut cream. The sugar is used to balance out the acidity of the tomatoes. If you prefer you can reduce or omit.

*For a vegan soup swap the chicken stock for a good vegetable stock, and use coconut cream or cashew cream if desired

Method:

Stovetop: Place stock, tomatoes, sugar, chopped onion, tomato paste in saucepan. Add a little pepper and salt. Bring to boil and then reduce heat and simmer ten to fifteen minutes or until onions are tender. Use an immersion (stick) blender to blend soup until smooth, or cool soup and run through a blender or food processor.

Return to a low simmer and add cream if desired. Adjust seasoning of necessary.

Do not boil once cream or milk has been added or soup may curdle.

Blendotherm, Vitamix or Thermomix: Add liquid ingredients first (no cream or milk yet!), and then all others. Select soup setting and leave to cook.

Adjust seasonings, and if adding cream pulse briefly to allow ingredients to mix thoroughly.

Serve with a sprinkling of fresh parsley or basil and some cracked pepper. It’s also lovely with a swirl of cream on top too.