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Chunky Tomato Basil Soup Recipe – Most Sunday mornings are very busy. It’s usually when I purchase all the groceries Mom needs for the coming week. Busy too? Pin the recipe for later.
Recently, it has also become easier for me to prepare “dinner” and tote it along rather than prepare the entire meal in her kitchen.
Under normal circumstances, I would opt for a slow cooker or even a pressure cooked one pot meal. Every so often, I run out of ideas for quick and easy to prepare portable meals. My version of meals on wheels.
Soup? What Was I Thinking?
Make homemade tomato basil soup! Let me explain why I questioned my sanity.
Travel with food! I’ve found the ideal containers when taking soup to Mom – Plus… they’re microwavable and easy to open.
Tomato soup is very low on my list of favorite soups but it is numero uno on the DH’s list. If he could have soup before every meal that would suit him fine.
And if it was tomato soup, it would make his day.
But Mom does not like anything tomatoey so I am pushing the proverbial envelope.
I asked if she might enjoy this type of soup and much to my surprise the answer was “Oui, it would go very well with a grilled cheese sandwich!”
==> Make it an easy cleanup! Get these – they’re re-usable.
So here I am early on a Sunday morning, multi-tasking as I normally do AND gathering ingredients for what I hope will be an easy homemade tomato basil soup. This is a first for me.
We’ll pick up the sandwich fixings – aged cheddar and thin pastrami – on the way to Mom’s house.
Making My Chunky Tomato Basil Soup Recipe
When I say this soup is easy and quick to make, it is.
The soup was bubbling away before it even crossed my mind to take several step by step photos. So, you will have to imagine the celery and onions sautéed in butter.
To thicken the soup without using tomato paste, I removed about 3 cups of the soup before re-heating it.
Those three cups of soup were blended into a creamy concoction using an immersion blender.
Description
A delicious chunky tomato basil soup recipe – lots of chunky tomatoes with celery, onions and fresh chopped basil. Tastes yummy without the cream but have some on hand for those who would like a swirl of fresh cream.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 to 2 cups of celery, chopped
- Large white onion, chopped
- 4 cloves of fresh garlic, crushed (love my Oxo® garlic press – it makes miniature diced garlic!)
- 2 cell packs of fresh basil – half finely chopped to cook with the onions and celery, the rest to make a chiffonade when the soup is reheated.
- 4 tablespoons of salted butter
- 1/2 teaspoon of thyme
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- Freshly cracked pepper to taste
- 28 oz. Hunt’s® diced tomatoes, undrained
- 3 – 14.5 oz. cans of Del Monte® diced “Basil, Garlic & Oregano” tomatoes (undrained)
- 1 cup of hot water
- 2 Knorr® chicken bouillon cubes or a small container of regular chicken broth or bone broth
- 2 to 3 tablespoons of cornstarch diluted in a 3/4 cup of cold water
- 1/4 cup of Organic heavy cream (optional)
Instructions
- Chop the celery and onions into even sized dice.
- Pick the leaves from several sprigs of fresh basil. Bunch them together and slice them into a rough chop – you could also cut them directly into the pan with kitchen shears.
- Set the vegetables aside.
- In a Dutch oven, melt the butter over medium low heat. Add the chopped vegetables and basil. Sauté for about 5 to 8 minutes until translucent and easy to pierce with the tip of a knife. You want them cooked through but not burned or singed.
- Season with salt, pepper and thyme.
- Pour the canned tomatoes over the sautéed vegetables.
- Stir to combine well.
- Add the hot chicken bouillon mixture, stir to combine.
- Set the temperature to low and simmer the soup for about 40 to 45 minutes.
- I had to allow the soup to cool a little in order to transport it.
- Remove about 3 cups of soup and ladle it into a deep bowl or a quart size Pyrex® measuring cup.
- With an immersion blender, blend the 3 cups of soup until smooth. Set aside.
- When ready to serve, reheat the soup on low.
- Carefully add in the blended soup. Stir to combine.
- Mix the cornstarch and cold water – add to the soup and mix well to distribute evenly.
- Allow the soup to come back to a simmer and thicken a little.
- Add cream at this point and blend well. The cream is optional.
Notes
- Please note that I had to interrupt the complete soup making process into order to “travel”. I prepared the soup through Step #9 early enough in the morning that the soup had time to cool in the Dutch oven.
- When dinner time came around, I completed the soup making process while prepping grilled cheese sandwiches – aged cheddar and pastrami grilled in Panini sized slices of Italian bread.
- Here is a rocking garlic press that works well with any size clove – from elephant garlic to regular cloves.
Chiffonade
For the sandwiches, I placed the pastrami between two layers of cheddar.
The Italian bread took a little longer to turn a crisp golden brown.
Not a problem as it gave the cheese more time to become melty stringy goodness. Sorry, no photos 🙂
Oh… and we did have a vinaigrette dressing ready for a salad but totally forgot about it until we had eaten the soup and sandwiches. There were plenty of vegetables in the soup!
For protein packed soups,
use or make your own bone broth!
“Well… You Can Make That Soup Again!”
I’ll take that compliment. Forget the cream and don’t bother blending the vegetables into a creamy smooth bisque. Ok. Chunky it is. 🙂
Now that the recipe is written down where I can find it, I’ll definitely make it again. We all liked it!
More Yummy Soups
Soup is comfort food. Soup can elicit the most intense memories. At least it does for me.
Which soup tops my list of favorites? Minestrone – another easy soup you can make your own with the addition of a variety of favorite vegetables and ditalini.
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