Bright Tomato Soup

Submitted by Kting

"My favorite fresh tomato soup. Easy and delicious, this soup provides a bright spot in color and in taste. I once had a friend literally eat the very last of the soup out of the pot while he was supposed to be doing the dishes!"

 

• Ready In: 50mins
• Ingredients: 10
• Serves: 8

ingredients

• 6 tablespoons butter
• 3 medium fresh tomatoes
• 12 ounces tomato paste
• 1 teaspoon sugar, to taste
• 2 medium sweet onions
• salt, to taste
• white pepper, to taste
• 4 (14 1/2 ounce) cans chicken broth or (14 1/2 ounce) cans vegetable broth
• sour cream, to garnish
• grated parmesan cheese, to garnish

directions

1. Saute onions in butter until transparent.
2. Add tomato paste, sugar, 4 cans (a total of 58 oz.) broth and all seasonings.
3. Chop tomatoes in food processor (don't pulverize) and add all together.
4. Simmer for 40 minutes before serving with crusty French bread or sourdough rolls.

Reviews

[Three Kids Make Me Crazy]

I just made this the second time for my husband and realized I forgot to rate it. He has always liked that nasty condensed stuff and this finally convinced him that it really is gross. I used two cans of diced tomatoes (including the juice) in lieu of the fresh tomatoes as they're out of season. I also added a couple cloves of garlic as he likes a bit spicier soup. This also freezes EXTREMELY well. Just pop it in the microwave, then add sour cream and parm. Thanks for a great soup that emabled me to stop being embarrassed about buying that junk in a can!

 

[LonghornMama]

Wow, this is absolutely fabulous! I was the one licking the pot today, LOL! Simple, fast and very flavorful.Since good tomatoes are impossible to find this time of year, I used grape tomatoes and because they're sweeter, omitted the sugar. Also, I highly suggest using homemade chicken stock, it makes any soup so much better. Served with sour cream and fresh Parm as suggested which was absolutley delicious. Thanks, Kelley, I love this soup!

 

[Starfarmer]

Where do you see 29 cups? My screen shows "4 (14.5 ounces)", which comes to 7.25 cups, assuming a cup of 8 ounces! (maybe there was a typo that got corrected) Anyway, excellent recipe as it is. Three suggestions for amendment: 1) Acidity/Sharpness - First time I made the dish it seemed lacking in acidity (for my tastes). I added a teaspoon of sour salt (citric acid), which worked fine. The second time I instead added a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar, which worked even better! 2) Herbiness - I wanted to make the soup just a little more "fancy" for a dinner. I experimented by taking two small portions and adding a single herb to each to see which worked better. I tried dried basil in one and dried tarragon in the other. The basil tips the taste toward "Italianesque", which is OK, but it was the tarragon that really worked. I would estimate a heaping teaspoon of dried tarragon, finely rubbed between the palms at the time it is added--make sure you serve it with sour cream as suggested! If you slightly warm and salt the sour cream before adding it you can stir it in decoratively, too! 3) It's common practice to add some sort of starch product to soups like this to make them more suitable as a main course. After several experiments, I've settled onmy favorite addition: dried, stuffed tortellini. WHile I suppose any tortellini would work (fresh-packed, frozen, etc.), the ones that have worked best for me are the tiny (dime-sized) cheese-filled but full dried sort imported from Italy. I found them originally at a CostPlus, but my local supermarket started carrying a brand recently. There's no need to pre-cook the tortellini separately from the soup. The trick I developed is to pre-soak the tortellini in hot water for a half-hour or so-- otherwise the thickness of the soup seems to set up some sort of osmotic-pressure deficiency that keeps the little buggers from ever fully rehydrating. Now if you like your pasta additions 'al dente', or even just somewhat firm, cooking them separately and adding them at serving time is probably the best. But *I* have a weakness for somewhat "gooey" pasta in my soup...nothing is more satisfying than chicken soup with parsnips and egg noodles that have soaked up much of the chicken fat, cooked so long the noodles have swollen to almost twice their normal size... Anyway, if the pre-soaked tortellini are simmered for an hour in the soup, they become absolutely delectable. Of course, in the end, it's up to you...here's to infinite variation!

 

[chef 99357]

Good soup, but i think you have a error in your calculations of the chicken broth. You suggest 29 CUPS! I used 6.