Pioneer Woman - Tomato Soup With Sherry

appleydapply's Note:

This is my favorite recipe adapted from the Pioneer Woman. A decadent lunch! I tweaked it a little from her original: I reduced the sodium and fat by reducing the chicken base and butter, and changing the heavy cream to half-n-half. And I thought way more fresh basil was needed to make it taste spectacular.

• Total Time: 25 mins
• Prep Time: 25 mins
• Cook Time: 0 mins

Ingredients:

Serves: 8

Yield: 12.0 cups

• 5 tablespoons melted butter
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 1 (46 ounce) can tomato juice
• 2 (14 ounce) cans diced tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon chicken base or 1 tablespoon chicken bouillon
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1 cup cooking sherry
• 1 1/2 cups half-and-half or 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
• 2 teaspoons dried parsley flakes
• pepper
• crouton (optional)

Directions:

1. In a soup pot, saute diced onion in butter until translucent.
2. Decide how chunky you like your tomato soup. I like to process one of the cans of tomatoes briefly in the food processor to chop up the tomatoes more finely. You can process one or both or neither.
3. To the pot, add canned tomatoes, tomato juice, sugar, chicken base or bouillon, and pepper and stir.
4. Bring to a near boil, then turn off heat.
5. Add sherry and half-n-half or cream and stir.
6. Add parsley and basil. (or, you can save the basil to sprinkle on top of each bowl of soup). Add salt & pepper if needed to your taste.
7. Top with croutons if desired.

Reviews

[KateL]

"Best tomato soup I've ever had!" declared DH. We each had 2 bowls and containerized for lunches tomorrow and the next day. This was so easy, and it would make a great start to a company meal. My grocers were out of fresh basil for 3 days in a row, so I used a 4-oz. container of squeeze basil, which almost made up the entire 1/2 cup; I added dried basil to reach 1/2-cup equivalent. The fresh basil taste and sherry took the taste over the top. Thank you for sharing this delightful recipe, appleydapply! Made for Top Favorites of 2008 Tag Game as a prize to appleydapply for winning a Monkeywrench contest.

[~Nimz~]

Oh this is just excellent. The flavors were perfect. I made half the recipe for next weeks lunches. I used a can of diced tomatoes with garlic and basil, so left out the fresh basil and that worked well for me. Other than that, I made as written. Thanks so much for sharing.

[birdinhand]

Excellent recipe! The flavor was superb! Will make again for sure.