Simple 6 Ingredient 6 Minute Creamy Tomato Soup from Scratch is about as easy and nutritious as a lunch can get. Have your classic American lunch without any of the nasty additives or preservatives in the canned stuff!
With the possible exception of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, can you think of a more classic American kid meal than grilled cheese and tomato soup?
Everyone knows the manoeuver. You pick up a wedge of your sandwich and dunk it into the soup then get it to your mouth quickly so it doesn’t drip down your hands.
And the key is to dip just enough of your sandwich in for one bite, so the rest stays crispy crusted until you’re ready. Every American kid knows this move.
The tomato soup is the supporting player in this duo. Until now.
The problem with many “real” tomato soups -defined as a soup that starts with recognizable tomatoes rather than a paste or puree- is that they take what seems like forever to cook down. This ‘forever’ is in the kid sense.
As in, “MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! This soup is taking FOREVER. I’m STARVING.”
What my kids want (and what I want) is a soup that is silky smooth, has body and great flavour. It needs to be done in the same amount of time as the stuff you dilute from a can.
That’s another part of the beauty of the grilled cheese/tomato soup partnership. If you plan things right, they’re both done in about the same amount of time.
There are more tomato soup recipes floating around out there in the vast internet world than I can count (including one here.) Many deliver great tomato taste but take forever (kid defined or otherwise).
Some deliver fast results but start with a base of less than fresh ingredients (paste, ketchup, etc…) that leave a soup that tastes flat or old. Some are innovative but ask for ingredients that are difficult to source or out of season.
This recipe is fast, flavourful, fresh, and innovative. It’s also delicious and meets my kids’ approval!
What kind of craziness am I presenting you today? It’s a soup made entirely in the blender. I mean Simple 6 Ingredient 6 Minute Creamy Tomato Soup.
That picture above isn’t for effect. You’re looking at half an onion, a peeled clove of garlic (it’s hiding in there somewhere), a carrot lobbed in half, and the small, leafy, inner stalks of a bunch of celery in my blender.
As an aside: your eyes do not deceive you. My carrot wasn’t peeled.
I just don’t bother when I buy organic carrots which are -nicely- the same price per pound as the conventionally grown ones at Wegman’s. I scrub the carrots, trim the ends, and call it a day when I’m doing something like this.
Joining the aforementioned vegetables are a twenty eight ounce can of my favourite diced tomatoes and a fourteen-and-a-half ounce can of diced tomatoes with Italian herbs. And that, my friends, is the hardest part of the whole task.
Onto the blender base it goes, the lid gets fitted firmly in place. Oh DO make sure it’s firmly in place. Cleaning tomato soup off of the ceiling, walls, and everything on the counter top is not my idea of a good time.
Blend on high for 6 minutes or until steam is rising from the vent in the carafe of your blender. WHIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
It’s SOUP; it’s Simple 6 Ingredient 6 Minute Creamy Tomato Soup. You’ve got a couple of places you can go from here.
If you want that super familiar flavour, you glug in a little milk and blend just forty five more seconds, or until hot all the way through. That is a taste of childhood, but better.
If you want to be a little more grown-up about it, you can drizzle in a little heavy cream right before serving.
Wanna dress your tomato soup up for company? Add a dollop of crème fraîche to the bowl and stir it in with your spoon.
All that is optional because the soup is really wonderful just as it is: full of real tomato, given body and subtle flavour by the carrot, celery, and garlic, and smooth as can possibly be.
Dressing Simple 6 Ingredient 6 Minute Creamy Tomato Soup up with delicious cream is optional. Dunking is required.
Cook’s Notes
- If you’d prefer, you can use an equivalent amount of home-canned tomatoes. I ran out in January (cue sad violins), but I love, love, love canned diced tomatoes from the store in this soup. Use a brand whose flavour you like best!
- If you don’t want to use or can’t find the diced tomatoes with Italian herbs, substitute a 14.5 ounce can of regular diced tomatoes and add 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning and a 1/2 teaspoon of dried basil.
- I do not call for salt in the recipe. This is because most canned tomatoes have a pretty decent amount of salt in them as it is. Taste your soup when it is finished. If you find you need salt, add it just 1/4 teaspoon at a time, blending after each addition, until it is just as you like it!
- The carrot serves two purposes in the soup. First, it takes a little acidic edge off of the tomatoes without adding sugar or HFCS like the stuff in the can does. WIN!
Second, It gives the finished soup some body or thickness without adding any starches or flours making this extremely allergy friendly. No gluten, no corn starch, no nuttin’. Another win!
And taste wise, it beats the canned stuff by a mile without being an unfamiliar flavour. Win/Win/WIN!
- The soup is a little frothy immediately after blending. We found this to be pleasant. If you’d prefer it to be less so, let it rest for 10 minutes after blending then give a quick stir before pouring into serving dishes.
- This recipe was tested with both a Blendtec blender and a Vitamix blender. Both blenders turned out perfect soup. I have not tested it with any other blenders.
- On that note, I want to assure you that this soup is REALLY as smooth as velvet! The blenders absolutely pulverized the fresh, raw, whole vegetables that went into them and cooked them to perfection. And people! The soup coming out of those blenders is HOT. There will be steam when you remove the lid, so please remove the lid carefully!
- The soup stores well in a tightly lidded jar in the refrigerator for up to 3 days and reheats like a dream.
Use this to make Simple 6 Ingredient 6 Minute Creamy Tomato Soup from Scratch:
Look how easy it is to make 6 Minute 6 Ingredient Tomato Soup from Scratch
Simple 6 Ingredient 6 Minute Tomato Soup
Rate RecipeIngredients
- 1/2 of a small onion peeled and trimmed of the ends
- 1 large celery stalk leaves still attached, preferably
- 1 medium to large size carrot scrubbed and trimmed of the ends, broken in half
- 1 garlic clove peeled
- 1 can diced tomatoes in juice 28 ounce
- 1 can diced tomatoes with Italian Herbs 14.5 ounces, or an identically sized can of plain diced tomatoes with 1 teaspoon Italian seasonings + 1/2 teaspoon dried basil.
Optional for serving:
- 1/2 to 1 cup milk and/or heavy cream or creme fraiche to stir in at the end.
Instructions
- Add the onion, celery stalk, carrot, garlic clove, and both cans of tomatoes with their liquid into the blender. Fix the lid carefully in place and blend on HIGH for 6 minutes, or until steam is coming from the top of the blender. If using milk, add it and blend on HIGH for 45 seconds or until hot all the way through.
- If desired, drizzle heavy cream or creme fraiche in the soup as you serve.
Nutrition
Nutritional information is an estimate and provided to you as a courtesy. You should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe using your preferred nutrition calculator.
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Reader's Thoughts...
Mak says
so the difference btwn canned soup and blended canned tomatoes is what??? i knew this must’ve had something to do with a vitamix “test”.
Rebecca says
The difference is that canned soup has additives, sweeteners, and other preservatives added to it. Canned tomatoes are a much more controllable starting product. You can get low or no sodium and low or no additive tomatoes far more easily than canned soup.
Rebecca says
…oh, and roughly a billion grams of sodium (as my friend Mary says…)
Rebecca says
Also… Please see this: http://www.takepart.com/photos/shocking-sugar-stats/campbells-classic-tomato-soup-on-the-go Sugar is a MAJOR difference.
Crystalcr says
My 8 year old loves this soup! (Can be a picky eater) “Mom I think every Tuesday and Thursday should be soup night and we could have this so you don’t work too hard”… I couldn’t have said it better..lol And this soup was very hearty enough that my hubby was full after one bowl! Its a beautifully thick and filling soup! Yum!
Paula-bell'alimento says
My tomatoes are planted and I’m very impatiently waiting for them to come to Mamma so I can make things like this soup!
ann says
Would other kinds of canned tomatoes work here? Crushed tomatoes, say? Or what about fresh tomatoes that are a little past their prime? Or a combo?
Daina says
As I’m planning on having an abundance of tomatoes from my garden this summer (unlike last year), I’m wondering whether this soup can be made in bulk and then water or pressure canned?
Susan says
let’s just first start with the fact that I need a blender that can make soup. Next I love it and finally I never add carrot and celery to mine but I will just have to next time!
Angie says
I just love how quick and easy this soup is, my family would love this with a nice grilled cheese!
Kim Beaulieu says
You, me and this soup, we’ve got a date. I don’t know when or where yet, but it’s on. You bring drinks, I’ll bring the grilled cheese.
Nancy P.@thebittersideofsweet says
Thanks so much for the cook’s notes. I was wondering about the acid in this and now I know with the carrots this will help! Looks completely delicious!
Kristi C. says
This looks amazing! I’m excitedly hoping to buy my first Vitamix soon … what style/make do you have? I take it you recommend it? How long have you had it?
Angie | Big Bear's Wife says
How fantastic! I’ve never used my blender to do that! I’ll give it a shot this weekend!
Toni | Boulder Locavore says
I loved Tomato Soup as a child but of course it was from a can. With all the fantastic flavor in summer tomatoes this would be a perfect recipe with good whole ingredients. Pinning it now!
Rose | The Clean Dish says
Seriously delicious!
I’m in love with this recipe – I love all the ingredients and your photos are gorgeous!! I might make some for lunch tomorrow 🙂
We make a lot of tomato soup, too but our way of making it is super lazy (it’s still good but I really want to try your recipe!)
Thanks for sharing!
Marly says
Simple. Easy. Delicious. Healthy. What else could we ask for in a recipe!!!
Elizabeth@ Food Ramblings says
I think I have time to make a six minute soup 🙂 It takes me longer to make the grilled cheese to go with it!
Mercedes Moon says
Elizabeth, hahahaha, I was thinking the same thing!
Ashley @ Wishes & Dishes says
I want to dunk a huge cheesy grilled cheese sandwich in this so badly!
Patty says
We love, love, love your other tomato soup recipe, but tomato puree is VERY hard to come by {like we’ve found it once in the last two years and bought all 8 cans they had!}. So happy to see a new tomato soup recipe! I’m a little confused though….do you heat up anything or does the motor on the blender heat it up? Hoping this works for us! Hubby would be thrilled!
Rebecca says
It’s the blender that actually does the cooking, Patty! Cool, eh? Now I’m giving this a disclaimer. I tested this in both a Blendtec and Vitamix blender, so I can guarantee it’ll work in those. I don’t know if a less-robustly built blender could handle running on high for 6 minutes or turn out the same texture. One possible solution if that ends up being a problem is to take the soup from the blender and heat it up in a saucepan afterward.
Cherie says
Another solution would be to use a food processor and then heat it up afterwards…or use a hand mix wand. 🙂
Rebecca says
That is a nice hack for folks without a burly blender!
Clare says
I made it. We don’t have canned tomatoes in Cairo so used fresh and it was so much smoother than my old style Tom soup. Would fresh basil and oregano work as well?
Thanks for posting. And I did hear it up to serve and added sea salt and pepper
tibbs says
Not everyone has a 400-500 $ blender such as the Vitamix!
Rebecca says
That is correct… but they’re becoming more common, and for those that do have a high powered blender (The Blendtec tends to be less expensive and equally capable) this is the ideal recipe.
Tom Pendleton says
Immersion blenders in 2=L SS pots works wonder, also. Of course you have to stand there!
Anne says
I bought a reconditioned one. Think it was $299, maybe $250. I’m very happy with it. ?
Sally says
Same here! Works like a charm, and has the same warranty. 🙂
K Ann Guinn says
Good to know!
Nutmeg Nanny says
I LOVE using my blender to help with soups. This soup looks so full of veggie deliciousness that I would happily eat it for breakfast 🙂
Lindsay @ The Live-In Kitchen says
What a quick and healthy meal!
Katie says
Yum! I love a good (and very quick) tomato soup! Nothing like having it fresh vs a nasty canned variety!
Lolita says
TOTALLY! ROCK ON SISTER FROM ANOTHER MISTER!