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...
Sharon says
Maybe it’s just me…. I’m confused…. Does the blender heat the soup? I’ve never blended anything for 6 minutes…. Is that what happens? Heat?
Rebecca says
Hi Sharon: When the soup is made in a Vitamix or Blendtec blender, it DOES indeed cook it while it blends!If you don’t have one of those blenders, you can blend ’til smooth then heat in a saucepan. 😀
L says
this was horrible. Sorry but it tasted like a blended hot tomato. Terrible. I used my vitamix and followed exactly as above.
Rebecca says
We’re going to have to agree to disagree. My family loves it.
L says
Gosh I wonder what I’m missing here.
Karen says
Delicious! I didn’t even have the Trinity on hand but went for it anyway. (Not going out in this stormy weather!) Added the seasonings and a little half and half and beef bone broth. Fresh ground pepper on top. Delicious with my goat cheese and cheddar grilled cheese on Ezekiel Sesame bread. Yum! I’m comforted now!
Love the easy clean up too! #Vitamix
Floss says
This looks awesome , gonna try it but one question any ideas on how to reduce the foam I get when making tomato soup in my vitamix .Thank you
Rebecca says
There’s going to be some level of foam unavoidably. You can, however, let the soup rest for a while to let the bubbles disperse. Unfortunately, that’s also going to cause the soup to cool. Do you add cream or whole milk at the end? I find that helps kill some of the bubbles.
tibbs says
Perhaps adding a small pat of butter to it as is sometimes done in making fruit jams to help reduce the foaming in that process would work in this recipe.
Brad says
What!… No added sugar???? YAY!!! I’m online right now trying to find a pre-made tomato soup that doesn’t have sugar…. I want the tomatoes to stand on their own…. This sounds tasty and very simple… So I’ll try it… Thanks
Brad says
I’m also going to try it with heirloom tomatoes when they arrive this year….. My two favorite heirlooms right now are the Cherokee Purple and the Paul Robeson….. A tomato soup made with these heirlooms would be SOOOO good… I just drooled….. I knew I should have worn a bib
Rebecca says
Cherokee purples are one of my faves, too! I bet that will make some wonderful soup!
Rebecca says
That’s the kicker! Tomatoes are bred to be sweeter and less acidic these days and I just plain don’t like adding sweetener when it isn’t needed!
Sue Hunt says
Uuhhhhhhmmmmm….how long do you COOK it for? There’s no time listed?
Rebecca says
Hey Sue-
It actually cooks itself in the blender as long as you have a very robust blender as discussed in the post! And it does mention the time as 6 minutes 😀 If you don’t have a burly blender, heat it through on the stove after it’s smooth. 😀
KT says
Rebecca! This was absolutely delicious and exactly why I bought my vitamix! Flavor was perfectly sweet without the preservative-laced aftertaste and I couldn’t have been happier with the creaminess. Thank you!
Rebecca says
Thank you, KT! I so appreciate your feedback!
Philly says
I just made this in my Vitamix. Really good, and SO easy! Thanks for the recipe.
Rebecca says
Thanks, Philly!! I’m so glad you love it, too!
Laura says
Fast and delicious, but the onion and garlic made it super spicy! Maybe it was the type I used (yellow), or maybe my ratio was off (I only had 29 ounces of tomatoes, and the onion was large, so I used a quarter instead of a half and only half a smallish clove of garlic), but it definitely was spicier than most kids I know would like. Thankfully, we don’t have kids, and it was perfect for dipping a grilled cheese sandwich in. So, not complaining….just noting for the sake of those with young ‘uns.
Rebecca says
Thanks for the feedback, Laura! I can honestly say that my kids have always loved spicy food, so this didn’t even register as spicy for them. It is good to have someone else’s perspective, so thank you!
Henry says
I added a small slice of ciabatta and a TBS of butter and ended up with a delicious creamy soup. Those additions really help emulsify everything. I will add less onion and garlic next time.
Heather says
This turned out so well! Thanks! I did note that adding some cayenne pepper and garnishing with grated Parmasiano Reggiano took it to a whole new level.
Kris Hughes says
Although I haven’t tried this yet, I’d say that the carrot thing is a stroke of genius – thickener and slight sweetener all in one.
Rebecca says
Thanks, Kris!!! You nailed the exact reasons I used it!
Sara Studebaker says
I have to watch my sodium and SO miss my Campbell’s, so this was something I really wanted to try. It worked great in my VitaMix! It was a little more onion flavor than I’d like but the hubby loved that. I did add a tablespoon of brown sugar as we like our tomato dishes a little less acidic, a little sweeter. I did add heavy whipping cream at the end as well.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find no-salt-added Italian diced tomatoes so there was a bit more sodium than I wanted, but it was still pretty reasonable as the regular diced were NSA.
Thanks for this recipe!!!
Rebecca says
You’re very welcome, Sara! I am glad you and your hubby liked it!
sasha pittat says
could i use whole tomatoes? what would i do differently to do this with whole tomatoes
Rebecca says
Hi Sasha- I’m afraid I haven’t tested it that way, so I couldn’t tell you what to do differently to make it work! I’d love to hear if you try it, though!
Anthony says
This is the first savory and heated thing I made in my new Vitamix. I was so excited to see the steam come up when I lifted the lid.
The soup was ok, but there was a definite canned tomato taste to it that I wasn’t too pleased with. I added 3/4 of an avacado, some kosher salt and some basil to it and it tasted much better. Took the canned taste away for the most part. The avacado also added a richness to it and makes it cling to my spoon and bread beautifully, with no avacado taste imparted on the soup.
Mary-Celeste says
Hmmm . . . I have to wonder about this. My blender doesn’t make things hot. I mean, it’s not designed to. I’m a little worried about heating up a soup by overheating my blender.
Rebecca says
I know Vitamix and Blendtec make their blenders specifically so you can cook in them. If your manufacturer advises against it, follow their instructions. You can mix it in the blender then transfer to a saucepan!
Amanda says
This did not work in my 1500 watt Ninja. The soup never got hot even after 10 min. It blended it well and looks so yummy though. I dumped it in the crock pot for an overnight cook.
Rebecca says
Good to know! As I said, it heated beautifully in both a Vitamix and a Blendtec. I don’t have a Ninja to test in, however. 🙁
Angel says
I have a Ninja too and although they are great for blending they are not marketed as able to cook in the same way that Blendtec or Vitamix
Kate Coddaire says
do you advise freezing this soup?
jodi says
good starter recipe for me…
used a zucchini instead of carrot and carrot tops instead of celery (that’s what I had)!
used much more garlic and a load of basil!
definitely needed to heat it in a pan….used a ninja pro blender and although it easily withstood 6 minutes of blending the soup was definitely as cold as the coolest ingredients!
5 minutes of waiting for soup to warm definitely did not break the time schedule!
YUM!
Thanks!
Rebecca says
Perhaps this is a brand related issue? 6 minutes in my Blendtec yields soup that has steam billowing from the top of the blender!
Amanda says
Just a friendly tip: when you are making something that is mostly flavored with tomatoes, use crushed. When they can tomatoes, they use the riper ones for the crushed and the greener for the diced because they have a firmer texture. It will give it a much more authentic tomato flavor.
K Ann Guinn says
Interesting!