The only thing easier than making this soup is opening a can.

Don’t open a can. Please.

Trust me, if your family will eat soup in any form, they’ll eat THIS soup. And it’s so much better for them than a canned salt bomb with who-knows-what chemicals added “to maintain freshness.”

Many moons ago, this soup started out as a Martha Stewart recipe. But being a homeschool mom, I don’t always follow directions well, and especially not in the kitchen. (Unless we’re baking. Because baking is basically science, and science was never my strong suit, so I tend to mess around with those recipes a lot less. Mostly, I just add more chocolate.)

Perish the thought that I should disagree with an expert, but I think Ms. Stewart’s ingredient ratios needed some help on this one. The recipe, as written, was slightly too acidic for my taste and—dare I suggest it—a bit bland. It needed something. And, in a happy (and healthy) coincidence, that something was simply more of the other vegetables.

Today’s cast of characters:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Easiest-Ever Tomato Soup

• 1 large bunch of celery (8-10 stalks)
• 10-12 large carrots
• 2 large or 3 medium white onions
• 1 102-oz. (#10) can of tomatoes; whole peeled, crushed or diced
• 4 Tbsp. dried Parsley (double if using fresh)
• 1 ½ – 2 tsp. dried Basil (double if using fresh)
• 3 – 4 Tbsp. oil

Pour oil into the bottom of a large stock pot. 3 – 4 Tbsp. is an approximation; you need enough that it will spread out to cover the bottom, so the amount may vary depending on the size of your pot. Any oil with a relatively high smoke point will work. I used avocado; olive and grapeseed are also good choices.

This soup is very simple to put together. Do you have willing kitchen helpers? Let them prepare the vegetables and you’ll be done lickety-split. If your kids are too young to use kitchen knives, they can help out by peeling or washing, and they often love doing it. I wouldn’t let our 8-year-old use a knife sharp enough to chop a carrot, but give her a peeler and she’s practically a machine.

If you don’t have help, don’t sweat it. It takes me about 20 minutes to prep the ingredients for this soup—but then, I love to peel and chop vegetables. This may be odd but I find it soothing. Peaceful. I’ve always heard that kitchen duty is a punishment in the military. That’s just incomprehensible to me because peeling 100 lbs. of potatoes frankly sounds like a slice of heaven. But I digress.

Separate the celery stalks and wash each carefully, slice the stalks lengthwise, and dice the entire bunch of celery into relatively small pieces. You should expect to have 3 – 3 ½ cups or so, after cutting up the celery.

Peel the onions and dice them, as well. You will probably have slightly less onion than celery.

Now we come to the carrots. This is where M.S. and I really parted ways. Her recipe calls for four carrots. Four.

Oh, Martha. No. Just … no.

Rinse the carrots, 10-12 large ones, then peel them. Slice these lengthwise and dice them into pieces roughly the same size as the celery. When you’ve finished, you should have about twice as much chopped carrot—6-7 cups—as celery.

Now you have an enormous mound of chopped vegetables. Add them all to your stock pot. Aren’t they lovely?

Stir the veggies to distribute the oil through all of them. If they don’t start to look a bit shiny from being coated in oil, or if you just sense that you need a bit more, don’t be afraid to add it. Remember, we aren’t baking.

Turn your burner on the low side of medium heat (on a dial that goes from 1-10, no higher than 4) and let the veggies begin to warm. Stir them every few minutes, just to keep things heating evenly. Eventually you’ll be able to hear a soft hissing sound, which means they’ve started to cook. Put the cover on your pot at this point.

Set a timer for 10 minutes and go check your email or hop in the shower (please, you know you can take a shower in 10 minutes) or grade somebody’s math assignment. When the timer rings, take the lid off the pot and give the veggies a good stir. Replace the cover. Set the timer for another 10 minutes.

When the second timer rings and you remove the lid, the contents of your pot will have cooked down quite a bit. The onions and celery should be turning translucent, all of the veggies will be soft enough that you could squish them pretty easily with your wooden spoon, and there should be some liquid in the bottom of the pot.

Now’s the time to add the tomatoes. I will tell you, the crushed tomatoes you see in these photos aren’t my favorite type for this recipe. I prefer whole peeled tomatoes—yes, I have to smash each one with my hands as I add them to the pot, but I like the bigger pieces and frankly prefer my tomatoes without peels, even though I’m sure those are good for you and probably have all sorts of fiber and lycopene and other healthy stuff. Having said that, our local warehouse club unfortunately stopped carrying whole peeled tomatoes, and I am too lazy to schlep home four smaller cans from the regular grocery store instead of a single industrial-sized one from the warehouse club. Truth be told, the recipe works equally well with crushed tomatoes, diced tomatoes, or the whole peeled ones, especially if you plan to use an immersion blender for a smoother consistency after cooking. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

If you use smaller cans, there’s no need to fret over an exact, ounce-per-ounce amount of tomatoes; just stay in the same ballpark. Likewise, if it’s summer and you’re fortunate enough to have a garden overflowing with produce, then by all means, make soup with fresh tomatoes. (Alas, we don’t keep a vegetable garden, mostly because I am the angel of death for all plants. Pretty sure I could kill kudzu.) Just use a kitchen scale to weight out 7 lbs. of tomatoes, more or less. Yes, that’s quite a bit more than 102 oz. but remember, you’ll be coring them, perhaps even removing the peels, before you cook them. I’m sure this soup is absolutely delicious with garden-fresh tomatoes.

Also, Martha would totally approve.

Add the tomatoes—including juice—to the pot, and stir everything together. Cover and let the soup cook for at least 20 minutes. It won’t hurt to go longer, but less than 20 minutes really doesn’t allow the flavors to blend. You can take off the cover once or twice to stir the soup, but it isn’t strictly necessary.

At the end of 20+ minutes of simmering, here’s what you’ll have:

If your family really loves a chunky soup, it’s perfectly fine to serve just as-is. At our house, we tend to like a slightly smoother consistency, so I use an immersion blender to puree the pieces of carrot, onion and celery into something less distinguishable. If you have a somewhat picky eater, it also helps prevent sudden onset of wait-is-that-a-carrot-mama-I-really-don’t-like-carrots syndrome.

The final step is adding herbs. I’ve made this soup so many times that I don’t really measure; I just pour a big pile of parsley into my palm and chuck it in. Same with the basil, albeit a much smaller pile. Back to that gardening thing again: if you’re using fresh herbs, you’ll need about twice the amount listed in the recipe: ½ c. of chopped fresh parsley and roughly 1 Tbsp. of basil.

You may notice that I haven’t mentioned salt or pepper; that’s because I truly don’t feel this needs it (and trust me, I am not ordinarily shy about seasoning food). Even my kids—who I sometimes think would sprinkle salt on a salt lick—don’t add it to this soup. By all means, though, throw in anything you think is warranted: salt, pepper, Tabasco sauce … why not? That’s the beauty of cooking at home, after all, isn’t it?

The only thing easier than making this homemade tomato soup is opening a can. Don’t open a can. Please. Click To Tweet

This soup is great with a warm slice or two of crusty bread, or with crackers. You can add a sprinkle of cheese or a dollop of sour cream to each bowl, if that sounds good to you and nobody at your house is lactose intolerant. The recipe is gluten-free, too.

It is possible to serve your family something hearty and satisfying, without spending all day in the kitchen. You won’t believe how easily this soup comes together. I hope you’ll try it, and once you have, come back and let me know what you think!

 

 

 

Easiest-Ever Tomato Soup  (download the Easiest-Ever Tomato Soup printable recipe )

• 1 bunch of celery
• 10-12 large carrots
• 2 large or 3 medium white onions
• 1 – 102-oz. (#10) can of tomatoes; whole peeled, crushed or diced
• 4 Tbsp. dried Parsley (x2 if using fresh)
• 1 ½ – 2 tsp. dried Basil (x2 if using fresh)
• 3 – 4 Tbsp. oil

Pour oil in bottom of large stock pot.

Wash celery and carrots. Peel carrots and onions. Cut the vegetables into a small to medium dice, all roughly the same size. You can expect 3 cups, more or less, of the onions and celery, and about twice that amount of carrots.

Pour the diced vegetables into the stock pot. Stir well so the oil coats all the vegetables. Turn burner to medium-low heat and stir the vegetables every few minutes until you hear them start to cook. Cover the pot; cook for 20 minutes or until the vegetables start to soften, stirring once after 10 minutes.

Add canned tomatoes, stir well, and replace cover. Cook at medium-low heat for approximately 20 minutes. If you wish to use an immersion blender for a less-chunky soup, you can do it at this point. Add the parsley and basil, stir to combine, and serve.