Making homemade tomato soup with canned tomatoes is easy, crock pot friendly, and made with bacon, onions, carrots, and tomatoes.
It's super easy to make homemade canned tomato soup, and this is an awesome no-fuss recipe that doesn't involve roasting tomatoes. But MAKE SURE you make a grilled cheese or something like Soft Fluffy French Bread or Cheddar Garlic Biscuits to go with it.
For this tomato soup recipe I used whole peeled canned tomatoes (better quality tomatoes than diced), carrots, and onions for a little aromatic loveliness, and OH HI BACON. The bacon isn't meant to be crispy in this recipe, it's simmered in and blended with the soup and adds a lovely salty, bacony second in command flavor right behind the number one, tomato.
You'll notice there is no added salt in this homemade tomato soup, this is largely due to the bacon and chicken broth. You can easily adapt this recipe to be vegan/vegetarian by omitting the bacon and substituting with vegetable broth.
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What To Expect
- Taste: Tomato is the dominating flavor, balanced out by the carrots and a subtle bacon flavor as an undercurrent.
- Ease: Just a step above easy, since it involves more than just opening cans and warming up food. Chopping a few vegetables, simmering, and blending are all pretty simple tasks, it just takes a bit of time.
- Time: It takes a few minutes to prep the ingredients and get the soup started, 20-30 minutes to simmer, and a minute or two to blend up the soup.
🛒 Key Ingredients
- Bacon - thick cut, not a sweetened variety. Not much is needed to add a salty flavor to the soup.
- Carrots - balance out the acid in the tomato, is an aromatic addition to the soup that can't be tasted once blended in.
- Yellow onion - adds flavor, tastes amazing and is a very complimentary taste in tomato soup.
- Tomato paste - a concentrated tomato flavor punch that is very much needed!
- Whole-peeled tomatoes - I like Cento San Marzano, RedPack or Market Pantry brands.
- Basil & bay leaf- add just a bit of rich flavor to the soup as it simmers.
- Chicken Broth - adds both volume and flavor to the soup.
See the recipe card below for full information on ingredients and quantities.
✏️ Substitutions & Variations
- Chicken broth - may substitute with vegetable broth.
- Bacon - can be left out altogether and replaced with a ½ teaspoon of vegetable bouillon for a vegetarian friendly option.
🧑🍳 Instructions
- Step 1. In a large cooking pot over medium heat, cook bacon, carrots, and onions until vegetables are tender and bacon is cooked, about 5-7 minutes. Bacon is not going to be crispy due to moisture from vegetables, this is fine. Drain excess bacon grease (or leave in for extra flavor).
- Step 2. Add tomato paste and cook over low/medium heat for 1-2 minutes until it's nice and caramelized.
- Step 3. Add chicken broth, whole peeled tomatoes, bay leaf, garlic, and basil. Mix well to break up tomatoes a bit.
- Step 4. Cover with lid to simmer for 20-25 minutes on low heat, stirring every 5-10 minutes.
- Step 5. Find and remove bay leaves, then blend until desired consistency is reached; completely smooth or leave tomato and vegetable chunks for some texture. If using a normal blender, this can be done in batches. If using an immersion blender, just blend in the cooking pot and be careful to keep the blender under the soup surface to avoid splattering hot soup.
📌 Top Tips & Hacks
- Use whole canned tomatoes. Whole tomatoes are usually better quality than tomatoes that have been diced and canned.
- Putting carrots in tomato soup helps to balance out the acid. Instead of adding sugar like in many other tomato soup or tomato sauce recipes, the carrots work in a natural way and are much healthier.
- Use an immersion blender instead of pouring the soup into a large blender. So much easier than pouring a big pot of soup in and out of a stand blender!
❓Frequently Asked Questions
Fresh basil, fresh grated parmesan or pecorino romano, sun dried tomatoes, or heavy cream. For this recipe I use onions and carrots as aromatics to help balance it out a little. Oh yes, and BACON for obvious reasons.
You could also add a couple of tablespoons of homemade pesto rosso sauce to make it EXTRA fancy!
That depends on what flavor you want for your soup. If you want a creamy base, I would use whole milk or heavy whipping cream. If you do not want a creamy base, plain water, vegetable, or chicken broth would work wonderfully well.
You can freeze tomato soup in an airtight container for up to 3 months.
Yes, it shouldn't make too much of a difference in taste, although beef broth can have a stronger flavor than chicken broth or chicken stock.
🥣 More Easy Soup Recipes
We have a few family friendly easy soup recipes, here are some of our favorites!
📝 Printable Recipe
Homemade Tomato Soup
Equipment
- Immersion blender
- Cooking Pot
Ingredients
- 2 slices thick cut bacon (not sweetened variety)
- 3 medium carrots, chopped (about 1 cup) 150 g
- ½ yellow onion, chopped (about 1 cup) 125 g
- 1 (6oz) can tomato paste
- 4 cups chicken broth 946 mL
- 1 (28 oz) can whole peeled tomatoes
- 1 large bay leaf
- 1 Tablespoon minced garlic
- ½ teaspoon dried basil
- optional, fresh grated parmesan or heavy cream
Instructions
- In a large cooking pot over medium heat, cook bacon, carrots, and onions until vegetables are tender and bacon is cooked, about 5-7 minutes. Bacon is not going to be crispy due to moisture from vegetables, this is fine. Drain excess bacon grease (or leave in for extra flavor).
- Add tomato paste and cook over low/medium heat for 2-3 minutes.
- Add chicken broth, whole peeled tomatoes, bay leaf, garlic, and basil. Mix well to break up tomatoes and cover with lid to simmer for 20-25 minutes on low heat, stirring every 5-10 minutes.
- Find and remove bay leaf, then blend until desired consistency is reached; completely smooth or leave tomato and vegetable chunks for some texture. If using a normal blender, this can be done in batches. If using an immersion blender, just blend in the cooking pot and be careful to keep the blender under the soup surface to avoid splattering hot soup.
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