How To Transform Tomato Sauce Into A Creamy Soup Worth Serving

A smooth, creamy soup is an easy way to add a touch of luxury to an everyday meal. Whether it's served as an initial course or as an accompaniment to grilled cheese, creamy tomato soup is a warm comfort food that's sure to please guests or simply elevate your own dinner. However, making tomato soup from scratch is far from easy; it requires chopping the tomatoes and any other vegetables you're using, making a roux before gradually adding in the liquid, and then blending. Unless you happen to own an immersion blender, making a smooth, creamy soup is even more of a challenge.

There's a much easier way to make tomato soup, and it only takes a few ingredients and minimal effort. For a simple take on tomato soup, just grab a jar of tomato sauce and thin it out with broth and cream. It comes out much better than canned soup, and it's almost as effortless to heat up.

To make tomato soup out of tomato sauce, all you'll need is a jar of your favorite sauce, broth, and cream. For the broth, you could use chicken, vegetable, or whatever you have on hand. You can experiment with how much dairy and stock to incorporate. For example, Food & Wine suggests adding ¾ cup of broth and ½ cup of cream for every 3 cups of sauce. Combine the ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a simmer, and it's ready to serve.

You can use any canned sauce you'd like for this method, but your choice will ultimately affect the final taste of the soup. Therefore, use a brand and flavor you know you like to ensure you'll enjoy the taste of the end product. If you're vegan or lactose intolerant, you can also omit the cream from this recipe; you could replace it with a nondairy alternative, or you could leave it out entirely and increase the broth to maintain the consistency. Although the latter would make the soup less creamy, it would still be smooth and wouldn't have much impact on the taste.

While the ingredients above are all you need to turn tomato sauce into soup, there are others you could add to take it up a notch. Try sauteing garlic and/or onions in the pot before adding the liquid to increase the depth of flavor. In addition, you could add basil, parsley, or other herbs to make it more elevated. You could even add other vegetables to increase the nutritional content and get your daily vitamin intake.

Why relegate this soup to a side or appetizer when you could make it a full meal? Adding meat, beans, or tofu and serving it with bread will make it more satiating. You could even include tortellini to make a fun and easy dinner. There are so many options for what you can do with this simple trick, and the texture is reminiscent of soup made by a chef. The next time you need an easy side dish or meal fit for serving guests, grab your favorite tomato sauce and thin it out to create this smooth and creamy dish.