This tomato basil soup is one of my all time favourite family recipes. My mom has been making this soup for YEARS. Mmmm… It’s the perfect soup recipe for summer! The flavours are perfect, and it always tastes amazing!
I grew up in a big house on a huge property in the country. We were surrounded by farms, (I could hear cows mooing and the donkeys braying (yep, totally had to google what that sound was called)if I listened carefully…), but we were definitely not farmers. Every year when I was little, I’d beg my mom to plant a vegetable garden, and even though we had tons of space, we didn’t have the best green thumbs when it came to growing food. But we always managed to grow tons of tomatoes, tons of parsley and tons of basil. Those seemed to bethe fool proof things that we could pull off each year. We’d collect them from our messy little garden patch and my mom would whip up a batch of this amazing tomato basil soup.
I still struggle with growing vegetables in my backyard. I try, I really do, but if I try growing new and different vegetables, I end up getting, say, one green pepper that I end up “saving” until it shrivels up and falls off, and two overgrown baseball bat sized zucchinis. That and a whole garden full of weeds. Did I mention, I don’t put anyeffort into my garden patch?
My vegetable garden is a little embarrassing, but I’m pretty sure more people would notice the broken sandbox toys that are all over the grass – or rather the field of dandelions that we call a lawn. If anyone raises their eyebrows when they go intoour backyard, I’m pretty sure it’s not because of the overgrown garden boxeswith tomato plants creeping out and almost falling over. Hopefully they think to themselves, “Wow, three slides, a swingset, a sandbox, a wagon and a mini coup. Kids definitely live here!” Priorities, right?
So I’ve kind of given up on growing anything other than tomatoes, basil and parsley in our garden boxes in the backyard. Which actually works out PERFECTLY for this soup! The tomatoes aren’t ready yet, but when they are, man oh man, I bet this soup will taste even more amazing than it already does!
The BEST Tomato Basil Soup Recipe
The full printable recipe is at the bottom of this post, but here’s what you’ll need:
- Tomatoes
- Basil
- Parsley
- Carrots
- Onions
- Chicken Stock
- Garlic
- Butter
- Secret Ingredient – Lemon Juice!
Roma tomatoes were on sale at the store, so that’s what I used when I made it, but you can use your favourite variety. The redder and sweeter the better!
I diced the tomatoes, but I didn’t go crazy making them overly small. I also didn’t peel them. You can peel them if you want, but as long as you chop them like mine or smaller, you won’t really notice the peels in your soup. Or at least I didn’t notice them.
You start by simmering all the veggies together to make the broth. This was chicken broth, onions, garlic, and tomatoes before I blended them.
I have to admit, I’m slightly in love with my hand held blender. I don’t really know what it’s called officially? We call it a “soup whipper” because it’s so darn convenient for making blended soups. There’s no need to remove the soupfrom the pot, you just blend it right in the pot.
Add the herbs at the very end when everything is finished cooking. I chopped my herbs super fine and stirred them in. You can blend them in if you want to, but I had a fear that it might make my soup turn green. I’m sure it wouldn’t turn green. Or brown. But I didn’t want to risk it. 🙂
Top it with a little bit of grated parmesan cheese, some more basil or parsley and some pepper.Mmmm…
Serve it hot with fresh garlic bread. Yum!It’s such a fresh recipe for summer! Those sweet tomato and basil flavours go together so perfectly!
If you find the flavour needs just a little something, add a squirt of lemon juice. I don’t usually have fresh lemons in my fridge, so I used lemon juice from concentrate. Oh my goodness, when I added the lemon juice it went from “meh” to “holy amazing flavour in my mouth!”
The BEST Tomato Basil Soup Recipe
This tomato basil soup recipe is PERFECT for summer!
Prep Time10 minutes mins
Cook Time30 minutes mins
Total Time40 minutes mins
Servings: 6 to 8
Ingredients
- 2 Tablespoons butter
- 2 medium cloves garlic minced
- 2 medium carrots peeled and diced
- 1 medium onion chopped
- 4 cups chicken stock
- 1 cup Water
- 8 roma tomatoes or 6 regular tomatoes, chopped
- 1/4 cup fresh basil finely chopped
- 1/2 cup fresh parsely finely chopped
- Secret Ingredient - A squirt or two of concentrated lemon juice
Instructions
In a large pot, melt butter over medium heat. Stir in garlic, carrots and onions.
Cook over medium-low heat until the onion is tender.
Add the chicken stock and water, cover and simmer for 20 minutes.
Stir in the tomatoes and simmer for another 10 minutes.
Remove from heat and use a hand held blender to blend the soup until smooth.
Stir in the basil and parsley.
Add salt and pepper to taste.
If the flavour is flat, add 1 to 2 squirts of lemon juice to taste.
Serve hot with fresh garlic bread!
This tomato basil soup recipe is PERFECT for summer! Serve it hot with fresh garlic bread and Mmmmm… You can make it with store bought tomatoes, or you can use those awesome garden grown tomatoes from the backyard. If you’re anything like me, surely you can pull off a few tomato plants with some basil and parsley. Trust me, my plants aren’t perfect, and my tomatoes end up having spots on them, but the great thing about this soup, is that no one will ever know! 🙂
You may also enjoy these other tomato basil recipes:
Easy Caprese Calzones:
Cherry Tomato and Basil Rotini:
