Easy Three-Ingredient Tomato Soup
My favorite tomato soup recipe! You wouldn’t think that three ingredients — butter, onion, and tomato — can come together to make such a velvety and delicious tomato soup, but let me tell you. They can. Jump to the Tomato Soup Recipe
Watch The Video
How To Make The Easiest Tomato Soup From Scratch
This simple homemade tomato soup is quick, easy, and insanely delicious. It is excellent with canned tomatoes, but you can also use fresh tomatoes. Tips for canned and fresh tomatoes are found in the recipe below. If you love quick, no-fuss recipes, this is it! If you love roasting tomatoes, try our roasted tomato soup!
This tomato soup is inspired by one of the most famous recipes out there — Marcella Hazan’s Tomato Sauce.
Butter, tomatoes, and onion are simmered until slightly thickened. Out comes the onion and the sauce is ready to be spooned over pasta.
It’s genius and absolutely delicious. We use the same three ingredients in this tomato soup, but add a little water and blend everything together just before serving.
We love serving this with a grilled cheese sandwich, but a slice of this rosemary focaccia bread is also an excellent idea!
Making The Soup
Here’s how to the best (and easiest) tomato soup
Add water or broth and simmer. Bring everything to a low simmer, add some salt and leave it alone for about 40 minutes.
Watch our video above and see how creamy it gets. That’s thanks to the butter.
Blend. I find an immersion blender is useful, but a blender works, too. Adjust the soup for seasoning then grab a bowl…and maybe a grilled cheese sandwich?
This soup is also amazing topped with homemade croutons or served next to this easy buttery garlic bread.
What Tomatoes Should I Use
This soup is excellent with canned tomatoes. Just like when making our favorite red pasta sauce, I love using whole peeled tomatoes or crushed tomatoes.
By the way, we love San Marzano Tomatoes and are always pleased with tomatoes from Muir Glen. Neither are watery and both taste great.
You can also use fresh tomatoes. You will need 10 to 12 whole tomatoes (or about 2 pounds). It’s best to peel them, but we have made the soup with unpeeled tomatoes.
A Quick Recap
This is your new favorite weeknight meal. Promise.
- This tomato soup has three ingredients (plus water and salt).
- Everything is tossed into a pan — no browning, no hovering over a stove.
- You can use canned tomatoes — and should.
- Did I mention there are only three ingredients?
What Our Readers Are Saying
If you don’t believe that our recipe helps you achieve perfect tomato soup at home, take a look at what our readers are saying about the recipe! More reviews are in the comments section below.
“WOW!! What a delicious and easy tomato soup, my three and one-year old were as thrilled as my husband and I were.” – Ashley
“This is the best tomato soup, hands down!! Cannot say that emphatically enough. Did not change a thing from the recipe and it was perfect. Couldn’t be easier to make.” – John
“Made this exactly as written. Oh my gosh, this was amazing!!!” – Dayna
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I make this tomato soup vegan? Yes, olive oil or a plant-based butter is an option. You can also use coconut oil. It might sound odd but the light coconut flavor with onion/tomatoes is pretty delicious.
Can I add basil? This soup is delicious with and without basil. Adding a handful of fresh basil at the end before blending the soup is a fantastic idea.
Can I add cream? Yes, although, with the butter in this recipe, only a small splash of cream is needed.
Can I make this soup in advance? Yes! Store homemade tomato soup in an airtight container in the fridge for up to three days or freeze up to three months.
More Easy Soup Recipes
We have many soup recipes on Inspired Taste. Here are a few favorites:
For more tomato-based soups, take a look at our chilled tomato soup recipe (Gazpacho) or this roasted tomato sop with lemon.
I love creamy soups. Two of the most popular creamy soups on the blog are this easy creamy veggie soup and this simple homemade potato soup.
Homemade broths add so much to soups. Here’s our recipe for homemade vegetable broth as well as our favorite recipe for chicken broth.
While we are on the subject of chicken, you must take a look at our easy homemade chicken noodle soup recipe. It is healthy, satisfying, and tastes incredible. It’s faster to make than the traditional version, too!
I love this lightened up broccoli cheddar soup! It’s creamy and so delicious.
Recipe updated, originally posted October 2015. Since posting this in 2015, we have tweaked the recipe to be more clear and added a quick recipe video. – Adam and Joanne
Easy Three-Ingredient Tomato Soup
- PREP
You only need three main ingredients to make this velvety, rich tomato soup recipe. This, friends is your new favorite weeknight meal.
Makes 2 generous servings
Watch Us Make the Recipe
You Will Need
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 large onion, cut into large wedges
1 (28-ounce) can tomatoes, we prefer to use whole peeled or crushed, see notes for fresh tomatoes
1 ½ cups water, low sodium vegetable stock, or chicken stock
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt, or more to taste
Directions
Melt butter over medium heat in a Dutch oven or large saucepan.
Add onion wedges, water, can of tomatoes with their juices, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Bring to a simmer. Cook, uncovered, for about 40 minutes. Stir occasionally and add additional salt as needed.
Blend the soup, and then season to taste. The soup doesn’t need to be ultra-smooth, some texture is a nice touch. An immersion blender does make quick work of this, or you can use a blender. If you use a regular blender, it is best to blend in batches and not fill the blender as much as you usually would since the soup is so hot. We like to remove the center insert of the lid and cover it with a kitchen towel while blending — this helps to release some of the steam and prevents the blender lid from popping off (which can be a big, hot mess).
Adam and Joanne's Tips
- Can I use fresh tomatoes? Yes. If you want to use fresh tomatoes, you will need 10 to 12 medium tomatoes (or about 2 pounds). You can peel them, but we skip this step since we will be blending the soup in the end anyway.
- Can I make this vegan? Yes, olive oil is an option or coconut oil instead of butter. Coconut oil might sound odd but the light coconut flavor with onion/tomatoes is pretty delicious.
- Can I add basil? This soup is delicious with and without basil. Adding a handful of fresh basil at the end before blending the soup is a fantastic idea.
- Nutrition facts: The nutrition facts provided below are estimates. We have used the USDA Supertracker recipe calculator to calculate approximate values. We have omitted salt since you will need to add to your tastes.
If you make this recipe, snap a photo and hashtag it #inspiredtaste — We love to see your creations on Instagram and Facebook! Find us: @inspiredtaste
Nutrition Per Serving: Serving Size Half of the recipe / Calories 348 / Total Fat 24.9g / Saturated Fat 14.8g / Cholesterol 61mg / Sodium 1485.4mg / Carbohydrate 29.6g / Dietary Fiber 4.5g / Total Sugars 15.4g / Protein 7.8g
hi I made this today. I used fresh tomatoes, shallots, sherry vinegar, and a touch of creme fraiche and topped with sundried tomato pesto. Delish!
Amazing base recipe! I used canned diced tomatoes because that’s what I had on hand. I also added half a red pepper, a few cloves of garlic sliced, 1 fresh tomato I had to use up, and dried oregano. Before blending I added a splash of heavy cream and pesto. This was so good!!! I will never buy canned tomato soup again.
I made this soup today after having my eye in it for awhile. It was very easy and delicious.
Just curious how there are 24 g of fat. I wouldn’t think that 2 tablespoons of butter had this much fat.
Hi Jill, The nutritional information is an estimate, but I did recheck the numbers and they look correct.
Didn’t have any canned tomato soup in the pantry, so I found this recipe. OMG This stuff is so good. I’m never buying canned soup again! This soup is just…chef’s kiss
I’ve made this soup so many times! So easy to put together! I usually just throw an entire stick of butter in there, haha, and it works great! Tonight I was low on time and attention, so I threw it all in the instapot and pressure cooked it for 20 minutes, forced-released it, and blended with the stick blender. Absolutely fantastic! Thank you for this delicious and simple recipe!
Delicious!!!!! I made this soup today using Mutti canned whole tomatoes on sale at Kroger. They were pricey at $3.49. I sauteed the diced onion on med-low heat for 10-15 min in butter and added three cloves of diced garlic. I added 1.5 cups of water and 1.5 tsp of Better Than Bullion chicken base blending all with an immersion blender. Along with extra salt (1 tsp total) and freshly ground pepper, it was outstanding!! So much better than store-bought! I plan on trying it with the cheaper brand of Aldi crushed tomatoes ($1.29) to see what the difference in taste is since good canned tomatoes have gotten SO expensive.
I want to make this tomato soup for the first course of a dinner party for eight. This recipe calls for a half an onion for two servings but would I really use two onions for eight servings? I know sometimes when increasing a recipe not all ingredients need to be fully increased. Thanks for your help.
Hi Margo, I would simply double to triple the recipe for your dinner party. There is no need to adjust the ingredient amounts. Also keep in mind that the two servings is for a large serving (dinner-worthy portion), so since you plan to make this as a first course, you might only need to triple the recipe for eight.
Could this be made into a pasta sauce if I add double cream?
Hmm, good question! I bet it would be delicious with pasta!
Simple and delicious. It was a real crowd pleaser. The butter gave it a velvety mouth feel and a creaminess. I will definitely add this recipe to my family’s rotation of soups.
Yes, the butter does magical things in this tomato soup!
Can you freeze this soup? How long can it be frozen for?
Yes! Store homemade tomato soup in an airtight container in the fridge for up to three days or freeze for up to three months.
With a glut of tomatoes this summer, what a great way of using them – fantastic! Used a home grown onion as well, plus chicken stock. Absolutely delighted with the result. Thanks for posting!