Easy Three-Ingredient 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 or watch our quick recipe video showing how to make it.
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.
How to Make Our 3-Ingredient Tomato Soup Recipe
This soup is quick, easy and insanely delicious. Here’s how to make it.
Grab a Dutch oven or pot, place it over medium heat and melt the butter. Add half an onion that’s been cut into large wedges and a large can of tomatoes.
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: This Incredibly Easy and Creamy Vegetable Soup Recipe. It’s one of our absolute favorites and something we make often.
This soup is excellent with canned tomatoes — We usually go for 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. If you want to 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.
Bring everything to a low simmer, add some salt and leave it alone for about 40 minutes. See how creamy it gets? That’s thanks to the butter.
Blend the soup — we 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?
Let’s review.
- 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?
This is your new favorite weeknight meal. Promise.
By the way, you might also want to take a peek at our chilled tomato soup recipe (Gazpacho), a wonderful recipe for ultra satisfying homemade vegetable broth or our roasted tomato soup with lemon and thyme.
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 Recipe
- 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
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 1/2 cups water or low-sodium 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 — it doesn’t need to be ultra-smooth, some texture is a nice touch. An immersion blender makes 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 whole tomatoes (or about 2 pounds). It’s best to peel them, but we have made the soup with unpeeled tomatoes.
- 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
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Easiest and the best tomato soup recipe! I’ve been craving for tomato soup for ages but every recipe I find on google seems too tricky and time-consuming, so I couldn’t attempt to make it at all. But this recipe is super easy and plus! super tasty! Thank you so much for this amazing recipe! My tomato soup turned out to be a little bit acidic though and I wonder what more I can add to tone down the acidity?
Hi there, if you find that tomato soup or tomato sauces taste too acidic, add a little sugar to balance things out.
Do stores cary tomato already blended? I just moved out and don’t have a blender xD
This is my second time making it and,it is so good and easy to make. My family loves it. I do not change anything from the original recipe. Yum!
Just by reading I could taste the lovely recipe. Trying it today, but I know I’ll adopt it.Anna
Instead of using chicken stock/water, I used vegetable broth to make it a vegetarian soup (not vegan because of the butter). It was so delicious! The best tomato soup I have made!
I made this today and couldn’t believe how good it was! I used the San Marzano tomatoes. I also added 3 cloves of garlic. I didn’t melt the butter first, I just threw it all in the pot. This was my first time using my immersion blender… which I’ve had for 5 years. It was about time I used it and this was the perfect recipe to use it on! This was so good! I topped it with some homemade croutons and my kids (ages 12 and 9) loved it! The simple ingredients meant I could even offer some to our 6 month old… she liked it too!
This is the best tomato soup I’ve had since I can remember. I used Muir Glen fire roasted crushed tomatoes, chicken stock, fresh basil and chives, the half onion and, of course, the butter. Addictive!
I was surprised at how good it turned out! Brought me back hope that I CAN, after all, make something delicious and edible!
Iwas craving tomatoe soup so I just Google Tomatoe Soup and saw this one only 4 ingredients,my style of soup. Look I in my cupboards to see if I had everything and I did!!!!! It is Amazing to say the least. I added basil and garlic to mine for an extra touch. Thank you for this recipe, I’ll be making it from now on.
I’ve made this soup several times now. It’s the closest to the soup I remember my grandmother always serving. Thanks for such a simple delicious recipe.