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 or watch our quick recipe video showing how to make it.
Watch Us Make the Recipe
How To Make The Easiest Tomato Soup From Scratch
This simple homemade tomato soup is quick, easy, and insanely delicious.
The 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.
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. 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 tomato soup is excellent with canned tomatoes. 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
More Easy Soup Recipes
- You might also want to take a peek at our chilled tomato soup recipe (Gazpacho)
- Try this Incredibly Easy and Creamy Vegetable Soup Recipe. It’s one of our absolute favorites and something we make often.
- A wonderful recipe for homemade vegetable broth — It’s ultra-satisfying!
- Or, for something a little different, our roasted tomato soup with lemon and thyme.
- This easy homemade chicken noodle soup recipe is healthy, satisfying, and tastes incredible. It’s faster to make than the traditional version, too!
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
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, 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
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Made this for myself so I did half the recipe.I used Italian style diced tomatoes. FANTASTIC!
Really simple, really good. I cooked the onions in the butter for a few minutes before adding the rest of the ingredients and I used an immersion blender rather than standard blender. This was the second time I’ve made this soup however the previous time I used half butter and half olive oil. Both ways are good.
Awesome and super easy tomato soup. I always like to be a vegetarian but my husband loves his meat. As we are both in our early 60s we decide to be a flexitarian. I’m not a confident cook. But this recipe is super easy, my husband and son have 2 portion each. It encourage me to even try your honemada garlic bread and flat bread. It’s going to be our weekly dish. Thank you Adam and Joanne.
this soup is just as awesome as the last time i made it. Its been a while. I altered the recipe because of 2 reasons, I am pregnant and cannot remotely stand onions and normally when I made this they were omitted because of my onion dislike and the 2nd is I only had 3 large tomatoes. I just halved the recipe and its perfect and me and baby LOVE it. I used fresh pretty close to almost over ripe, and soft without the peel and used my large ninja blender to combine. No chunks for me! Its so silky and delicious!
Fantastic recipe, really enjoyed it and can highly recommend trying. One question from me, is there any way of reducing the calories by substituting the butter. I want to use it on a 5:2 diet
So so good! If you’re from the UK and love Heinz tomato soup this is so similar but of course way better. I added a squeeze of honey to resemble that Heinz sweetness and it went down a treat. Thank you for the delicious recipe!! 🙂
I had a taste for tomato soup (not canned) and found this recipe. I only had one can of the tomatoes required but I did have 2 cans of Rotel! OMG ist was delicious, if you want to spice this recipe up a notch, I highly recommend it!
The best tomato soup i ever made. It tasted exactly like the one i eat at Panera Bread. Thank you so much for the recipe and it is so easy to make. If you haven’t tried it you should – it takes less than 15 mins and almost no mess 🙂
I just made this for the first time and wow, so tasty! Other than adding a little bit more water, I followed the recipe to the T. I used a can of whole tomatoes that came with herbs and spices already mixed in as well. Paired it with a grilled cheese sandwich. Delicious!
Amazing soup! So simple yet delicious!
Loved the tomato soup! SO easy to make and so tasty too!
I’ll never buy another can of tomato soup EVER. This was great. I used a can of Italian-style diced tomatoes using half recipe and it was great.
Best tomato soup EVER! I’m having my sister over tomorrow for lunch. She’s used to Campbell’s. She’s going to flip. Did everything following the recipe. Used chicken broth and I’m not sure it really made a difference. Going to serve the soup with grilled cheese on sour dough! ?
I literally LOVE THIS RECIPE!! I tried it for the first time tonight… the only thing I changed was adding 2 teaspoons of sugar (to reduce the acidity) and I added fresh parsley and chopped the onions instead of using wedges. I also added a table spoon of Parmesan cheese. The only thing I would change is not using as much onion. I feel it takes away from the soup. Highly recommend this recipe!
A pinch of baking soda will also reduce acidity without adding sugar.
That’s a great tip!!
This tomato soup was delicious. It was my first time making homemade tomato soup, and I’ll definitely make this recipe again. It was so easy! I added about a half to 3/4 cup of milk, and used 15oz. of tomato sauce in place of half the water or broth. It made enough for two full bowls of soup plus I had a quart jar full of soup left over. Yum!