Harvest Creamy Tomato Basil Soup
When I tasted this soup, I knew I wanted the recipe. Sarah was happy to share it along with the story of how it came into being. Sarah’s son Dan wanted to have a soup shack as opposed to a lemonade stand in the middle of the summer. Sarah said, “Each time the topic surfaced again we discussed it further and slowly developed a plan for him. There was plenty of opportunity to talk about many aspects of having a business as well as his ultimate purpose for doing so (which he is still trying to figure out as are we). The plan included a manageable effort in that he would make soup on the first Saturday of each month for four months and sell by pre-orders. We picked the best four months of the year, September through December. We decided on a small variety of soups and then came up with what we hoped would be catchy names for them.” Thank you so much Sarah and Dan for sharing with us!
- 1 medium sweet onion, chopped
- 2 Tablespoons butter
- 2 cans (14-1/2 ounces each) diced tomatoes, WITH juice
- 2 cans (10-3/4 ounces each) condensed tomato soup, undiluted
- 1-1/2 cup skim milk
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon white pepper
- 1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, cubed (fat free cream cheese tastes just as good, can't tell the difference as its all mixed in and just makes it nicely creamy).
- In a saucepan, sauté onion in butter until tender.
- Stir in tomatoes, soup, milk, sugar, basil, paprika and garlic powder.
- Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; Cover and simmer for 10 minutes.
- Stir in cream cheese until melted.
- Serve Immediately.
- I usually put some of the warm soup in the blender with the cream cheese to mix – then add back into the soup mixture.
- If you don't like tomato chunks then blend the tomatoes before starting. Also depending on desire the onions can be chopped to desired size. I like big chunks of tomatoes and onions so I chop mine big.
