Cream-less Tomato Basil Soup

It’s that time of year to wrap up in your sweaters, play in the chilled air, pounce into piles of leaves and down every possible combination of soup imaginable. I live for soup-time. And lately I’ve been snarfing down a lot of it. 

Along with all that snarfing of soup came the shedding of a few pounds – 13 and a half to be exact. 

This soup was born out of necessity. After my now infamous failure to add tomatoes to a One Pot Bolognese, I was left with exactly 43.5 ounces of canned diced tomatoes and nothing to do with them. Soup seemed like an appropriate answer.

Using the ATK Healthy Family Cookbook as my guide I went to work. Now I’ll admit, half the time I look through recipes in books, I just look at the ingredients and then go off on my own tangent, as I’m prone to do – throwing it all together in my own fashion. 

This recipe is no different. 

For your recipe be sure to include:

~ 3 – 14.5 oz.cans, Low-Sodium Diced Tomatoes 

~ 1 – 14.5 oz. can – Chicken Stock

~ 3 cloves Garlic, minced

~ 1 medium onion, mined

~ 1/4 c. Red Wine

~ 1/4 c. Star Fine Foods Basil Infused Olive Oil
(EVOO works beautifully as well, don’t fret)

~ 1/4 c. Minced Basil

~ Salt and Pepper

Into a large dutch oven over medium heat, heat one tablespoon of the olive oil until just shimmering. Add in minced onions and stir occasionally until they begin to soften. Add in minced garlic and stir until it becomes fragrant. Seriously, the smell of garlic just fills my soul. No? Is that just me? It’s okay if it is…

Next up, pour in diced tomatoes and chicken stock. Bring to a slow boil, and with an immersion blender – puree the living daylights out of your tomatoes to get them smooth. 

Add in your red wine and the remainder of the olive oil*, pureeing until incorporated.
This will take a few minutes – maybe upwards of 5-7 so just be patient.

But if your’e not getting all you want out of your immersion blender, or you’re that impatient, break out your real blender and pour it all in there, and as it frappes pour the olive oil into the hole in the lid. This will ensure the olive oil is incorporated into the soup.

I used this Star infused olive oil to give the soup an extra bounce in its step. It was delicious, lively and really added a touch of pizazz to the soup. If you’re more of a demure spirit, by all means EVOO will suit you just fine for this soup. I just adore all things basil, don’t mind me.

Once that’s done you can pour it back into the pot and let it get the rest of it’s beauty sleep over medium heat. Let it simmer slowly for 20 minutes and finally, add in the additional minced basil and salt and pepper to taste. 

Serve piping hot with cheesy toast and you’ve got a fabulous meal with much less guilt than the cream based tomato soup would provide. Here’s to healthiness and a warm snuggly nap-time tummy!