Easy Tomato Basil Soup Recipe

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If you’re in search of a quick and delicious supper, this easy tomato basil soup recipe ticks all the boxes. Using just four ingredients, it’s on the table in 30 minutes.

grilled cheese and tomato basil soup

This easy tomato basil soup recipe couldn’t be simpler. I got the recipe from the cooks at St. Mary’s in Sewanee, Tennessee many, many years ago. I love to serve it with toasty grilled cheese sandwiches for a perfectly soothing meal at the end of a long day. 

All you need is four ingredients to make this creamy tomato basil soup: a can of tomato soup, a can of diced tomatoes, basil pesto, and milk. Simply add the ingredients to a saucepot and let them simmer. In 30 minutes it’s ready to serve to your hungry family as the main dish. Or perhaps it will become your new favorite weekday lunch?

This soup is delicious with lots of tomato flavor. It’s also light, healthy, and vegetarian. It’s no tomato basil bisque, which uses cream to make it thicker, but it ticks all of my boxes! Plus, there’s no need for an immersion blender or roasted tomatoes like other tomato soup recipes out there. It’s the definition of easy, which is just how I like it.

ingredients for tomato basil soup

Recipe Ingredients

  • Can of petite diced tomatoes
  • Pesto sauce
  • Tomato soup
  • Milk (I’m using whole milk but you can use whatever is in your fridge).

How To Make My Easy Tomato Basil Soup Recipe

Add tomato soup and milk to saucepot.

Pour the tomato soup into a saucepot. Fill up the soup can with milk and add that.

Add can of tomatoes to saucepot.

Pour in the can of diced tomatoes, juice and all.

Add pesto sauce to saucepot.

Add a tablespoon of pesto sauce.

Heat over medium until heated through.

Stir that up and heat over medium until heated through.

Bowl of tomato basil soup.

Serve warm. 

Dipping grilled cheese into tomato soup.

Oh my goodness, you’ll never believe something this simple can be this good. 

Spoonful of tomato basil soup.

Hope this tomato basil soup warms you right up!

Storage

Store soup leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days. You can also freeze leftovers for up to three months. Thaw overnight in the fridge before reheating quickly on the stovetop.

Recipe Notes

  • Garnish your bowl of hot soup with cracked black pepper, fresh basil leaves, garlic croutons, or fresh parmesan cheese.
  • If you want to use fresh tomatoes instead of the crushed tomato can, you’re going to need to roast a handful of Roma tomatoes or plum tomatoes in olive oil and then blend them to make a homemade version of diced tomatoes. Then you’ve got yourselves roasted tomato basil soup.
  • Instead of whole milk, I’ve heard this works well with coconut milk.
  • For added flavor, add a teaspoon of dried basil or chopped fresh basil to the tomato sauce.

Recipe FAQs

What can I pair with a bowl of tomato basil soup?

This soup goes great with its best friend, i.e. a grilled cheese sandwich or some homemade cheesy garlic bread, but you can pair it with a whole bunch of other food.  Try it with an Italian salad. Cook up some ravioli and add it to the bowl. Tuna salad sandwich lover? Dunk it in this beautiful bowl. Or simply dip in a slice of crusty bread. The possibilities are endless. Feel free to dunk.

You make like some of these soup recipes:

Cauliflower Soup Recipe With Cheese

Recipe For Pizza Soup

Loaded Potato Soup Recipe

French Onion Soup

Easy Taco Soup

Lentil Stew (Budget-Friendly)

Dipping Grilled cheese into tomato soup

Easy Tomato Basil Soup

A quick and delicious supper, this easy tomato basil soup recipe is made with just four ingredients and is on the table in 30 minutes.
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 25 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes
Course: Soup
Cuisine: American
Keyword: soup, tomato
Servings: 4
Calories: 210kcal

Ingredients

  • 1 can tomato soup
  • 1 an petite diced tomatoes undrained, 15-ounce
  • 1 tablespoon pesto sauce
  • 1 1/4 cup milk

Instructions

  • In a saucepot, place the tomato soup, tomatoes, and pesto sauce.
    1 can tomato soup, 1 an petite diced tomatoes, 1 tablespoon pesto sauce
  • Fill the tomato soup can with milk and pour that in as well.
    1 1/4 cup milk
  • Stir and heat over medium until heated through. Enjoy!

Nutrition

Calories: 210kcal
Tried this recipe?Mention @southernplate or tag #southernplate!

 

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This post is featured on Meal Plan Monday and Weekend Potluck.

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129 Comments

  1. This looks so good! My tomato soup is very similar, but I add spinach too. I love Tennessee too, we eloped there like Mary, but in Gatlinburg. We were fortunate enough, on our Christmas vacation up their, that I-40 was closed through the park. So we got to see Johnson city, and Knoxville, and everything in between. I always thought I wanted to live up there, but now I think I’m just a Florida girl! When I first moved here to Orlando, everyone thought I was telling a fib, and I actually was from Tennessee, I wish. Orlando-ites are so, i dont know, isolated maybe, many don’t know about the culture of the Florida panhandle. They think the south starts at the Georgia and Alabama state lines, lol!

  2. I have never been to the Sewanee area but have enjoyed all of the other Southern place I have visited. I love the south. It always seems so laid back and comfortable. Not to mention beautiful. You make me wish I could go there again soon.
    The soup is wonderful. Had it with grilled cheese. Yum

  3. There is a restaurant called “Crispers” here and they have a Tomato Bisque Soup that is killer! This looks quite a bit like it, but theirs has a little “bite” to it … manager says it has red pepper flakes … so I may add a little when I try your nice & easy recipe!! They serve it with croutons and shredded parmesan cheese. Thanks!

    1. Trish, that does sound good!!! I love red pepper flakes in things, just gotta go uber lightly coz those little suckers are potent! lol

      Now you got me wanting to try this with them also. Let me know if you get to it first!
      Gratefully,
      Christy 🙂

      1. Daaaang, Trish ……that sounds good for folks that like a little more bite to their food, like my honey-pie hubby does. I can fix the soup recipe just like “Super C suggests (since I cough/choke/cough with spicy food and Christy tried to kill me this summer at a BBQ restaurant) and then add some red pepper to his.
        Honey pie hubby looooves tomato soup w/ grilled cheese “sammiewiches” that takes him back to his childhood days. Thanks for a great recipe “Super C” and Trish for an extra idea too.

      2. Do you use Green or Red Pesto or is there really a difference ? This is very much like the Homemade Tomato Soup my Mother made, except I think she added more milk to make it go further with 7 hungry mouths to feed. I love adding a touch of Basil to my Tomato Soup, and I cut our Grilled Cheese Sandwiches into Strips for ” Easy Dunkin”. Blessings from the hills of Southern Iniana.

  4. I just think Tennessee is beautiful, period. Love it up there. And it has not a thing to do with my eloping to Nashville to get married, Memphis in May, spending Christmas in at the Gaylord Opryland resort, hiking to see incredible waterfalls in the Smoky Mountains or vacationing in the mountains of Gatlinburg. Okay. Maybe a little! 😉

    Nice soup – simple and easy. Perfect for dunking a grilled cheese sammie in if ya ask me!

    Have a relaxing weekend my friend. 🙂

  5. I live in Winchester, which is in the same county as Sewanee and just a five minute drive from Cowan. It is such a beautiful place, especially in the fall. My husband actually proposed to me at the Cross on the Sewanee campus. I wanted to mention that I do not think Hallelujah Pottery is still in business, but I have been wrong before 😉 Hope you get to visit our little county again soon. The Soup looks yummy!

    1. Eventually I’ll go getting all poetic on Winchester, too! lol Your comment just brought even more beauty rushing back to me, you truly do live in one of the most beautiful places around!

      Thanks for letting me know about the pottery. Hopefully someone else will fill the void soon!
      Gratefully,
      Christy

      1. I’m from Winchester and still have a house there. Went to school in Sewanee. Spent summer camps at DuBose in Monteagle. The cross was my favorite be alone unwind places. I am heading that way today. You have given me so many memories to reflect on today and release me from some of the seriousness of today’s trip. Love you, Christie.

    2. 5 stars
      Thank you Christy , i hope to make this tonight , and would be so perfect , since this weather is soo cold.What could be better than this , and so fulfilling.Have a very blessed day sweetie.

      1. 5 stars
        I made this soup last Saturday, it is the best tomato soup I have ever eaten, also, I did your thing and grilled a cheese sandwich to go with it. I don’t comment on your recipes much, but I have tried and used most of them I receive from you. Thanks for being you and God Bless you and your family. Stay safe in these trying times.
        From Franklin, Williamson County, Tennessee

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