I’ve only tried making tomato and basil soup a couple of times over the years and until now I could never get it to come out quite as good as I’d hoped. I recently came up with this new recipe and I am in love with it. It’s the extra-rich-tomatoey-goodness from the sun-dried tomatoes that makes this so good. To top it all off, it’s made mostly in the blender AND it doubles as a pasta sauce until you thin it out to make soup! It makes my day whenever I figure out a way to use one recipe for multiple different meals. Here’s the link to the Sun-Dried Tomato and Pesto Pasta sauce pictured with the Sun-Dried Tomato Basil Soup below. I’ll be blogging soon about one more amazing recipe I am able to make with this sauce.
Trader Joe’s Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Genova Pesto
This is definitely a semi-homemade recipe and uses several ingredients from Trader Joe’s. The only cooking is sauteing the onions and the rest is done in the blender. If you have a Blendtec or VitaMix with the “heat” option, you don’t even have to put it back in a pan to warm it up! Serve it with this Quick Parmesan Garlic Bread or a grilled cheese sandwich.
Here’s my Quick Parmesan Garlic Bread
Easy Lunch at Work
In my post with the Sun-Dried Tomato and Pesto Pasta, I talk about how you can use it to create your own DIY Lean Cuisine type of meal. You can do the same thing with this soup. I would actually make the recipe as the pasta sauce, freeze it in ice cube trays, then store the cubes in a ziptop bag. To make it into a soup, you can just heat up some water or chicken broth in the microwave, add cubes of the pasta sauce and microwave a little longer. Stir it up and you have an instant work lunch!
TIME SAVERS FOR BUSY FAMILIES
If you’re a busy mom like me, you really should check out the rest of my website! I post recipes and products that save time for my busy family, like these 5-shear herb scissors I use to cut up basil and green onions. Be sure to subscribe to my page to get new time-saving recipes and ideas in your inbox!
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Here are a few of my favorite posts: Twist on Trader Joe’s Gnocchi (made from two kinds of TJ’s frozen gnocchi), and my Best PF Chang’s Copycat Mongolian Beef (fried in avocado oil to make it extra crispy). Also, here’s my Easy Pressure Cooker Ranch Pork Tenderloin made with just 3 ingredients!
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Rating
- One can (14.5 oz) Hunt's Petite Diced Tomatoes
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil
- One medium onion, diced
- *One jar (8.5 oz) Trader Joe's Julienne Sliced Sun-Dried Tomatoes in Olive Oil (oil drained)
- *One can (15 oz) Trader Joe's Organic Tomato Sauce
- *3.5 oz Trader Giotto Genova Pesto (half of a 7 oz container; oil drained if desired)
- 1 packet Trader Joe's Savory Broth Concentrate, chicken flavor**
- 2 cloves Gourmet Garden garlic puree
- ¼ to ½ tsp salt (salt to taste)
- ¾ cup low fat half and half
- 3 to 4 cups Swanson's Chicken Broth or water
- Fresh basil and sour cream for serving
- Puree the can of petite diced tomatoes in a blender.
- Place a strainer into a bowl and strain the pureed tomatoes to remove the seeds.
- Return the pureed tomatoes to the blender.
- Using the same strainer and bowl, drain the oil from the sun-dried tomatoes and add them to the blender.
- Saute the diced onion in olive oil until translucent and add them to the blender.
- Add the tomato sauce, pesto, chicken broth, chicken concentrate, garlic and ¼ tsp salt to the blender.
- Blend thoroughly until the sauce is a smooth puree. The sauce will be thick.
- Pour the sauce into the pan used to saute the onions.
- Add the half and half to the blender and blend to remove any remaining sauce from the blender jar.
- Pour the half and half into the sauce and stir to combine.
- Warm the sauce on medium until heated through
- Check salt level and add more if desired.
- Add the chicken broth or water to the desired consistency, using less for a heartier, thicker soup
- Top with fresh basil and sour cream.
**Use any brand of chicken bouillon. One packet of TJ's chicken concentrate would make one cup of chicken broth.
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