Make Tomato Soup Tonight, With the Help of Your Pantry

We've partnered with Muir Glen to celebrate the season with recipes, tips, and videos that making holiday entertaining easy, elegant, and totally stress-free. Up first: Cozy tomato soup combos that make a perfect in-between-parties bite.

Tomato soup is my desert island food. As in, the single dish I’d bring if I knew I were going to be stranded. I’d take the classic version I make once a week in the winter, which to me is the edible equivalent of sitting near a crackling fire, wrapped in a soft flannel blanket, reading a really addictive mystery novel.

It’s a loose (read: lazy) variation of an Ina Garten recipe, and includes both roasted fresh tomatoes and canned tomatoes, along with lots of sautéed alliums, broth, basil, red pepper flakes, and a big pinch of cayenne. If I have one on hand, I usually throw a Parmesan rind in there too. Some weeks, I omit the roasted tomatoes, and double down on the canned. Others, I’ll dabble with different fresh or dried herbs, like oregano. I’ve stirred in everything from Greek yogurt to coconut cream to miso, and I’m proud to report, it’s never gone awry.

There are about as many ways to pull together a bowl of tomato soup as there are spices in your pantry. That’s what makes tomato soup perfect for my hypothetical desert island scenario: It’s endlessly riffable, and consequently, impossible to grow tired of. The moment I arrived on the island, I would get scavenging for new stuff to add (well, after I fired off some smoke signals) like green onions, spicy peppers, and maybe a fist-full of sage.

The best thing about tomato soup is that you don’t need a recipe to reach cozy, deeply flavorful nirvana. It’s all about instinct and convenience; here are the basics:

Take my souped-up version, inspired by peperonata, for example. I came up with it on a whim recently when I was in the mood for something with serious roasted flavor and depth.

You roughly chop some red peppers, garlic, and onion, and toss it all into a soup pot with a few large glugs of olive oil. Once everything’s nice and jammy, you add a couple cans of fire-roasted diced tomatoes, plus broth and tomato paste. After you’ve let the flavors meld and the texture thicken, you stir in a touch of red wine vinegar, salt, and pepper, and then blend until smooth.

The only important thing to remember when you're riffing in your own kitchen is that there are no real rules when it comes to tomato soup, except for this one: If we get stranded on the same desert island, you'd better promise to give me a bite.

What's your favorite way to satisfy a tomato soup craving? Let us know in the comments!

In partnership with Muir Glen—makers of premium, organic tomato products grown in California's Sacramento Valley, aka our go-to canned tomatoes—we're excited to share all the ways we holiday. From make-ahead appetizers to dinner table show-stoppers, you can look forward to party-ready recipes that are even easier (and tastier!) when you bring a few cans of Muir Glen tomatoes into the mix.