Tomato-Basil Soup

(Originally posted by Anne)

It’s funny the number of things that I did not like as a child that I eat almost daily now: oatmeal, soup, black beans, and most recently, tomatoes. I discovered creamy tomato basil soup in college and ate it a lot, but recently I have stayed away from it due to a typically high fat content. So when I was searching for new recipes and saw this one on cookinglight.com, I had to try it!

Tomato-Basil Soup

From

2 teaspoons olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
3 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 (14.5-ounce) cans no-salt-added diced tomatoes, undrained
2 cups fresh basil leaves, thinly sliced
Basil leaves (optional)

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add garlic; cook 30 seconds, stirring constantly. Stir in the broth, salt, and tomatoes; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer 20 minutes. Stir in basil.Place half of the soup in a blender; process until smooth. Pour pureed soup into a bowl, and repeat procedure with remaining soup. Garnish with basil leaves, if desired.

Yield: 4 servings (serving size: 1 1/2 cups)

CALORIES 103(24% from fat); FAT 2.8g (sat 0.4g,mono 1.7g,poly 0.4g); PROTEIN 5.8g; CHOLESTEROL 0.0mg; CALCIUM 129mg; SODIUM 809mg; FIBER 4g; IRON 2.4mg; CARBOHYDRATE 15.9g

Cooking Light, JANUARY 2002 

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I modified this to my own tastes by adding about 1/4-1/2 of a cup of (frozen) chopped onions and 3 sun-dried tomatoes in the first step with the garlic. It was really, really yummy — and look, no heavy cream! I also only used 2 cans of chicken broth; it makes it less runny (per the suggestions on the website). I did not use fresh basil but the regular, dried, pre-chopped kind (I added this to taste; I didn’t use their size suggestions). I also added garlic salt instead of regular salt plus a dash of crushed red pepper flakes because I like things a little spicy  I also probably got about 6 one and a half cup servings out of it.
One suggestion about the blending, though: it really only needs to be blended at a low speed. I, um, tried it at high speed and, um, it managed to spatter all over my kitchen despite the fact that I really was holding the lid down really tightly.

Enjoy!

Edit: per Blest’s post below, this also does seem to have a decent amount of sodium in it. My guess is that the sodium’s coming from the chicken broth (as the tomatoes are the no-salt-added kind). The tomato flavor is by far the overpowering taste, so I bet you could use 1 can of broth + 1 can of water to cut the sodium content probably in half! Next time…