DD loves tomato soup, so I tried this recipe for her. Served it with grilled cheese sandwiches made with homemade bread.
I basically followed the recipe, but added some basil and celery seed and changed the amounts a bit. Here’s my version.
Tomato, Bacon, and Bean Soup
1/4 pound bacon, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 T. dry onion (or 1 onion, diced)
2 c. potatoes, peeled and diced
2 28-oz. cans crushed tomatoes
2 15-oz. cans white beans, undrained
32 oz. chicken broth
1 T. brown sugar
1 tsp. dry basil
1 tsp. celery seed
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
I like to dice the bacon before cooking so I don’t have to crumble it later. I eye-balled the pound of bacon, cut off 1/4 of it, and diced that.
I like a one pan method, so I started with the stock pot.
Brown the diced bacon (and the onion, if using fresh) in the stock pot until the bacon is crisp. Drain off the grease. I remove the pot from the heat, tip it to pool the grease, scrape the bacon to one side, and use a wad of three or four paper towels to soak up the grease. If I had four arms, I’d have taken a picture for you, but I was cooking alone. So no picture of grease sopping.
Add the minced garlic and stir well. Don’t cook the garlic too long or it will leave a bitter flavor.
While the bacon cooked, I peeled and diced the potatoes.
Add the remaining ingredients, except the salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, cover and reduce the heat to a simmer. Simmer for 15-20 minutes, until potatoes are tender.
Salt and pepper to taste. I added 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Next time, I think I’ll add a little less.
The original recipe called for blending a portion of the soup and returning that to the pot. I skipped that step. I like chunky soup. And it’s just one more thing to wash…
Delicious with crunchy toasted homemade bread. DD practically inhaled her bowl of soup. 🙂
~~Rhonda
3 Comments
Looks tasty! We have made a tomato/white bean soup in the past, but think that the addition of bacon would make it extra tasty.
For the part of blending soup and then returning it to the pot … do you own a stick blender? — that is an easy way to accomplish the task. You can blend to your desired level of chunkiness/smoothness.
Mika, I had a stick blender at one time, but it broke and I didn’t get a new one, as I hadn’t used the old one that much. But that would work! ~~Rhonda
I’m looking forward to seeing what you have to say for Crock Pot Wednesday this week. This soup would be awesome. Mister Linky is up and ready for your link. Thanks so much for joining me.