Hi, I'm Lindsay. And I am one of the dietitians here at the VA
And today I'm going to help show you how to make a quick healthier version of Tomato soup.
Ok so our ingrediency today we've got 2 cans of crushed tomatoes, whole plain yogurt, we've got cloves of garlic as well as oregano sprigs
Red onion, salt and pepper to taste, and then you can either do homemade broth or we've got low sodium broth packets that we are going to use today.
All right. To start with we are going to poor in a TBS of extra virgin olive oil. It can be really canola oil, olive oil. Olive is one of the
most heart healthy oils that you can use. Just make sure you use it sparingly.
A TBS adds 100 calories to a recipe, so keep that in mind. I've already got my one red onion chopped as well as
my three cloves of garlic chopped finely. So I'm just going to add that to the pan as well.
What we are going to do is cook this until it becomes translucent. So just kinda see through. So we are just going to sweep that all in
And then make sure the pan is covered. And we are going to let that simmer until it becomes translucent. That's usually going to take about 6 minutes. Give or take.
I am on going to turn up our heat a little bit. Right now it was on low, so I'm going to turn it up to medium.
So these are the canned tomatoes. Obviously they are crushed tomatoes. If you can buy the no salt added option
that's going to be the best option. Again part of perk of making your own tomato soup from scratch is saving on that sodium content.
As far as the oregano goes. We are using fresh oregano in this recipe today.
We don't always have fresh herbs and spices available to us. So if you are playing with some dried herbs instead, you can definitely use those, just know that dried herbs call for 1/3 less
than what the fresh would be. So that would be if you are calling for a TBS of fresh herbs you're only going to use a tsp of your dried herbs.
So as you can see, our onions have turned somewhat translucent. Meaning they are not nearly as vibrant as they were to begin with. So at this point we're just going to kinda
dump and go with our ingredients. So, we have our can of tomato ready so we are going to pour that in.
If you wanted to us know just do a little
Making sure you are getting all that crushed tomato out.
Same with our next can. We are just going to dump it.
I've still kept my heat on about medium. It's a little closer to medium high at this point.
So we've got our tomatoes in there. Now we are going add our broth. Since I'm using packets I'm going to just go head and pour my water in.
So you are going to do 4 cups of either homemade or low sodium broth.
Since we are doing packets, I'm going to add my water and then I'm going to add my little bouillon cubes that are low sodium.
So go ahead and dump that in as well
I'm going to go head in and stir in my broth
so that it dissolves.
Then I'm going to just go head and add the oregano. I'm not even going to take the oregano of the sprig, I'm just going to throw it in there. We'll remove those before we actually eat it.
So like I said, I'll go out on a limb and say 3 sprigs of oregano is probably equal to about a tsp
oh I'm sorry, about TBS of the fresh. So that mean about a tsp of the dried
and it can up to your flavoring taste.
So we are going to let that sit and boil
So once you've got it boiling, you are going want to turn down the heat to low medium. And we are going let it simmer for about 45 minutes
At that point, it should start to thicken up. It also allows all the flavors to come together. So you definitely want to try to cook it for as long as you can for that 45 minutes.
Once it's stop boiling at the end of 45 minutes we are going to take it off and let it cool down a little and then we are going add our 1/2 cup of whole milk plain yogurt.
So make sure you get the plain and not the vanilla. Plain yogurt.
So once it has reached its 45 minutes, we are going go ahead and take the sprigs of oregano out
We definitely not going to be eating those. Now if you used dried herbs obviously we are just going let those sit in the soup.
For those of us that used fresh we definitely want to take them out.
So at this point, before we add our yogurt, we do want to make sure it has stopped boiling, otherwise we are going probably curdle the yogurt.
So at this point we are going to take our 1/2 cup of whole milk plain yogurt and we are just going to add that to
the pot. It doesn't take a whole lot. Now if you want to, you could add greek plain yogurt. That will add a little bit more protein.
The yogurt is going to give it a nice creamer texture.
And here is the finished tomato soup. It's easy, low cost, and so healthy for you. So enjoy!