You should try this Clear tomato soup recipe if you want a soup that fills your stomach without leaving you heavy. A light, mild, heartwarming soup to serve as a side. Like to add up, It tastes excellent with the hint of mint's aroma.
More choices for making it a wholesome meal. It will not hurt you physically or financially, and it is easy to make a budget-friendly recipe.
Traditionally, it belongs to the first-course meals category. It is usually considered an alternative to caffeine beverages in India.

This clear tomato soup has played an integral part in Indian cuisine recently. If you have been to India, there are rare minimum chances of returning without tasting this. You might have tasted it in the train travels, as a starter in the Indian restaurants.
There are some days, I chose to travel by train not only for its comfort but also for the Indian railway's tomato soup. In the United States, Indian restaurants serve this type of light-clear soup.
This tomato and herb soup recipe is the simple version of tomato soup, without any troublesome procedures or ingredients.
The ingredients added here are universal, and the taste suits the versatile palettes. Another great advantage is that clear tomato soup has just 5 ingredients.
I have a small kitchen countermint plant, which helped a lot with many dishes. I snipped off a few leaves and added them to the dish, which gave the warm soup a refreshing look and feel.
Other tomato recipes you may like
The Key ingredients
Like many vegetable recipes, this clear tomato soup relies too much on the ingredients' quality and freshness. The fresher the vegetable, the tastier it is.
Tomato. Start with good tomatoes. Every variety of tomatoes brings a different taste to this recipe. The plum tomatoes add rich color and the tase to the clear soup. The Roma tomato soup is tangy and flavorful.
Onion. Adjust the onion according to the variety you use. In this recipe, I have used the yellow onion. This gives a mild and rich texture to the soup. If you use red onion, minimize the volume. Red onion has a strong and bold flavor.
Garlic. Less is more, according to this ingredient. One small clove of garlic is way more than enough for this recipe. We add here to neutralize the aroma of onion and blend the onion and tomato taste.
Bay leaf. This adds a nice aroma, enhancing the clear tomato soup's flavor and taste. We added only a small leaf, and we removed it while serving. Even then, it leaves mild aromatic footprints, and no one can guess this surprising ingredient is white tasting.
Mint leaves. It makes the clear tomato soup vivid and vibrant. As I told you earlier, I have a small live mint plant in my kitchen in a smaller planter. It does not occupy much space, but its value to the recipes is impressive. And surprisingly, it requires low maintenance.
If time and space permits, grow your own near the kitchen windows. Few leaves would be more than enough for making certain dishes. Which definitely will not disappoint you.
Once you have gathered all these ingredients, it is time to start with the cooking.
Serving clear tomato soup
There are multiple exciting ways to serve. The following are I have tried, tested, and loved variations.
Serve as a mid-day drink. I'm not obsessed with coffee or tea. So, I always try to find other varieties of beverages that make me thrive all day long. This energizes me and puts me into activation mode immediately after I complete a small bowl of soup.
When you serve this in the mugs, it does not need any toppings like crotons.
When serving as a side. Serve with a small soup bowl, with mild toppings. pita bread croutons, naan bread croutons, or nonfatty crotons would be fantastic to pair with them.
When serving as a meal. Add chickpeas, beans, chicken, or other meat to make it a dinner meal. Pasta, udon noodles, or soba noodles are excellent to pair with.
This is a crowd-pleasing recipe. This simple tomato soup recipe makes your guest feel comfortable, and light with the other heavy filling dishes.
Other soup recipes you may like,
- Vegan roasted tomato soup
- How to make tomato soup from tomato paste
- Indian vegetable soup
- Hibachi soup recipe
- Vegetable tortellini soup
Variations for the tomato clear soup recipe
This is a vegan and vegetarian recipe with fresh ingredients.
Vegan: Substitute butter with any cooking oil or vegan butter.
Egg whites: Adding egg whites makes it look grander when served. This adds a great texture to the thin and clear soup,
Pasta: Pasta is perfect to combine with. You can choose to use multi-grain or whole-wheat pasta to make it healthy.
Noodles: You may use Asian soba, udon, and rice noodles.
Wontons: If you have wontons, throw in some. It makes this to call as Asian tomato soup.
Ravioli/tortellini: The ravioli and tortellini make this tomato clear soup rich. The added mint leaves make it a genuinely inspiring fusion recipe.
How to make clear tomato soup
Make the base for the soup: Add roughly chopped onion, tomato, and two cups of water. Cook tomato and onion till it becomes fork-tender. Let it cool down, and grind it until it becomes a smooth consistency. And set aside.
The amount of water and the time for cooking is not significant here. So, what would be the correct quantity of water? the water level just right above the veggie is good enough. All that is needed for rich and silky soup is well done.
Seasoning the soup: In a pan, add butter, bay leaf, and mint leaves. Saute until mint leaves shrink down. And add ground tomato plus onion mixture. Let it boil for another 5 minutes. This 5 minutes of cooking makes the soup infused well with the seasoning.
I have made it with a bay leaf and a few mint leaves sauteed in half a teaspoon of butter. Cooking them in low flame. If you think about some variation in the seasonings, consider cumin seeds, peppercorns, and cinnamon. Mint, bay leaf, basil, and thyme are the few best herbs to go with tomato.
Strain and Serve: Pour the tomato broth into a fine-mesh sieve and strain. Extract the tomato juice and serve hot. Add croutons and baked pita chips as toppings.
Printable recipe card
Clear tomato soup recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup onion roughly chopped
- 2 cups tomato roughly chopped
- 1 garlic clove
- 3 cups water
- ½ teaspoon butter
- 1 bay leaf
- 8 mint leaves
- ½ teaspoon salt
Instructions
- In a pan, add onion, tomato, garlic to 3 cups of water.
- Cook until tomato becomes fork tender.
- Cool it down to the room temperature. And add it to the blender jar and pulse until it becomes a silky and smooth. And keep aside.
- In a pan, add butter, bay leaf and mint leaves. Saute until mint leaves shrinks and changes its color.
- The add the ground mixture and salt. And boil for 5 minutes.
- Strain and serve the soup hot.
Kate
Oh yum - so clean and fresh, easy to make but packed with flavour. Lovely soup!
Jyoti Behrani
Such a wonderful and comforting soup! I loved your recipe! Really nice yummy flavors! I will make another batch next week!
Claudia Lamascolo
I love this version and made it several times the flavors are fabulous!
Jacqueline Meldrum
I'm always up for anything made with tomatoes and I do love a bowl of soup.
Anita
This is different from my regular tomato soup, but I love it. It's very light, refreshing, and delicious.
DonaboBotanicalGardens
I will serve this in our Cafe thank you
Sujatha Muralidhar
Thank you Dona, glad to hear your words!!