Did you know that you can turn canned tomato sauce, even the blandest kind, into tomato soup that tastes as fresh as the one in this photo made from ripe summer tomatoes (and now I’m having intense heirloom tomato and basil salad cravings…).

I’ve been making this trick tomato soup recipe for years now. Especially in winter when I get a sudden craving for warm soup. I always have tomato sauce on hand for this reason. And now in quarantine when fresh ingredients are harder to come by and we’re all riding the non-perishable recipe train, this soup is even more relevant than ever.

The high magnesium levels in tomatoes help with muscle relaxation and mood balance. As cortisol (stress hormone) levels rise, we need more magnesium to balance them out.

To transform the canned tomato sauce into soup, it comes down to playing with the balance of flavours between sour, salt, sweet, and fat to bring out flavor depth in the soup.

Ingredients

3 cups (250ml) water (if you have chicken stock, that’s even better, otherwise a couple of bouillon cubes is a great add in as well, if not, plain water is just fine)

2 cups (500g) tomato sauce (marinara sauce or plain heinz tomato sauce is great) or tomato purée

2 tablespoons (30ml) tomato concentrate (you can also use another 200g of tomato sauce instead)

1/2 cup (120ml) milk or nut milk

3 tablespoons (45ml) red wine

1 tablespoon (15ml) neutral oil like virgin coconut, grape seed or even olive oil

1/2 tablespoon (7.5ml) honey

1/4 tablespoon dried or fresh herbs

Salt and pepper to taste

Recipe

Combine all the ingredients in a large sauce pan and gently boil for 20 minutes.

Taste the soup and analyze the flavours: Too sweet? Add more wine or a dash of lemon juice. Too sour? Add more milk and honey. Too bland? Add more salt and more oil, even a tablespoon of butter, to add more depth. It’s all about balancing these flavours, play around with them until you get the flavor you love!

To spice up the soup, you can add fresh onions or any root vegetable like potato, sweet potato, or carrot directly to the soup and purée together once tender.