Simple Creamy Homemade Tomato Soup

What could be better than a big bowl of homemade tomato soup on a cold winter's day! This recipe is a one pan incredibly easy to make soup that your whole family will enjoy. I especially love this recipe because you can increase cooking time (to 40 minutes) to thicken up the soup into a great pasta sauce.  Make a great sauce to top your favorite pasta!

Ingredients:

Soup:
1/4 pound ground beef or turkey, browned and drained
2-23.5 cans of Italian tomato sauce (you can also you your favorite pasta sauce)
1 yellow pepper, finely diced
1-8 oz container light cream cheese (garden vegetable and onion are great flavors to use)
1-14 oz can Italian diced tomatoes
1/2 cup half and half
1 tbsp dried dill
1/2 tsp seasoning salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tsp red pepper flakes*
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp dried parsley (you can also use fresh)
2 tbsp grated Parmesan


Garnish:
1 Roma tomato, diced
parsley, dried or fresh finely chopped
red pepper flakes

Directions: 

In a deep pan, brown ground beef or turkey until brown on medium high.  Remove from heat and drain off fat. Return to pan.  Add yellow pepper and cook for 2 minutes more and stir occasionally. Add all remaining ingredients except cream cheese and Parmesan and reduce heat to low. Stir and cover, continue to cook on low for 20 minutes.  Taste and adjust seasoning to your preference (salt, pepper, sugar, red pepper flakes, dill). Add cream cheese and Parmesan and stir until incorporated. Serve with garlic bread. Enjoy!

Cooks Note: As soup cools it will thicken, so if you warm up leftovers you will need to stir in a little milk (1/4 cup per serving) to thin out the soup. 

* you can omit the red pepper flakes if you feel it would make your soup too spicy for your little eaters :-)