Make Canned Tomato Soup Ultra-Satisfying With A One-Ingredient Upgrade

Although a bowl of warm tomato soup is always a cozy and soul-nourishing meal, it's not particularly hearty. When made from scratch, you can augment it with roasted veggies and lentils for an element of satiety, but when you're grabbing your favorite brand of store-bought tomato soup from the pantry, a big cooking project is likely not what you have in mind. The base of many canned tomato soups is a blend of tomatoes and water, enhanced with a few other ingredients (such as flour and sugar) for texture and flavor. On its own, canned tomato soup almost always benefits from additions that boost its flavor and nutritional profile. Adding bacon gives you a one-ingredient delicious upgrade.

Bacon makes everything better, as the saying goes. When added to canned tomato soup, it amplifies the flavor with its salty and smoky notes. It also provides an element of fullness that was missing previously because tomato soups don't contain much fat unless they're specifically made to be creamy by the inclusion of cream or milk — and even then, the fat content is pretty low. Bacon, on the other hand, has plenty of fat. It can turn tomato soup into a richer, more satisfying meal.

The easiest and most convenient way to add bacon to your tomato soup is to go the store-bought route with bacon bits, precooked bacon, or bacon jerky. It's minimum effort with maximum results. You can, of course, cook bacon from scratch and you might be relieved to know that you don't need an extra pot. Simply fry it in your soup pot, and once it's crisped up to your liking, pour over the canned tomato soup and cook per instructions. Another option for lovers of freshly cooked crunchy bacon (and hands-free cooking) is to make the bacon in the oven and later add it to the finished soup. Don't toss the leftover bacon grease once you're done, though; there are many ways to use it in other recipes.

If you're enticed by the flavor of bacon but want to skip the extra fat and keep your tomato soup nutritionally thinner, bacon seasoning is the way to go. It might not make the soup more filling, but it will provide a ton of extra flavor. And finally, a good, old fashioned melty grilled cheese sandwich still goes heavenly with canned tomato soup, especially when creative additions give it some extra pizazz.