Burgoo’s Tasty Tomato Soup

Burgoo is a popular Vancouver restaurant that serves the best comfort food. I tend to order this tomato soup because there aren’t a lot of meals on their comfort food menu that a lactose-intolerant person can eat.

Not only is this soup lactose-free, but it is soooo delicious! Also, it’s quite easy to make – once you’ve chopped everything up you just simmer for an hour, purée, and you’re ready to go.

I made a few changes to the recipe: since I am making it in Winter, I didn’t have fresh tomatoes that I thought would enhance the flavour. The recipe called for some canned and some fresh, and I have used all canned tomatoes. I added a few carrots, and I made the recipe a little bit smaller so it would fit in my pot.

This soup is even better after reheating, and freezes really well. I love making a massive batch and freezing most so I can have a healthy soup anytime I need it.

Just a word about the wine: please use a wine you would actually want to drink. If you like a sweeter red wine (ick), then you should probably use less brown sugar. The alcohol burns off, so there is none left in the soup, should you be serving it to people who don’t drink alcohol.

This serves 6-8 people.

What you need:

  • 2 – 796 mL cans of whole or chopped tomatoes (San Marzano are the best!)
  • 3 cups water
  • 250-375 mL your favourite red wine
  • 1 very large sweet onion (or two small ones), chopped
  • 4 cloves garlic, chopped
  • 2 carrots, chopped
  • 1/4 cup tomato paste
  • 2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar
  • 2 Tablespoons brown sugar
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • optional: olive oil for drizzling before serving

What you do:

  1. Put everything in a large pot.
  2. Gently bring it up to a simmer.
  3. Simmer for one hour with the lid off, stirring from time to time.
  4. Purée, and if you want a super smooth soup, run it through a sieve or food mill.
  5. Taste to see if you want to add more salt, pepper, or anything else.
  6. Serve drizzled with a little olive oil, or not.
  7. Enjoy!

Tomato Soup

tomato soup - trust in kim

(Revised January 2021: This is a great soup recipe, however, my favourite is closer to the actual Burgoo recipe. And it has red wine in it! Click here to find the recipe.)

Burgoo is a great comfort food restaurant in Vancouver.  They don’t have a lot of dairy-free options, so I tend to eat the tomato soup – which is the best tomato soup I’ve ever had!  I found this tomato soup recipe recently and omitted the milk to make it a dairy-free tomato soup.  I think it may be as good as the one I had at Burgoo; it is flavourful, and full of healthy ingredients.  It is also really easy to make, and freezes well.

What you need:

1 tablespoon olive oil

about 1 cup diced carrots

about 1/2 cup diced celery

about 2 cups diced zucchini (skin on)

1 large yellow onion, diced

5 cloves garlic, minced

1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves, rubbed off the stems

2 bay leaves

salt and red pepper flakes to taste

about 4 cups (2 28-ounce cans) crushed Italian tomatoes

4 cups chicken (or vegetable) broth

What you do:

  1. Heat the olive oil in a large pot.  Add the carrots, celery, zucchini and onion.  Saute for 10-12 minutes, until the onion is very soft and the zucchini has cooked through.  Add the garlic and stir for one minute.
  2. Add the thyme, bay leaves, red pepper flakes, tomatoes and chicken stock.  Bring to a simmer and cook for about 30 minutes, until the carrots are very soft.
  3. Remove from the heat, and take the bay leaves out.  Blend the soup in a blender or with an immersion blender until smooth.  Add salt to taste.

Enjoy it hot! And I can imagine it is awesome with a grilled cheese sandwich, but this theory is yet untested.