This is the classic Indian tomato soup recipe that tastes just like your favorite Indian restaurant. A perfect comforting soup for wintery days when served with some croutons, garlic bread, grilled cheese or chilli cheese toast.
This creamy tomato soup is made from scratch in under 30 minutes using instant pot.
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❤️About This Recipe
Taste: It has the right balance of sweet and sour taste, jam-packed with flavor and lightly spiced.
Texture: This Indian tomato soup is silky, smooth, velvety rich and creamy.
BEST recipe: Trust me, this is the only creamy tomato soup recipe you’ll need in your life. It is simple, easy to make with fresh ingredients.
Quick to make: It takes 30 minutes only (from prep to finish). It is made in a pressure cooker (stovetop or Instant pot).
🧾Ingredient Notes
Here is the pic of the ingredients required to make super delicious, creamy, Indian tomato soup. The detailed amount is mentioned in the recipe card below.
Tomatoes: Highly recommend using fresh, ripe roma tomatoes. You can try with other types of tomatoes but make sure that they’ll have the sweetest flavor (not sour) to get the best tasting soup.
Beetroot: a small piece of beetroot is added to add some sweetness and bright color.
Onion, Ginger, Garlic: These are added as a flavor base for the soup.
Kashmiri red chili powder: This type is less spicy compared to regular chili powder. Plus, it adds a nice color to the soup. In the absence of it, you can use cayenne pepper.
Ketchup: It adds deeper, concentrated tomato flavor to the soup.
Vegetable stock: Instead of buying veggie stock packs, I prefer to use ‘Better than bouillon vegetable base’. I always keep a jar of it in the refrigerator. You just have to mix it up in hot water and your vegetable stock is ready.
Heavy cream: It adds richness and creaminess to this Indian style creamy tomato soup. It also cuts down the acidity of the tomatoes by adding sweet flavor.
👩🍳Step By Step Photo Instructions
1) Turn on the Instant pot with saute mode. Add butter and let it get melted.
2) Add bay leaf, onion, ginger and garlic.
3) Saute for 2-3 minutes or until onions start to soften and get a slight color change.
4) Add chopped tomatoes, beetroot, salt, pepper, kashmiri chili powder and vegetable stock.
5) Stir everything. Cover the instant pot with a lid. Keep the valve to sealing and pressure cook (manual) for 4 minutes.
6) Let the pressure go down naturally. Once the pin drops, open the lid. (if in the rush then QPR-quick pressure release after 10 minutes).
7) Make a smooth puree using an immersion blender.
8) Oops, forgot to remove the bay leaf. Remove it before blending.
9) Add ketchup.
10) Also, add heavy cream.
11) Stir everything until well combined. If needed you can bring it to a boil before serving for piping hot Indian tomato soup.
🍽 Serving Ideas
- Light meal: It can be paired with toasted crusty bread or lots of croutons. Keep in mind that this creamy tomato soup is light on the stomach. If you are starving then this is not a good choice.
- Filling meal: To make it filling to your tummy, serve this soup with a grilled cheese sandwich or chili cheese toast or garlic cheese bread.
- Starter or Appetizer: It can be served in a smaller portion with a couple of croutons as a starter soup.
💭Expert Tips
- Always use perfectly ripe, red tomatoes. Unripe tomatoes will make the soup sour and lack the natural sweetness from tomatoes.
- Type of tomatoes: the best choice is roma or plum tomatoes. Or use your choice of other verity but make sure to choose the one which is sweet in flavor and not tart or sour.
- The addition of beetroot is optional.
- Strain the blended soup or not? I have used a powerful immersion blender that makes a smooth puree so I have not strained. You can use a regular, high powder blender to blend the soup. If your blender is not making smooth puree then you can pass it through the strainer and discard the fibrous pulp.
🥣 Storage Instructions
- It stays good for 3-4 days in the refrigerator in an airtight container.
- Freezing this soup is not recommended because of the heavy cream in it. Heavy cream may curdle after defrosting.
- If planning to make a bigger batch and freeze the rest then do not add heavy cream. Add that after defrosting while reheating the creamy tomato soup.
Check Out Other Soup Recipes
Did you try this creamy Indian tomato soup recipe? I’d love to hear about it! Click here to leave a review.
📋 Recipe Card
Creamy Indian Tomato Soup (Instant Pot)
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon Butter
- 1 Bay leaf
- ½ cup White onion chopped (red or yellow works too)
- 2 cloves Garlic chopped
- 1 inch Ginger chopped
- 1 lb Tomatoes around 4 roma tomatoes
- ¼ cup Beetroot peeled and chopped, OPTIONAL
- Salt & Pepper to taste
- ½ teaspoon Kashmiri red chili powder
- 1 cup Vegetable broth
- 1 tablespoon Tomato Ketchup
- ¼ cup Heavy whipping cream or fresh cream or malai
Instructions
- Turn on the Instant pot with saute mode. Add butter and let it get melted.
- Add bay leaf, onion, ginger and garlic. Saute for 2-3 minutes or until onions start to soften and get a slight color change.
- Add chopped tomatoes, beetroot, salt, pepper, kashmiri chili powder and vegetable stock. Stir everything.
- Cover the instant pot with a lid. Keep the valve to sealing and pressure cook (manual) for 4 minutes.
- Let the pressure go down naturally. Once the pin drops, open the lid. (if in the rush then QPR-quick pressure release after 10 minutes).
- Discard the bay leaf and make a smooth puree using an immersion blender.
- Add ketchup and heavy cream. Stir everything until well combined.
- If needed you can bring it to a boil before serving for piping hot Indian tomato soup.
Notes
- Always use perfectly ripe, red tomatoes. Unripe tomatoes will make the soup sour and lack the natural sweetness from tomatoes.
- Type of tomatoes: the best choice is roma or plum tomatoes. Or use your choice of other verity but make sure to choose the one which is sweet in flavor and not tart or sour.
- Strain the blended soup or not? I have used a powerful immersion blender that makes a smooth puree so I have not strained. You can use a regular, high powder blender to blend the soup. If your blender is not making smooth puree then you can pass it through the strainer and discard the fibrous pulp.
- Freezing this soup is not recommended because of the heavy cream in it. If planning to freeze the leftovers then do not add heavy cream. Add that after defrosting while reheating the creamy tomato soup.
Marjorie Rosenfeld
Thanks so much for this South Indian Tomato Soup recipe. I've been getting this soup at a nearby Indian restaurant and always take some home to have in my freezer in addition to eating it at the restaurant. They must have had someone new in the kitchen last time I was there, though, as the soup was utterly bland and tasted of nothing except tomatoes and water. Today I took the container out of the freezer and, going by your recipe, added garlic powder, onion powder, chili powder, black pepper, and curry powder. Since I'm not supposed to have sugar, I also added a little luo han guo (monk fruit powder), which, like stevia, doesn't fuel pathogenic organisms. I didn't have bay leaf so couldn't add that. But the soup was delicious, even without it, and tasted quite a bit like the soup I used to love at my neighborhood Indian restaurant. Indian food is my favorite kind of food!
Kanan
Glad to know that you liked this recipe.
Thank you for sharing detailed feedback that may help others.
Joami
I am so imprest by the outline of procedure... i managed to cook tomato soup alone in the house. family was amazed at the skill...
Kanan
Thank you for the feedback,
Glad that everyone liked.