Mary Berry's 1 Sneaky Secret Ingredient For The Best Tomato Soup

If you love Mary Berry’s recipes, you’ll already know how fond she is of an unexpected secret ingredient. 

First came the controversial addition to her spag bol recipe; then, we learned of her clever mashed potato hack. She even shakes up classic lasagne instructions. 

But surely the Cordon Bleu-trained chef can’t add much to a tried-and-true tomato soup recipe, right?

Wrong! 

The former Great British Bake-Off co-host’s tomato soup recipe is “one of her favourite family recipes,” its BBC page reads. 

And that’s not surprising, as “With no onions to chop or tomatoes to skin, it really is ready in ten minutes!” 

Aside from all the usual ingredients ― tinned tomatoes, stock, garlic, and a decadent hit of milk and cream at the end ― Mary Berry’s soup also contains flavour-intensifying sundried tomatoes. 

She includes six of them in their oil in the recipe for six to eight people, so it’s not overwhelming ― but it still packs a tangy punch.

As food site Forks Over Knives says, “the drying process concentrates the tomatoes’ natural umami qualities.” 

That means you get a lot more impactful flavour from one dehydrated option than you would from plenty of fresh ones (besides, unless they’re in-season local tommies, some chefs recommend avoiding supermarket options in your recipes at all).

Anything else?

Yep ― the chef says you can add basil pesto to the top of her soup recipe if you like. 

“The basil pesto adds a lovely flavour, but this soup is still very good without it,” Mary says. 

She also recommends using a little sugar when cooking with tomatoes ― not just in this recipe, but in general, too. 

She says the ingredient “brings out the flavour of the tomatoes and helps balance their acidity – sometimes they can be a little bitter.” 

Some Italians like to add a touch of baking powder instead of (or in addition to) sugar to reduce the acidity, though whether or not you want to do that is down to personal taste. 

Speaking of which, I’m off to try this recipe (you know, for journalistic reasons)...