The Cheap Ingredient That Makes Store-Bought Tomato Soup Taste So Fancy

My first year out of college, I worked as a pre-K teacher at a charming private school on the North Shore of Boston. While I adored my job, let’s just say the pay wasn’t great—I had zero dollars in the bank. I lived in South Boston, so paying the daily tunnel tolls to get to work was rough on the budget.

Buying groceries became an art form. I knew exactly what I needed to survive the week, and I leaned heavily on a rotation of “struggle meals”—dishes I could make easily, that tasted good, and, most importantly, didn’t break the bank.

One of my go-tos was tomato soup and grilled cheese. I loved to cook, but I learned quickly that buying boxed soup was cheaper than buying all the ingredients to make it from scratch. I loved Trader Joe’s Tomato & Roasted Red Pepper Soup, which used to be under two bucks a box (yes, I’m that old). I would toss the soup into a pot and gently rewarm it. That's it.

That same meal followed me to New York City when I enrolled in culinary school. I’d brave the line at the Trader Joe’s in Union Square to stock up on a few boxes of soup and lug them all the way back to my apartment in Astoria.

During one transformative lesson about French mother sauces, I learned a technique known as monter au beurre, or “to mount with butter.” When making certain sauces, like a basic pan gravy, a velouté, or even beurre blanc, you finish them with a little butter.

Something as simple as adding a few cold pats of butter can totally transform the mouthfeel and flavor of a sauce. That day, it clicked: you can do the exact same thing with tomato soup.

How To Upgrade Tomato Soup With a Pat of Butter

Armed with a boxed-soup budget but a haute-cuisine education, I decided to give this method a try with my “fancy” Trader Joe’s soup.

Once I heated up the quart of tomato soup, I removed it from the heat and gently swirled in two tablespoons of cold, cubed butter. Instead of stirring it in, I carefully whirled the pot by the handle until the butter was fully melted and blended in. (It’s also fine to use a spoon and stir.)

I was blown away by how much the butter improved the flavor of the soup. The tomatoes’ acidity was slightly muted, and the soup became much creamier, almost as if I’d swirled in a bit of heavy cream—an ingredient that was most certainly not in my grocery budget.

All these years later, I still love this soup, and I always add butter to it. My kids love it, too. (It even helps cool the temperature down for them!)