A small amount of cream turns a pot of simple tomato soup into a creamy, lush, pretty-pink tomato soup experience. You can add cream to basically any tomato soup recipe to make it a creamier version of itself. This recipe uses only canned tomatoes, which means you can make it any time of year and not have to wait for that magical perfect tomato time at the end of the summer.

This creamy tomato soup recipe is full of comfort and warmth. A touch of cream turns tomato soup into lushness, and an optional pinch of saffron adds to the soup’s rich flavor and decadence.

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Saffron in Tomato Soup

You probably have all of the ingredients on hand except perhaps the cream and the saffron. Saffron is the priciest spice of all and with good reason.

Saffron threads are the stamens that come from the flower of a type of crocus that only grows in some parts of the world (Iran and Spain are two big producers). The harvesting process is laborious, and the flowers are rather stingy with their threads. Each flower, which blooms for one week of the year, produces three to four stamens, which must be carefully hand-picked and then dried.

The flavor? Kind of ethereal and hard to describe, but it makes dishes taste rich and just amazingly delicious. You can skip it and have a lovely cream of tomato soup, but add it and become a saffron convert. Think about pairing this with Three Cheese and Prosciutto Stuffed Biscuits.

More Soup Recipes for Colder Weather

• Mushroom Spelt Soup
• Escarole and Spinach Soup
• Perfect Tomato Soup
• Fragrant Chicken Tomato Soup