The Convenient Canned Ingredient You'll Always Find In Ree Drummond's Pantry

Food Network star Ree Drummond is best-known for her popular cooking show "The Pioneer Woman," on which she often makes hearty, comforting dishes. While she's a fan of homemade cooking, she's not ashamed to purchase store-bought when it makes sense. One product Drummond always has in her pantry is a can of creamy tomato soup.

Drummond considers a can of tomato soup to be a great jumping off point for a semi-homemade, fancier version. It cuts out the hard work for you: no need to put whole tomatoes through a food mill, simmer them, or blend them. Instead, you can make an easy, better version of tomato soup by starting with a can of condensed soup, then adding other flavorful ingredients such as jarred pesto, canned diced tomatoes, and olive oil, all of which bring something new, but don't require any peeling or chopping. She also recommends a splash of sherry, which transforms the tomatoes' profile, changing the flavor to something far better. Feel free to add your own twist, such as leftover greens. Don't forget to top it with fixings, such as croutons and a little Parmesan cheese, or pair it with a pepperoni pizza grilled cheese.

Ree Drummond's elevated tomato soup recipe isn't the only way to make the most of this canned ingredient. It makes a great base for a handful of other dishes, such as chili, meatballs with sauce, or even the base of a different kind of homemade soup, such as beef barley. "I also toss some cooked rice into the chili to make it more hearty and soak up some of the moisture, since soup is so thin," one person wrote on an r/EatCheapAndHealthy Reddit thread after suggesting soup as a chili base. "I use tomato soup in the base of my shepherds pie," someone else commented. Others suggested using it for sloppy Joes, or even in enchiladas.

If you want the base of any dish slightly thicker, use condensed tomato soup rather than a ready-to-eat version. Since condensed soup is missing most of its water, the soup isn't as thin. To thicken it even more, just let it cook down further.