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This Slow Cooker tomato noodle soup turns ripe tomatoes into a simple, comforting meal with tender wide egg noodles and a bright, savory broth. With just five ingredients and no peeling or seeding, it’s an easy way to make the most of fresh tomatoes. You’re going to love how hands-off it is.
Why You’ll Love It
- Five simple ingredients — tomatoes, onion, broth, salt, and wide egg noodles are all you need.
- No peeling required — the tomato skins soften right into the soup as it cooks.
- Hands-off Slow Cooker method — add everything, let it cook, then stir in the noodles near the end.
- Hearty and comforting — wide egg noodles make the bright tomato broth filling enough for supper.
Ingredient Notes
Fresh ripe tomatoes matter here. Not necessarily fancy heirlooms with names like Cherokee Purple or Mortgage Lifter—though those are lovely—but tomatoes that are actually ripe and juicy. The kind that smell faintly green and sunny around the stem. Roma tomatoes will work, too, but I prefer a mix if I’ve got it. Some round red ones, a couple of beefsteaks, whatever is sitting there looking increasingly needy.
Use low-sodium chicken broth if you can, because tomatoes vary so much. Some batches need more salt; others seem to arrive fully seasoned by the universe. Vegetable broth works just as well if you want to keep the soup vegetarian. I have used both and honestly couldn’t tell you which I liked better on any given day. Depends on my mood, I suppose.
Wide egg noodles are the right thing here. The Amish-style dried ones are especially nice if you see them, but regular wide egg noodles from the grocery store are perfectly fine. Don’t use skinny noodles. I mean, you can, nobody is coming to arrest you, but the wide ones give this soup its soft, homey feel.
Ingredients
- 3 pounds ripe fresh garden tomatoes, cored and chopped, about 8 to 10 medium tomatoes—no need to peel them, thank goodness
- 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth, or vegetable broth if that’s what you keep around
- 1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped; I try to get it fairly small so nobody starts picking onion pieces out of the bowl
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt, plus more to taste later because tomatoes can be fickle
- 8 ounces wide dried egg noodles, Amish-style if you happen to find them
Instructions
- Rinse your tomatoes well, then core and chop them into chunky pieces. Do not worry about making them pretty. You are not arranging a salad platter for company; they are going into a Slow Cooker for hours. Leave the skins on—they soften as the soup cooks, and skipping that peeling business is one of the reasons this recipe stays sane.
- Add the chopped tomatoes, chicken broth or vegetable broth, finely chopped onion, and 2 teaspoons kosher salt to a 5- to 6-quart slow cooker. Stir it around so most of the tomatoes are sitting down in the broth. A few will float stubbornly at first. They’ll get over themselves.
- Cover and cook on LOW for 6 to 7 hours, or on HIGH for 3 to 4 hours, until the tomatoes are very soft and the onion is tender. Your kitchen will smell like somebody has been cooking all day, which technically somebody has—the slow cooker, bless it. I usually choose LOW if I’m home and HIGH if I got a late start, though I’ve done it the other way around. No real disaster either way.
- Use a wooden spoon or potato masher to gently crush the softened tomatoes right in the slow cooker. You want to break them down enough to make a rich red broth, but leave some little pieces behind. This is not restaurant tomato bisque. It should look a bit rustic, like something served in a thick bowl with a spoon that has seen things.
- Taste the tomato broth and add another pinch of salt if it needs it. Some garden tomatoes are sweet as can be, and some are sharp enough to make your jaw tighten a little. Don’t overdo the salt yet, though. The noodles will soak up seasoning as they cook.
- Turn the slow cooker to HIGH if it is not already there, then stir in the dry wide egg noodles. Press them down into the hot broth as best you can so they cook evenly. The first time I made this, I let a whole little clump sit on top and ended up with noodles that were half tender, half crunchy. Not my finest hour.
- Cover and cook on HIGH for 15 to 25 minutes, stirring once about halfway through, until the noodles are soft and silky but not falling apart. Check them around the 15-minute mark, especially if your slow cooker runs hot. Mine does; it has the temperament of an old Buick.
- Give the soup one final stir, taste again for salt, and ladle it into bowls while it is hot. If you want a little color, scatter dried or fresh herbs over the top, but it is perfectly good without them. Serve with crusty bread, dinner rolls, buttered toast, or grilled Cheese sandwiches if you are feeding people who believe soup is not a meal. Those people live in my house.
Variations
Add dried basil or oregano at the beginning—about a teaspoon. It gives the soup a more Italian-ish flavor, which is nice, especially with Parmesan on top. You can also tuck in a bay leaf while the tomatoes cook, then fish it out before the noodles go in. Please fish it out. Biting into a bay leaf is one of life’s small, unnecessary insults.
For a creamy version, stir in 1/2 to 3/4 cup heavy cream or half-and-half after the noodles are cooked, then let it warm through for a few minutes. It turns the broth a softer orange-red and makes it feel a little more special. I like it both ways. Actually, I prefer it plain most days, but when it’s raining, I want cream. So there you go.
You can add 1 to 2 cups cooked shredded chicken or browned ground beef during the last 30 minutes if you need more protein. I tried ground beef once, and it was fine, but it sort of took over the whole thing. Not bad—just less like tomato noodle soup and more like a very wet Casserole. Sometimes experiments deserve one polite serving and then retirement.
If your tomatoes are particularly acidic, a pinch of sugar at the end can round things out. Just a pinch. We are not making tomato candy. And if you like a smoother soup, briefly use an immersion blender before adding the noodles, leaving a few chunks behind so it still has some character.
Storage & Reheating
Leftovers keep in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 days, but cool the soup quickly first. I transfer it to shallow containers and get it into the fridge within 2 hours. I know, I know—sometimes the pot sits there while you clear the table, answer a phone call, find someone’s missing soccer cleat. Still, try not to leave it out all evening.
The noodles do keep absorbing broth as the soup sits, so the next day it will be thicker. Sometimes I add a splash of broth while reheating it on the stove, and sometimes I don’t because I kind of like it thicker. Contradictory? Maybe. That is the beauty of leftovers: nobody is grading you.
Reheat only what you plan to eat, either gently on the stovetop until steaming hot or in the microwave, stirring partway through. It should reach 165°F. If you know ahead of time that you want to freeze some, freeze the tomato broth before adding noodles. Cook fresh noodles when you thaw and serve it. Frozen egg noodles in soup turn into a sad little situation, and we do not need that in January.
Final Notes
This is one of those recipes I come back to when the season starts shifting. Tomatoes are still everywhere, but the evenings get a little cooler. Somebody leaves a sweatshirt over the back of a kitchen chair. The neighborhood gets quieter earlier.
A bowl of this soup doesn’t fix anything grand. It won’t make your laundry fold itself or stop the news from being exhausting or convince grown children to call more often. But it does use up those tomatoes. It warms the house. It gives everybody a reason to sit down for ten minutes with bread in their hands.
And sometimes, honestly, that’s plenty.
Slow Cooker Amish Tomato Noodle Soup
Ingredients
- 3 pounds ripe fresh garden tomatoes Cored and chopped; do not peel
- 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth Vegetable broth may be used instead
- 1 medium yellow onion Finely chopped
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt Plus more to taste
- 8 ounces wide dried egg noodles Amish-style if available
Instructions
- Rinse the tomatoes well, then core and chop them into chunky pieces, leaving the skins on.
- Add the chopped tomatoes, chicken or vegetable broth, finely chopped onion, and 2 teaspoons kosher salt to a 5- to 6-quart slow cooker, then stir.
- Cover and cook on LOW for 6 to 7 hours, or on HIGH for 3 to 4 hours, until the tomatoes are very soft and the onion is tender.
- Use a wooden spoon or potato masher to gently crush the softened tomatoes in the slow cooker, leaving some small pieces for a rustic texture.
- Taste the tomato broth and add another pinch of salt if needed, keeping in mind that the noodles will absorb seasoning as they cook.
- Turn the slow cooker to HIGH if it is not already there, stir in the dry wide egg noodles, and press them down into the hot broth.
- Cover and cook on HIGH for 15 to 25 minutes, stirring once halfway through, until the noodles are soft and silky but not falling apart.
- Stir the soup, taste again for salt, and ladle it into bowls while hot. Serve with crusty bread, dinner rolls, buttered toast, or grilled cheese sandwiches if desired.