Cookbook Chronicles: Sherried Tomato Soup

Cookbook Chronicles is an on-going series at The Bookery. Over the course of the next year, we’re exploring The Pioneer Woman’s (Ree Drummond) latest cookbook, The Essential Recipes, cooking one recipe a month and sharing our thoughts. 

Ree Drummond released her latest cookbook late last year, so it seemed like a no-brainer for our 2026 Cookbook Chronicles pick. In The Essential Recipes, Ree goes back to many of the tried-and-true recipes she’s shared over the years, offering updated, perfected versions of the classics she’s shared over the years, from pancakes and pot roast to the perennial favorite winter combo: grilled cheese and tomato soup. 

The recipe: Sherried Tomato Soup, p. 48

The cookbook: The Essential Recipes by Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman

The details: I used to never eat tomato soup, mostly because for the most part, I’d only tried the canned version, and, well, it’s just not the greatest. When I got Ree’s first cookbook, The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl, I tried out the sherried tomato soup recipe, and it quickly became a favorite. I’ve made a lot of tomato soup recipes over the years, but this is the one I return to often. 

Why do I like it? It’s pretty easy, a little sweet but not cloying, and it’s perfect paired with grilled cheese, one of my favorite foods in the entire world. In her latest cookbook, Ree takes that old recipe and improves on it, switching out the added sugar for carrots and instituting a few other small changes that help to elevate an already good recipe. 

The adjustments: Should you adjust this recipe? Probably not. Did I? Yes. . . but mostly I made adjustments and substitutions because despite my best efforts, I didn’t have a few of the exact ingredients the recipe called for, such as garlic (yep, used it all up and didn’t know it) and heavy cream (I did have some whole milk). So — chefs, close your ears — I used garlic powder in place of the minced garlic and used whole milk in place of heavy cream. I also don’t drink alcohol, so I used cooking sherry. 

The verdict: What’s not to love? This soup is tasty and fairly simple to make. The only issue I had is that it makes SO much soup, and I should have invited people over for dinner!

Up Next: Wonderful Waffles, p. 3

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