Tired of canned, unrealistically-red tomato soup filled with corn syrup and other questionable ingredients? Once you’ve tried this Roasted Tomato Soup, you won’t go back.
The husband isn’t a big tomato soup fan, he prefers things loaded with cheese and meat, but I have to indulge myself with this creamy, savory soup every once in a while. Afterall, who could resist a grilled cheese and some tomato soup?
So enough talking, here’s the recipe:
Roasted Tomato Soup
- 3 lb tomatoes (a variety of heirloom, plum or others will do)
- 7 cloves of garlic, peeled
- 3 small onions (preferably yellow onions)
- 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
- Kosher salt and black pepper for sprinkling over veggies
- 1 quart chicken stock (vegetarians could use vegetable stock)
- 1/4 cup water
- 2 bay leaves
- 1/2 cup chopped basil leaves or 2 basil cubes (optional)
- 4 tbsp. butter
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 450F
- Wash, core and cut tomatoes into fourths (unless they’re tiny, then into halves)
- Peel garlic and cut onions into fourths
- Place tomatoes, garlic and onions onto a baking tray (preferably one with sides, like a jelly roll) and drizzle with the olive oil and season with kosher salt and black pepper
- Roast for 20 to 35 minutes until the veggies are caramelized
- When roasted, remove from oven and transfer the vegetables to a stock pot
- Add chicken stock, bay leaves and butter
- Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes
- Remove the bay leaves! (Don’t forget this step)
- If using fresh basil, wash and dry the leaves then add to the pot, or if using a basil cube, just throw it in.
- Turn off the heat.
- If you are using an immersion blender, go ahead and puree the soup in the stock pot, if you have a regular blender transfer small batches of the liquid to the blender and puree being careful not to fill the blender too full because heat makes the soup expand when its blended. Read more about blending soups in a blender here.
- Return the soup to the stove and heat for a few minutes more until you reach a nice tomato-soup consistency. You can add the 1/4 cup of water if its too thick or reduce over low heat until the desired consistency is reached.
We’ve been watching our grocery budget lately, as you already know, so it would seem that a soup filled with out-of-season tomatoes in the middle of February would be an expensive undertaking. However, when you get tomatoes on sale at the farmers market or at your grocery store or if you plan ahead and make huge batches at the end of the summer, you’ll be suprised at how economical (and calorie-friendly) this soup can be. We gathered up 5 pounds of a variety of tomatoes at the farmers market for under a dollar a pound as opposed to our grocery store’s $1.65 for plum tomatoes. When added all up, you could make this soup for under 85 cents per serving. Now that’s what I like to hear!
That orange color you see in your bowl is what real tomato soup should look like, by the way. No dyes here! Oh, I also forgot to mention that this is around 272 calories per serving with 10 servings, not bad for homemade.
I’ll try to add the picture later. I’ve been reminding myself to snap one every time I go to eat, but then I just get way too excited and eat it all up.
