This roasted tomato soup recipe is a go-to when we have way too many tomatoes laying around our garden.
Perfect for hot and sunny, or cold and rainy days.
This roasted tomato soup is synonymous with comfort food here at Chez Grenier.
The first recipe was memorialized in a cook book in 1857. Campbell’s condensed tomato soup came out 40 years later, further increasing its world-wide popularity. Like you, we grew up eating it from a can, but it is easy to make yourself, not to mention it tastes so much better.
This recipe is naturally vegetarian and gluten-free. You can easily make it dairy-free and vegan by omitting the milk and cheese ingredients.
Method
We take the ripest heirloom tomatoes from our garden and roast them, along with garlic, onions, carrots and celery, deepening their flavors. There isn’t a specific tomato to use here. Use any variety you have. It’s all good.
Roasting the ingredients intensifies flavor, and also makes your tomatoes healthier, by releasing more lycopene, a powerful antioxidant. The roasted ingredients are cooked in a veggie or chicken broth before blending, skins and all, until smooth.
We grow and pick yellow, orange, red, even green varieties. Sometimes we like to prepare different colors in separate pans, then swirl them together in the bowl for a really colorful presentation for guests.
Garnish with some parmesan cheese, thinly sliced basil leaves and a drizzle of good olive oil.
Serve hot on cold days, or sip cold on hot days, a’la gazpacho. Everyone’s favorite accompaniment is a grilled cheese sandwich. Good for what ails ya, and satisfying on so many levels.
Freeze leftover soup, or cook it down to a tomato sauce consistency and serve over pasta.
Roasted Tomato Soup
Equipment
- Baking sheet
- Large pot
Ingredients
- 4 lbs tomatoes cut in half
- 6 ea cloves unpeeled
- 1 ea carrot peeled
- 1 stalk celery
- 1 ea onion rough chop
- olive oil extra virgin
- 2 C veggie or chicken stock make your own!
- 1 ea bay leaf
- 1/2 C milk
- 2 Tbsp basil leaves, ripped
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 450° F
- Line a baking sheet with foil, place garlic and tomatoes (cut side down) and drizzle with some EVOO and season with salt and pepper. Roast in the oven 15 – 20 minutes.
- Meanwhile, make a mirepoix by roughly chopping the carrot, celery and onion. Nothing fancy. It's all getting blended up in the end anyway.
- Heat 3 Tbsp EVOO in a large pot or Dutch oven on medium heat. Add the mirepoix and stir it until veggies are cooked, about 10 minutes.
- Add the stock and bay leaf. Remove the skins from the roasted garlic cloves and add to the pot.
- Add tomatoes – skins and all.
- Give it all a stir, reduce the flame to low and let the soup simmer, about 15 minutes, then turn off the heat.
- Add milk, basil and butter (optional), stir, then remove the bay leaf, and blend using a stick blender or conventional blender in batches. Blend until smooth.
- Pour and press soup through a strainer pressing all the liquids through. Remove any solids.