Roasted Tomato Soup is a classic comfort food that never goes out of style. Its rich and savory flavor, along with its smooth texture, makes it a perfect choice for any meal. Whether you're having a cozy lunch or hosting a dinner party, this creamy tomato soup is sure to impress.
I first had this soup years ago and thought it was the best I had ever tasted. After a lot of experimentation, I was able to duplicate that extraordinary flavor and texture that I remembered so well.
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What to Serve with this Homemade Roasted Tomato Soup
This versatile soup can be served for lunch, dinner, or a light snack. It can also be a starter for an elegant dinner party paired with Shrimp Newburg in Puff Pastry Shells. Other serving suggestions for this creamy tomato soup include the following:
- Serve with a salad such as Cucumber Dill Salad, Mardi Gras Salad, or Caesar Salad.
- For a simple meal, include Southern Flaky Biscuits, Southern Cornbread Sticks, or Crusty French Bread.
- Grilled cheese sandwiches are an excellent accompaniment to this amazing soup. For example, serve this soup with the ultimate grilled cheese sandwich: Croque Monsieur or Croque Madame.
Even if you're a seasoned cook or just a novice in the kitchen, this recipe is easy to follow with step-by-step directions that produce amazing results every time.
Ingredients: Here's What You'll Need
Creating a homemade roasted tomato soup starts with selecting the right ingredients, each contributing to the soup's rich flavor and creamy texture. Here's what you'll need:
- Canned Tomatoes: Opt for whole canned tomatoes, which offer a concentrated taste ideal for roasting. Draining and reserving the juice is essential for controlling consistency.
- Veggies: Chopped onions, celery, and garlic sautéd in olive oil provide a savory base, enhancing the aromatics.
- The Seasonings: Basil, oregano, and thyme are key dried herbs that bring an earthy fragrance. Salt and freshly ground black pepper round out the flavor with Better than Bouillon Roasted Chicken Base, significantly enhancing the soup's flavor.
- Liquid: Tomato juice from canned tomatoes, chicken broth, tomato paste, heavy cream, and dry sherry provide the liquids. The heavy cream adds creaminess, and the dry sherry provides a subtle undertone that takes this soup to the next level.
- The Rest of the Ingredients: All-purpose flour helps thicken the soup. Light brown sugar balances the tomatoes' acidity and aids in their roasting.
Roast the Tomatoes - Step-by-Step
The most time-consuming part of making this soup is preparing the tomatoes for roasting.
- Remove the Seeds: First, I drained the tomatoes but reserved the juices. Then, I removed any extraneous skin and seeds. The easiest way that I know to remove the seeds is to break open the tomatoes and rinse them under running water.
- Dry the Tomatoes: After I rinsed the tomatoes, I placed them on paper towels and patted them dry with additional paper towels.
The reason for drying the tomatoes is that the roasting does not begin until the liquid has evaporated. Therefore, the more liquid that is removed before roasting, the quicker the process.
- Prepare for Roasting: Next, I spread the tomatoes on a baking sheet lined with non-stick aluminum foil. After that, I sprinkled them with some brown sugar to enhance the roasting.
- Roasting: I popped the tomatoes into a preheated 450°F oven for about 30 minutes until the liquid had evaporated and they began to color.
Steps in Making the Roasted Tomato Soup
- Sauté Onions and Celery: While the tomatoes were roasting, I cooked the onion and celery in some olive oil in a Dutch oven for about 10 minutes.
- Add Garlic: Then, I added the minced garlic and cooked the vegetables for about 30 seconds until the garlic was fragrant.
- Flour and Seasonings: After that, I added flour, basil, oregano, thyme, and black pepper to the vegetables. I stirred to combine the ingredients and cooked the mixture for another minute or so.
- Add the Liquids: Next, I added the chicken broth, reserved juices from the tomatoes, Better than Bouillon chicken base, and tomato paste.
- Simmer: After everything was well combined, I brought the mixture to a boil, reduced the heat to low, and cooked the soup covered for about 30 minutes.
- Add Roasted Tomatoes; More Simmering: After 30 minutes, I added the roasted tomatoes to the soup and stirred to combine everything. Then, I covered the pan and let the mixture cook for another 30 minutes.
- Purée: After 30 minutes, I let the mixture cool slightly. Then, I puréed the soup in a blender in batches until the soup was velvety smooth.
- Sherry and Cream: I returned the puréed soup to the Dutch oven and added the sherry and cream. I stirred the soup to ensure that everything was well combined.
I gave the soup a good stir to ensure that everything was well combined. Then, I tasted it to see whether I needed to add any salt or pepper. I thought that it was perfectly seasoned.
This Creamy Roasted Tomato Soup is certain to become a family favorite regardless of whether you're looking for an easy dinner option or a comforting meal to enjoy on a cozy night in.
What's even better is that this soup equally good warm or cold, and makes amazing leftovers. Yum!
Frequently Asked Questions
I used both chicken broth and Better than Bouillon chicken base in the soup. For a vegetarian soup, replace the chicken broth with vegetable broth and omit the Better than Bouillon chicken base. You'll probably need to add some salt since the Better than Bouillon is pretty salty.
Tomato soup is low in calories and is an excellent source of antioxidants, including lycopene, flavonoids, and vitamins C and E, among many others.
Leftover tomato soup is just as good as freshly made tomato soup. You can reheat it, or even serve it cold on a hot summer day.
Tomato soup freezes extremely well even when it has cream in it. However If you garnished the soup with something like croutons or basil you should remove the garnish before freezing.
The seeds won't impact the taste of the soup. However, they will impact the appearance of the soup. I always remove them because of the impact on the appearance.
You can certainly use an immersion blender in this soup recipe. It may not produce as velvety a texture in the soup as a blender, but it will work.
I generally make this soup on the stovetop using a Dutch oven. However, it can certainly be made in either a crockpot or an Instant pot.
Recipe Tips and Tricks
- You might think that tomato soup using fresh tomatoes would be tastier. However, my experience is that whole canned tomatoes produce a superior soup. One of the reasons is that fresh tomatoes contain a lot of liquid that dilutes the soup taste.
- It may seem that roasting the tomatoes is an unnecessary step. However, roasting the tomatoes concentrates the tomato taste and elevates this soup to a higher level. Therefore, don't skip this step.
- You can substitute brandy or cognac for the dry sherry.
- If you've never used Better than Bouillon, do yourself a favor and purchase a jar. It adds more depth to the soup. As an alternative, however, you could substitute two chicken bouillon cubes.
- The Better than Bouillon base is quite salty. Therefore, be sure to taste the soup before adding any salt. I find that the salt level is perfect with just the Better than Bouillon.
- I'm often asked whether it is really necessary to remove the tomato seeds. To be honest, I've never made the soup without taking the extra step of removing the seeds. However, I suspect that the seeds would impact the velvety texture of the soup given that they would likely remain whole even after the soup is pureéd. On another note, because of the added brown sugar, the tomatoes generally end up with some burned bits around the edges after being in the oven for 30 minutes. While the burned bits do not impact the taste of the soup, I generally remove them because they impact the appearance of the soup.
Other Delicious Soup Recipes
If you're a fan of soup, you should definitely check out these delicious recipes:
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Recipe
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Homemade Creamy Roasted Tomato Soup
Equipment
- Blender
Ingredients
- 2 (28 ounce) cans of whole tomatoes, drained with juice reserved (See Tip 1)
- 2 Tablespoons light brown sugar
- 2 cups chopped onion (1 large)
- 1 cup chopped celery (about 3 to 4 stalks)
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon dried basil
- ½ teaspoon dried oregano
- ½ teaspoon dried thyme
- ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 ¾ cups chicken broth (See Tip 2)
- 1 Tablespoon Better than Bouillon Roast Chicken Base (See Tip 2)
- 1 Tablespoon tomato paste
- 2 Tablespoons medium dry sherry (See Tip 3)
- ¾ cup heavy cream
- Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste (See Tip 4)
- Fresh basil leaves for garnish (Optional)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 450°F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with non-stick aluminum foil. Set aside.
- Drain the tomatoes, reserving the juice. Remove as many seeds from the tomatoes as possible. Pat the tomatoes dry with paper towels and spread in a single layer on the foil-lined baking sheet. Sprinkle evenly with the brown sugar. Bake until all liquid has evaporated and the tomatoes begin to color, about 30 minutes. Remove from the oven; let the tomatoes cool slightly. (See Tip 5)
- Cook the onions and celery in a large Dutch oven until tender, about 10 minutes. Add garlic; cook for 30 seconds or until garlic is fragrant. Add the flour, basil, oregano, thyme, and pepper and cook, stirring constantly, until thoroughly combined. Gradually add the chicken broth, reserved tomato juice, Better than Bouillon chicken base, and tomato paste. Whisk to combine. Bring the soup to a boil; reduce the heat to low, and cook covered for 30 minutes. (See Tip 6)
- Add the roasted tomatoes; cook covered for 30 additional minutes. Cool the mixture slightly.
- Working in batches, pureé the soup in a blender. Return the puréed soup to the Dutch oven. Add the sherry and heavy cream, stirring to combine. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
- Yield: 6 servings.
Video
Tips/Notes
- I prefer no-salt canned whole tomatoes and usually end up with about 2 ¾ to 3 cups of reserved juice. However, you can use regular canned whole tomatoes.
- I use low-sodium chicken broth. To make this soup vegetarian, you can substitute vegetable broth instead of chicken broth and the Better than Bouillon chicken base.
- Typically, I use either Dry Sack Sherry or Tio Pepe.
- The Better than Bouillon Roast Chicken Base tends to be quite salty. Therefore, before adding any additional salt, carefully taste the soup. If you've omitted the chicken base or two substituted bouillon cubes, you'll probably need to add salt.
- I'm often asked whether it is essential to remove the seeds from the tomatoes. I've never made the soup without taking the extra step of removing the seeds. However, I suspect they would impact the soup's texture since they would likely remain whole even after the soup is pureéd. On another note, the tomatoes generally end up with some burned bits after being in the oven for 30 minutes because of the added brown sugar. While the burned bits do not impact the taste of the soup, I remove them because they affect the appearance of the soup.
- The actual cooking of the soup can start while the tomatoes are roasting in the oven.
Robert Meisel says
Can this be vegan? Use soy milk instead of heavy cream?
Chula King says
Robert,
I haven't tried this recipe with soy milk in place of heavy cream, so don't know if it would work or not.
Sorry.
Chula