Garlicky Roasted Tomato Soup

The number one comfort is realizing that nobody actually remembers that one super embarrassing thing you did in middle school that keeps you up at night. A close second to that is eating tomato soup with grilled cheese. This recipe incorporates a whole head of slow roasted garlic to give the soup a deep but mild caramelized flavor.

Cream

A small addition of cream goes a long way in making the soup so rich, velvety, and delicious. A good animal-free substitution that comes highly recommended with this recipe is cashew cream. It provides the same benefits as regular cream with a subtle nutty flavor that pairs very well with the flavors in this dish. Now it’s a vegan tomato soup recipe! What’s that? You want a vegan grilled cheese recipe too? Pff. You’re on your own for that one.

Roasted Garlic

You may think a whole head of garlic is a little excessive, but when it’s slow roasted in the oven the flavor mellows out enough that you can throw a truckload of garlic in the soup and it’ll still be delicious. Add another head of garlic in there for a roasted garlic grilled cheese to pair with your soup. 

What tomatoes can I use?

This recipe uses beefsteak tomatoes. They’re cheap and have lots of good soup forming juice. Canned tomatoes are an okay substitution, though it makes the taste more reminiscent of tomato sauce. Roma tomatoes are good also, just add another 1-2 tomatoes to the recipe to make up for their smaller size.

Garnish

Tomato soup is a very homogenous food, which means the garnish is essential to prevent a boring eating experience. A drizzle of cream is an easy one, since it requires no extra ingredients. But if you have it, chili oil is absolutely mind-blowingly good on tomato soup. I make my own. Recipe coming soon.  Alternatively a classic store bought brand that still holds up in flavor is lao gan ma.

Garlicky Roasted Tomato Soup

Servings

4

servings

Prep time

15

minutes

Cooking time

45

minutes

Ingredients

• Soup

• 5 medium beefsteak tomatoes

• 1 red bell pepper

• 1 red onion

• 1 head garlic

• ⅓ cup extra virgin olive oil

• ¼ cup heavy cream (or cashew cream)

• ½ cup vegetable stock or water

• 1 tsp cayenne pepper

• Salt and black pepper to taste

• Garnish

• Heavy cream

• Chili oil

• Basil leaves

Directions

• Preheat the oven to 375F. Peel and quarter the onion. Cut the tomatoes in half. Cut the bell pepper in half and remove white core and seeds. Cut the top off the head of garlic. Place everything on a baking sheet. Make sure the garlic is cut side up. Coat in olive oil and season thoroughly with salt and pepper. Roast in the oven for 45 minutes.
• Remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes. Transfer onions, peppers, and tomatoes to a blender. Squeeze roasted garlic cloves out of the peel and add to the blender as well. Add stock, cream, and cayenne. Blend until smooth. Taste and adjust salt and pepper levels.
• Ladle servings into a bowl, add garnishes, and enjoy.