Tomato soup is one of those foods that I think is stamped in the American food vernacular. Often served with grilled cheese sandwiches as the meal to comfort and warm. I personally have not made a whole lot of strictly tomato soup. Tomato tends to be the base of a lot of my soups but never the main ingredient. I poked around online a bit looking at recipes and didn't really settle on any particular one, but took parts that I like from several and combined them with my own personal flourish!
Before you embark on this cooking journey, I will warn you that this soup will take a while to make. It is not a throw together, heat to a boil, and serve immediately soup. There are two long steps in this process, which can luckily be divided over the course of a day or two days. The soup will be best the longer it simmers. This allows the flavors of the ingredients to meld and intensify! It will be worth the wait I promise you!
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| Most of the needed ingredients |
Here is what I used:
1 lb fresh grape tomatoes (if you have older ones that are getting wrinkly here's how to use them!)
garlic (at least 6 cloves)
olive oil
dried basil (1 - 2 Tbs) - yes I mean the dried variety - fresh dried basil will provide the best flavor
30 oz canned diced tomatoes
1 to 2 yams or sweet potatoes depending on size (already cooked and soft)
1 tbs red pepper flakes
salt to taste
2 cups chicken stock - if you are vegetarian or vegan you can substitute with vegetable stock or water
1/2 & 1/2 - if you are dairy intolerant or vegan you can skip this ingredient.
This is what I did:
Pre-heat your oven to 425 F.
While the oven is heating, cut grape tomatoes in half and place in large baking dish (for easier clean up, line with foil). Crush several cloves of garlic and toss in with the tomatoes (I used 10 to 12 but some of them were rather small). Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and douse with dried basil.
Place pan in oven and roast tomatoes for 30 to 40 minutes.
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| Tomatoes and garlic entering the oven |
Toss occasionally while roasting and remove from oven once some of them are starting to char. Let pan cool. If you are doing this step ahead of time (up to 5 days ahead would probably be fine, longer if you plan on freezing them, although things do tend to lose their flavor in the freezer over time). If these are roasted ahead of time, store in a air tight container in the refrigerator. Make sure you save as much of the liquid and scrapings as possible for this is where a lot of the flavor is be found.
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| Roasted Tomatoes just out of the oven...mmmm they smell good! |
Next in a large pot heat some olive oil. Once warm add diced onion and saute until translucent and soft. The longer you saute the onions the better. If you want even more garlic flavor you could add some minced fresh garlic at this point.
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| Onions starting to cook |
Once the onions have started to soften, add cooked yams. I had two small yams in the freezer left over from Thanksgiving! I had been wondering what to do with them and figured this would be a good use for them since they wouldn't be that good re-heated and eaten on their own.
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| Add the yams |
Smash the yam up with a spoon. Add more olive oil if the mixture is getting dry or sticking to the bottom of the pan. Make sure the stove is on high, but not too high that it starts to burn. Add some dried basil and the 1 tsp red pepper flakes. Let the onions and yam combine and start to meld with the basil and pepper. For anyone who might be shy of spicy foods let me put your mind at rest. The red pepper flake will not add that much heat, but will give the tiniest hint of spice and bring out some of the other flavors.
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| Smash up the yam |
Next add the canned diced tomatoes. I used half regular and half fire roasted. Stir to combine all the ingredients.
Pour in the chicken stock. Add the roasted tomatoes and garlic and the remainder of the dried basil.
Turn down the heat to low/ medium low at this point to let the entire thing simmer for about 20 to 30 minutes. This allows the flavors to mix and intensify as some of the liquid cooks off. Give the soup a taste and add more basil or salt to taste. Be careful with the salt because as you let the soup cook it will get saltier.
Once the soup has simmered for a while pull out the immersion blender and blend. If you don't have an immersion blender (in picture) then you can use a regular blender and blend batches of the soup. Make sure if you use a regular blender to be careful. Blending hot liquids can lead to explosions so let steam escape as you blend!
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| Blending the soup - keep the end fully immersed or else soup will splatter up towards you! |
Depending on your time constraints let the soup simmer for another 20 to 30 minutes. Now comes and optional part! If you want your soup extra creamy you can had half and half or heavy cream (using anything else will make the soup too watery, if you want to avoid the fat just skip this step). I was planning on freezing half the soup so I removed the portion I wanted to freeze before adding the dairy product. I have never found dairy based soups freeze and thaw very well.
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| Half and Half |
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| Stir in Half and Half |
I thought the soup was excellent! I may in the future tweak the recipe a little, but nothing major. If you don't have yams you could also use carrots - about 4. You would cook these with the onions. Here you would not add the diced tomatoes until the carrots are soft. Or you could roast the carrots ahead of time (or at the same time as the tomatoes, but in a separate pan). I hope you enjoy!
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