Super Simple Creamy Roasted Tomato Soup Recipe

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Cooking With Anadi

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We’re days away from Canadian Thanksgiving, and the temperatures sure dropped in a blink of an eye! With the cold temperatures upon us, I definitely want to warm up with a Super Simple Tomato Soup.

It may not seem like it, but I just love tomato soup - it’s my favorite and I really would have it quite often growing up! I’m surprised that it took me this long to make a tomato soup! What sparked my inspiration for this recipe was actually the soup that was served as the first course of my wedding dinner in 2023. As I describe in my free motivational guide to explore your potential in the kitchen, Make Cooking Fun!!, going out to eat can spark inspiration for new recipes to try out at home! Now, your own wedding dinner sure is the ultimate definition of “eating out!”

That soup was the best tomato soup I have ever had - well at least until now! What was sad about that experience is that I barely got to eat it since my wife and I were whisked away from our dinner table to take photos with the photographer and get video taped by the videographer! However, despite only having a couple of bites of that soup, I remember it so fondly.

As you’ll find in this incredibly cozy tomato soup recipe, the tomatoes truly shine! It’s creamy yet still light, and you’ll love the sweetness of those tomatoes! Put your heart in a bowl with this incredibly simple tomato soup that’s packed with flavor as part of your Live to Cook one-month challenge! Get started on your cooking journey for free by signing up for my free email newsletter, plus all of my new recipes will be sent straight to your inbox!

To see how this soup comes together from start to finish and for tips to guarantee success, be sure to watch the video! If you’re not already, please subscribe to my YouTube channel and don’t forget to press the bell button so you’re notified when all of my latest video recipes are live! Let’s get cooking!

Why You’ll Love This Easy Tomato SOup Recipe!

• Cozy and warm for fall
• Simple to make
• Minimal hands-on work
• Healthy
• All-natural
• Tomato goodness!

Dietary Considerations for Roasted Tomato Soup

This Tomato Soup is…

• Vegetarian
• Gluten-free if you skip the croutons for garnish, or you use gluten-free croutons.
• Vegan-friendly. See more details below!
• Low in calories

Tools Needed to Make Restaurant Style Tomato Soup

• Salt crock
• Pepper mill
• Colander
• Garlic press
• Pot
• Immersion blender
• Baking sheet
• Parchment paper
• Measuring cups
• Measuring spoons
• Cutting board
• Sharp chef’s knife
• Wooden spoon
• Olive oil spray bottle
• Ladle

Ingredients for Easy Tomato Soup

All ingredients and their quantities can be found by scrolling to bottom of this post or by pressing the “Jump to Recipe” button for the FULL PRINTABLE recipe card. You can also scale the recipe based on how many portions of Tomato Soup you want to make and save the recipe for later!

• Tomato: I use organic tomatoes on the vine because they are the sweetest and tastiest tomatoes.
• Olive oil: One of the key ingredients used to coat the onions, garlic, and tomatoes before roasting them in the oven.
• Spices: Chili flakes for some heat and a bay leaf to release an incredible aroma.
• Onions: Yellow onions here for a bit extra sweetness. You’ll want to dice these.
• Garlic cloves: Freshly minced garlic cloves.
• Heavy cream: Some heavy cream to add richness to our stew and really make it comforting and delightful!
• Vegetable broth: This is the base of our tomato soup. Personally, I like to use chicken broth because it imparts its own amazing flavors. If you’re not vegetarian, you can certainly use chicken broth, if desired.
• Better than Bouillon vegetable: If using vegetable broth, I find this paste really adds an extra layer of flavor to your base. If you can’t find it it’s not the end of the world, but I really recommend you get it because it will enhance all of your vegetable-based soups!
• Butter: Optional if you want to add richness and an extra shine and smoothness to the appearance of the tomato soup. Add some butter after you’ve blended everything.
• Salt and pepper: Key seasoning to be added to taste! We’ll also be adding extra freshly cracked ground pepper for garnish.

How to Make Cozy Tomato Soup

Preheat the oven to 375 F and cut the tomatoes in quarters.

Add the tomatoes, onions and garlic to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Drizzle olive oil on top.

Mix well and season with salt and pepper. Bake for 30-40 minutes.

Transfer the ingredients to a large pot, turn the heat to medium and add vegetable broth, bay leaf, vegetable bouillon paste, red chili flakes, and stir everything well. Bring the ingredients up to a gentle simmer and continue to cook for 15-20 minutes.

Discard the bay leaf and then blend everything to a smooth consistency using an immersion blender or a traditional blender. Bring the soup back up to a very gently simmer and then garnish with heavy cream, adjust seasonings with salt and pepper. If the soup is too thick, adjust the consistency by adding a splash or two of the vegetable broth.

Serve fresh and hot, topped with cream, croutons, and freshly cracked black pepper.

Enjoy!

Tips for the Best Baked Tomato Soup

• If you can find fresh, juicy tomatoes that are ripe and juicy inside, they will make for a great sweet and tangy flavor in this soup.
• Herbs can work great in this soup, especially fresh basil chopped up and added before serving. You can even use a touch of dried oregano while roasting the vegetables to make the soup even more fragrant.
• Butter can be added after the soup is puréed to add additional creaminess and richness to the soup and add a touch of shine to it as well.
• Instead of cream garnish, you can add finely grated pecorino romano, grana padano or parmigiano-reggiano cheese.

Which Tomatoes to Use for Roasted Tomato Soup

Three pounds is a lot of tomato, and which ones you buy changes the soup more than anything else you do to it. I reach for organic tomatoes on the vine because they are the sweetest, but every common variety will work if you know what you are getting:

• Roma or plum tomatoes are the classic soup tomato. They are meatier, hold far fewer seeds and carry less water than a round slicing tomato, so the soup comes out thicker and they roast in the shorter end of the thirty to forty minute window.
• Tomatoes on the vine, which is what this recipe was written around, sit in the middle: sweet, reliable and available all year.
• Heirlooms have the best flavor of the lot and the most water in them, so give them the longer end of the roast and expect to need a little less of the vegetable broth at the end.
• A glut of fresh garden tomatoes of mixed sizes is perfect here. Quarter the big ones, halve the small ones so everything roasts at the same rate, and use the whole ripe lot.

Beefsteak tomatoes are the opposite of Roma: enormous, watery and full of seeds. They still make good soup, but cut them into sixths rather than quarters, give them the full forty minutes, and hold back a little of the vegetable broth at the end until you see how loose the blend is.

Cherry tomatoes are the sweetest option of all and need no cutting at all, though the skins go leathery in the oven, so this is the one case where pushing the blended soup through a sieve is worth the extra bowl.

Whatever you pick, color is your guide to ripeness: a deep, even red right through to the middle. Pale shoulders and a hard white core will still be pale and sharp after roasting.

Setting Up the Roast

Use a rimmed baking sheet, not a flat one. Half a cup of olive oil goes onto that pan along with three pounds of quartered tomatoes, and tomatoes throw off a startling amount of juice as they collapse. On a flat sheet all of it runs over the edge and onto the oven floor, and that liquid is where a good deal of the flavor is. Line it with parchment as the recipe says, spread everything in a single layer with the tomatoes cut side up, and resist crowding the pan. Tomatoes packed shoulder to shoulder steam each other instead of roasting, and roasting is the entire point: forty minutes at 375 F drives off water and concentrates the sugars, which is what separates this from a soup made with a can.

The onion and the garlic cloves go on the same sheet and come out transformed alongside the tomatoes, the garlic gone soft and sweet rather than sharp. You are looking for edges that have started to collapse and juices caramelizing in the corners of the pan. Scrape all of it into the pot, corners included. For the simmer, a Dutch oven or any heavy large pot is ideal, and keep it at a gentle simmer with the lid off rather than a rolling boil so the mixture reduces steadily without catching on the bottom.

Getting the Acidity and the Texture Right

If a tomato soup tastes sharp, the roast is usually the fix rather than an ingredient. Underripe tomatoes or a roast cut short leaves the acidity of the tomatoes front and center, where a full forty minutes rounds it out on its own. If yours are still tart after all that, the old restaurant trick is a pinch of sugar stirred in at the end. It is not in the recipe as written, and taste before you reach for it, but a quarter teaspoon across the whole pot will take the edge off without making the soup sweet.

For texture, an immersion blender straight in the pot is the least washing up, though a countertop blender will get you a finer result if you work in batches and never fill it more than half full with hot liquid. Blend for longer than feels necessary, a good full minute, and if you want a properly velvety texture push the blended soup through a fine sieve afterward to catch the skins and seeds. It costs you a couple of minutes and a bowl to wash, and it is the difference between homemade and restaurant style. Finish as the recipe does with the swirl of cream, or a dollop of sour cream if that is what is in the fridge, croutons and plenty of cracked black pepper. If it has tightened up more than you want, loosen it with a splash more broth.

What to Serve with This Tomato Soup?

• Bread: Crusty bread like baguette, Ciabatta, or Belgian bread will be so delicious dipped in your tomato soup! You could also pair this soup with some Soft and Fluffy Dinner Rolls.
• Garnish: If you want a pop of color, some basil leaves. Furthermore, cheese would so delicious with this soup! Cheese options include goat’s cheese, shredded cheddar cheese, or Parmesan cheese.
• Salad: To make a complete meal, you can pair your tomato soup with a healthy Arugula Goat Cheese Salad with Roasted Almonds or a Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad.
• Sandwiches: A classic Grilled Cheese Sandwich, a Tuna Melt, or a Croque Monsieur or Croque Madame would be incredibly delicious dipped in your tomato soup!
• Potatoes: Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes, Potatoes au Gratin, Llapingachos, Super Easy Garlic-Herb Sautéed Baby Potatoes, Puff Pastry Tarts with Ricotta, Diner-Style Hashbrowns, Hashbrown Patties, Curly Fries.
• Other side dishes: Fried Mozzarella Sticks, Lobster Risotto, Ultimate Creamy Macaroni and Cheese.

Making This Tomato Soup Dairy-Free and Vegan

This is closer to vegan than it looks. The broth is vegetable broth, the base is Better than Bouillon vegetable base, and everything on the roasting tray is a vegetable, so the only dairy in the whole pot is the half cup of heavy cream stirred in at the end. Swap that for coconut cream, which is the substitution listed on the recipe card, and the soup is dairy-free and vegan with nothing else changed. Coconut cream is thick enough to do the same job the heavy cream does, and roasted tomato is assertive enough that the coconut reads as richness rather than as coconut.

Coconut milk is the one to be careful with. Canned full-fat coconut milk will work if that is what you have, but it is far thinner than cream, so add it a splash at a time and hold back some of the vegetable broth to compensate, or you will end up loosening a soup you spent forty minutes concentrating. The carton coconut milk sold for cereal is too thin to be worth it here. If you are avoiding dairy for taste rather than for diet, you can also simply leave the cream out: the soup is good without it, just thinner and sharper.

Storing Leftover Tomato Soup and Reheating It

This recipe makes ten servings, so there will be leftovers unless you are feeding a crowd. To store leftovers, let the soup cool, then refrigerate it in a sealed container for four to five days. It also freezes very well for up to three months, and it is worth freezing it in single portions rather than one large block. One thing to know if you plan on freezing: cream can split when it is frozen and thawed, so if you know a batch is going into the freezer, freeze it before the cream goes in and stir the cream through after reheating instead.

For reheating, the stovetop gives the better result. Warm it in a saucepan over medium low heat, stirring now and then, and stop as soon as it steams; boiling it again will only thicken it further and can make the cream grainy. The microwave is fine for a single bowl, in 1-2 minutes bursts with a stir in between so the middle is not cold while the edges spit. Either way it will have thickened overnight, so loosen it with a splash of vegetable broth and check the seasoning again, since chilling dulls salt.

Finishing Touches: Herbs, Balsamic and the Grilled Cheese Question

A few additions that are not in the recipe but are worth knowing about. Fresh basil leaves torn over the bowl at the last second are the classic, and they belong on top rather than in the blender, where they turn the soup a muddy color. Fresh thyme is better used the other way round: a few sprigs thrown onto the roasting tray with the tomatoes and fished out before blending give the soup a savory backbone. And a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar over the tomatoes before they go into the oven does the same job as the pinch of sugar mentioned above, only earlier, caramelizing on the tray and adding sweetness and depth at once. Season at the end with kosher salt, which is easier to add gradually than fine table salt.