Creamy Roasted Tomato Basil Soup

Tomatoes are in season and I’m really happy about it. My parents have quite the vegetable and fruit garden and recently dropped off a small basket filled with their delicious homegrown tomatoes for Jake and myself. Since we were going out of town, we opted to make a freezer-friendly tomato soup with all the fresh tomatoes. You can use most types of tomatoes, but our preference is to use Roma or cherry tomatoes.

My recipe is inspired from Ina Garten’s Roasted Tomato Basil Soup Recipe available at the Food Network though I’ve made some changes to some of the ingredients she uses (added cream, reduced the amount of basil, etc.).

The recipe calls for homemade stock. I used our chicken-beef bone broth recipe. We also have a quick and delicious chicken broth recipe on our website. However, if you'd like to make this vegetarian, you can also make a vegan-based broth. 

This is the perfect soup to make in the summer when fresh tomatoes are in season and taste absolutely delightful. Roasting the tomatoes gives the soup a ton of depth and flavor. We paired ours with grilled cheese sandwiches that Jake made.

Making the Tomato Puree

Before I add the cream to the finished tomato basil soup, I like to puree everything together to form a smooth consistency. If you like your tomato basil soup chunkier, just blend it for slightly less time until desired consistency is reached.

Ways to Puree Tomato Soup:

• Immersion blender (my preferred way)
• Blender (make sure you only fill it up half-way at a time)
• Food processor (make sure you only fill it up half-way at a time)
• Food mill

Freezing Tomato Soup

You can absolutely freeze tomato soup, even if it has heavy cream in it. To freeze, simply pour your tomato soup in your preferred Souper Cubes® tray, place lid on top, and freeze. If you’d like, you can pop out the tomato soup cubes from the tray and place in your favorite freezer-friendly bag. I recommend waiting until the soup has cooled down a bit before placing it in the freezer.

Our go-to tray for freezing tomato basil soup is our 1-cup tray.

Heating Up Frozen Tomato Basil Soup

Jake’s preferred way to heat up a cup of soup is by placing a 1-cup portion of soup in a mug and microwaving it until hot (about 3 minutes). Then he either sips on it or grabs a spoon and eats from the mug directly. You can also use a mug and heat it up in the microwave.

Alternatively, you can also place a cube (or as many as you’d like) in a pot over medium-low heat. Once there’s liquid in the pot from the melted soup, you can raise the heat to medium.

How to Make Creamy Roasted Tomato Basil Soup

Gather and Prep Your Ingredients

This recipe calls for a combination of fresh tomatoes and canned tomatoes. You can use any type of canned tomato for this recipe as you’ll be blending it at the end. Your canned tomato options are

• Crushed tomatoes (my preferred canned tomato)
• Diced tomatoes
• Whole peeled tomatoes

Our preference is to buy the no-salt added tomatoes from either Sprouts or Whole Foods since we keep a low-sodium diet.

This recipe also calls for four cups of stock. You can use vegetable stock, chicken broth, or bone broth.

Roast Tomatoes in 425F Degree Oven

Clean and halve your tomatoes. Coat with olive oil and add salt and black pepper. Place in a pan and roast for 45 minutes.

It’s important to first prepare your oven-roasted tomatoes because as they’re roasting in the oven, you can make your soup. By the time you’ve prepared the rest of your ingredients and gotten your soup base going, the roasted tomatoes should be almost ready.

Prepare Base for Tomato Soup

While your tomatoes are roasting in the oven, get started on making the rest of the soup to save time. You'll want to heat up the remaining olive oil + butter in a large pot, then add the onions. Stir until they start browning. Then add garlic + red pepper flakes.

Add Tomatoes, Herbs, and Stock

First boil, then reduce to a simmer for 30 minutes. I left the lid partially ajar. Then blend together.

Add Cream to Pureed Tomato Soup

Serve Warm and Garnish with Fresh Basil and Black Pepper

We paired our creamy tomato soup with sour dough grilled cheese

Freeze Leftovers in your Souper Cubes® Trays