The Best Soup Jeff Has Ever Had: Roasted Tomato Basil Soup

Have you ever had the roasted tomato basil soup from the Corner Bakery Cafe? It’s my favorite! I crave it all the time! But there’s no Corner Bakery Cafe here in New England so I can’t have it whenever I want it. One day I declared that I was going to try to make it myself!  After I made this soup, I fed it to Jeff and he declared it the best soup he’s ever had in his whole life. When my husband proclaims he really likes something I make, I can’t wipe the proud wife smile off my face.  I’ve made this soup twice in the last couple of weeks trying to perfect it. With lots of ripe tomatoes in season and the flexibility to serve this soup hot or chilled, its become one of our favorite things to eat this time of year!  We like to eat with grilled cheese sandwiches or croutons! It’s so much better than the tomato soup that comes out of a can!

Ingredients
3 lbs of very ripe tomatoes
2 tbsp butter
2 cups chopped onion
6 cloves garlic
½ tsp red pepper flakes
1 (28 oz.) can whole tomatoes
2 cups fresh torn basil leaves
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
4 cups  chicken broth
olive oil
salt
pepper

I’m loving all the fresh vegetables in the stores now! Make sure your tomatoes are really ripe for this recipe, the flavor makes a big difference!

Directions

First, roast your tomatoes in the oven at 400 degrees.  I halved all the tomatoes and scooped out the pits and seeds.  Brush tomatoes with olive oil and season generously with salt and pepper.  Roast the tomatoes for 45 minutes.  You can also roast the garlic with the tomatoes if you want to add a roasted garlic flavor to the soup. I’ve made it with the garlic roasted and without and found either way to be good. The roasted garlic adds more of a nutty flavor and the unroasted garlic adds more of a kick.

This is what the tomatoes will look like after you take them out of the oven:

In a large pot on the stove, melt the butter with 2 tablespoons of olive oil.  Add the onions, garlic and red pepper flakes and cook about 7 minutes until they soften.  Then add in the canned tomatoes, roasted tomatoes, basil, thyme and chicken broth  Bring the soup to a boil and then lower the heat and simmer uncovered for about 40 minutes:

Add the mixture into a food processor and pulse until smooth. (I had to process the mixture in two batches or the soup would spill over.)  If you have one of those cool immersion mixers, that would be the easy way to make this! Be careful, soup will be hot!

I also like to serve with some homemade croutons, just like how they do it at the Corner Bakery.    I use some sourdough bread that I cut into 1/2″ cubes and toss with minced garlic, olive oil, worcestershire sauce and fresh parsley and thyme. Toast in the oven for about 8 minutes until crisp:

Serve the soup hot or cold!

Jeff’s been getting over bronchitis (he almost missed his graduation last week because he was hooked up to IVs!) so I’ve been feeding him lots of soup lately. We’ve had this soup for breakfast, lunch and dinner some days!

You might also like:

tagged as: croutons, soup, tomato soup, veggies