Creamy Tomato Basil Soup
Super smooth, ultra Creamy Tomato Basil Soup is both the best and easiest way to make soup from fresh tomatoes. You’re going to love this so much, you’ll want to double, triple or even quadruple the recipe to keep on hand in the freezer long after summer and fresh tomatoes are a pleasant memory.
Equipment
- 1 Rimmed half sheet pan
- 1 blender, stick blender, or food processor
Ingredients
- 3 lbs plum tomatoes see notes
- 1 onions peeled and cut into wedges
- 6 cloves garlic peeled but left whole, (See Notes)
- ⅓ cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 8 to 12 large leaves fresh basil
Instructions
To Make Roasted Creamy Tomato Basil Soup
- Preheat your oven to 400ºF.
- Wash your tomatoes. If you have any tomatoes with a woody or tough core/stem area, trim it away, otherwise, simply cut each tomato into 8 wedges.
- Spread them out on a rimmed half sheet pan. Scatter the onions and garlic cloves around the pan.
- Drizzle the olive oil evenly over the contents of the pan and then sprinkle with the salt and pepper. Roast for 30 to 45 minutes, or until all of the tomatoes are tender, have started to shrivel at the edges, and there are some standing cooking juices in the pan.
- Remove the pan from the oven and toss the half of your fresh basil leaves around on top of the hot tomatoes. Let the whole pan rest for about 5 minutes. The basil will darken and become fragrant.
- Carefully transfer your cooked tomatoes and any accumulated cooking juices to a blender or food processor. Add the remaining basil leaves as well.
- Blend on high until the contents are smooth. If using a blender, be sure to vent the blender so steam can escape.
- If you want thinner soup, you can blend in a little milk, heavy cream, or broth. Please note this should be done before serving, but not with soup that you plan to freeze or can.
- Serve immediately garnished with fresh basil or divide into single serving sizes and freeze in airtight containers for up to a year.
Tomato Soup Canning
- If desired, this soup can be pressure canned for shelf-stable storage. To do this, you want to reheat the soup after blending and pour into clean pint or quart jars leaving 1 inch of headspace.
- Wipe the rims of the jars with a paper towel dipped in white vinegar to clean them.
- Fix new, two-piece lids in place and adjust to fingertip tightness. Bring water to a boil according to your pressure canner manufacturer's instructions. Load the jars into the canner, fix the lid in place, and process according to the manufacturer's instructions.
- For pints: Process for 60 minutes at 10 lbs of pressure for 1,000 ft. altitude or below or 15 lbs of pressure for above 1,000 ft.
- For quarts: Process for 75 minutes at 10 lbs of pressure for 1,000 ft. altitude or below or 15 lbs of pressure for above 1,000 ft.
- Allow the jars to return to normal pressure naturally, then remove the canner lid and carefully transfer to a cooling rack or a sheet pan lined with towels. Allow them to cool -undisturbed- overnight before removing the rings, wiping clean, labeling and storing in a cool, dark place for up to a year.
Notes
-I prefer plum tomatoes as they are a little more substantial and you get a higher yield, but any fresh tomatoes will be delicious in this soup. Beefsteak tomatoes will yield a slightly looser soup than plum tomatoes.
If that worries you, you can roast the tomatoes a little longer to evaporate more of the water from them.
The tomatoes do not need to be uniformly ripe but should all be ripe or ripe-ish. Very ripe tomatoes mixed with slightly more firm tomatoes will actually yield a delicious soup. The riper tomatoes will give great tomato flavour and the naturally occurring pectin in the firmer tomatoes will nicely thicken your soup.
-You can either purchase peeled whole garlic cloves, or smack cloves with a heavy pan or the side of a chef’s knife to lightly crush them just enough to loosen the peel on each clove.
Nutrition
Calories: 159kcalCarbohydrates: 12gProtein: 2gFat: 12gSaturated Fat: 2gPolyunsaturated Fat: 1gMonounsaturated Fat: 9gSodium: 400mgPotassium: 581mgFiber: 3gSugar: 7gVitamin A: 1926IUVitamin C: 33mgCalcium: 35mgIron: 1mg
Nutritional information is an estimate and provided to you as a courtesy. You should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe using your preferred nutrition calculator.
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