Roasted Tomato Soup To Die For

Blistering heat, garlic, olive oil and salt take gnarly-end-of-season-tomatoes to new levels of delicious.

This year my little garden pumped out over 200 lbs of tomatoes. I confess that may be because I planted 20 plants in a pandemic panic. I’ve blanched, frozen and canned 80% of them and the rest we’ve eaten fresh. I’m a die-hard homegrown tomato snob but even I’ve hit the tomato wall.

I still have one large bowl of weird, gnarly tomatoes left on the counter. Look at this dude:

Maybe you have some weird or wizened tomatoes too. (I forgive you if you bought them from a store. But never keep tomatoes in the fridge as a strange chemical reaction happens and they turn mealy, mushy, and lose all flavor.)

I digress. There’s really only one thing to do.

I let the gnarly tomatoes ripen as much as possible until the day I want roasted tomato soup. And then all bets are off. I don’t care if they are green, half red, wrinkled or over-the-top red. Once I’m done with them, they will be a better version of themselves.

Gather Thy Weird Tomatoes. Let’s Start Roasting!

First I preheat the oven to a rocking 450 degrees Fahrenheit. This kind of heat isn’t for sissies. Now some people like to make roasted tomatoes on low and slow heat. There’s a time and place for that if you want them simmered soft with loads of juice.

But I don’t want loads of juice today. I want to zap those little gnarly buggers with high heat for 35 minutes or so. Why? It caramelizes their natural sugars and makes their thin skins go a little dark brown — even black in some spots. It’s the transformation that makes my little strange darlings so delicious.

Ok. Gather thy weird tomatoes. Give them a quick wash if you’re fussy like that. But dry them well as you don’t want added water in the oven for this job.

Cut all of the tomatoes into halves or even quarters if you have some large ones. You want them to be roughly the same size so they cook evenly. I take out the little core on the top because that’s where I’m fussy. If you have a bunch of cherry tomatoes like I do — throw them in too. They will roast a little faster but that’s OK.

Spread them out in a large shallow baking pan — a cookie sheet works if it has a lip/ridge. High heat or not — there will be juice and we will add the works to the soup. (And if you’re like me — you hate cleaning the stove if something burgles over.)

I don’t put parchment paper or foil on the bottom of the pan. Why?

Because sometimes parchment causes them to steam and I don’t want that. And I don’t want to spend an hour picking tinfoil off the bottoms of the tomatoes. I prefer to go hard-core and trust me — the clean up isn’t bad at all.

Now let’s add a few other ingredients that make this a soup to die for.

Take a head of garlic and remove the papery skins from all the cloves — at least 10 of them. Yes — you read that right. You don’t need to chop them. Just throw them in the pan with the tomatoes. It will feel like an indecent amount of garlic. That’s the feeling you’re shooting for.

Pour about 4–5 tablespoons of good olive oil over all the tomatoes and garlic. Toss them about with a wooden spoon. Throw a tablespoon or two of salt over them. I use Maldon salt but you use whatever plain salt is in your pantry.

Toss again for good measure.

Now put the pan in the oven and set the timer for 35 minutes. You don’t want to forget about your roasted tomatoes.

DING! The tomatoes are done. Take a peek and see if they are the color you want. If not, give them another 5 minutes. Shut the oven off, give the tomatoes a quick stir and keep them in the oven while it cools if you want. A little extra heat isn’t going to hurt them.

You can either make soup right away or you can cool and freeze them in a bag for another day. (You can also use them for a variety of other dishes.) It doesn’t get much simpler than this.

Let’s Make Roasted Tomato Soup!

In a medium-large pot (it all depends on how many tomatoes you have), on medium heat, lightly sauté 1–2 chopped onions in 2 tablespoons of butter until they are translucent like stained onion glass. Don’t let them brown.

Add all of the roasted tomatoes, garlic, olive oil and juice from the roasting pan into the pot. Add 1 liter of vegetable or chicken broth. Also pour in a cup of leftover red or white wine if you have some kicking around. If you don’t — no worries, use the juice from half of a lemon. (About 1 -2 tablespoons.)

Put the lid on and let it simmer on low for 40–60 min. Don’t let it boil. No soup likes to be boiled.

OK — your soup is ready for the final step. Either slowly and carefully transfer it to a blender in batches (you’ll need another pot to put the pureed soup in) or use a handheld immersion blender and try not to spray the kitchen.

Once everything is pureed, add 1/2–3/4 cup of half and half cream. Warm on gentle heat and serve.

P.S. If you want to get a little fancy — you can make homemade croutons to put on the top of the soup before serving. Just cut bread into small cubes, throw them in a frying pan with a few tablespoons of olive oil and fry until lightly toasted on all sides. It only takes a minute or two and people will rave about it.

If you have a little blue cheese to sprinkle on top you can use that too. Sometimes I’ve used both. Don’t judge me.

Thanks for reading! I have loads of food essays (delicious recipes too) and thoughtful and quirky simpler living essays waiting for you. (Well over 100 of them!) And this story caught the attention of NBC News In New York!