I’ve made a lot of soup in my life, but for some reason I never made my own tomato soup. I had extra cherry tomatoes and red peppers leftover from the week’s delivery that were a bit wrinkled but were too good to toss out. Inspired by a TikTok video I saw (thankfully dancing wasn’t required) I decided to give it a shot.

Here’s my take:

You’ll need a large sheet pan covered in parchment. Parchment isn’t required, but it really helps with clean up! Pre-heat oven to 400.

2.5-3 cups cherry tomatoes. Washed and stems removed. Don’t cut.

2 large red peppers. Washed, cut or torn into chunks. Seeds removed.

1 medium yellow onions, cut into rings and separated.

1 head of garlic cut in half

3 +/- tablespoons olive oil

Fresh thyme

Fresh basil (I didn’t have that so I used the basil that comes in a tube) About 2 tablespoons

Dried Italian seasonings

Basil Salt

Black pepper

1+ cup vegetable broth

1+ cup half and half. I used 1 cup soymilk with 2 tbsp cornstarch as a vegan substitute.

Arrange tomatoes and red pepper chunks on your parchment lined sheet pan. Place each half of the garlic on the pan and top with sliced onion rings. Add a few sprigs of fresh thyme and drizzle with olive oil. Use enough to coat everything. Sprinkle with Italian seasoning, basil salt and fresh cracked black pepper.

It should look like this !

Cook at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. Give everything a stir, flip the pan around and cook another 20ish minutes until the tomatoes start to blister and the onions darken.
Naturally I didn’t get more pictures of the rest of the steps because my son came home from wrestling practice and was DYING of hunger and I was distracted making a few quick grilled cheese.
Once the tomatoes are a bit blistered remove from the oven and let cool. Remove the springs of thyme and throw away. Set aside garlic.
Back to the squeezy basil- Get a large pan for the soup and heat up about a tablespoon of olive oil, about 2 tablespoons of the squeezy basil and squeeze the cloves of garlic out of the halves and into the pan. This should only take about 2-3 minutes and will smell amazing. Remove from heat, add everything from the sheet pan and mix.
Make your starving teenager three grilled cheese sandwiches while the mixture in the pot cools off.
Add all of this to a blender, hand blender or food processor. You can make this as smooth or as chunky as you’d like.
Place back into the pot, over medium heat add the vegetable broth and cream and mix well. If you prefer a thinner soup, add more liquid. More broth if you don’t want as much cream, or more cream if that’s what you prefer. Add more salt or seasonings to your preference.
While the vegetables were roasting I threw a few sweet potatoes in the oven too. I add a dollop of tofutti sour cream and dried parsley to my potato. I added a salad with Gardein Ultimate chicken nuggets to keep it vegan, topped with balsamic vinegar from Blue Ridge Olive Oil Co.
Dinner is served!
Most of the vegetables and seasonings I used are available for delivery this week! The ink to basil salt and my other salts can be found via this link.
Basil Salt
If you tried it please let me know how it came out and tag me on social media!