Tomato Soup With a Whole Head of Garlic Recipe on Food52 (2024)

One-Pot Wonders

by: Carolina Gelen

July12,2021

4.7

48 Ratings

  • Prep time 5 minutes
  • Cook time 35 minutes
  • Serves 2

Jump to Recipe

Author Notes

I find myself making this recipe at least once a week. It’s satisfying, comforting, and requires almost no effort to make. You dump a bunch of things in a pan, forget about it for 30 minutes, come back, blend it all up, and voila, dinner is ready!

One ingredient makes all the difference here: a whole head of garlic, roasted until buttery tender. It adds such a nice touch, sweet and creamy, not overpowering, just right. The best way to serve this? With a fried sourdough toast or a melty grilled cheese.

Helpful tools for this recipe:
- Borosilicate Glass Baking Dish
- Vitamix One High-Speed Blender
- Staub Ceramic 2-Piece Nesting Oval Baking Dishes Set

Carolina Gelen

  • Test Kitchen-Approved

What You'll Need

Ingredients
  • Extra-virgin olive oil
  • 2 pints(about 650 grams) cherry tomatoes
  • 1 yellow onion, roughly chopped
  • 1 small garlic head, halved crosswise
  • 1 bunchbasil
  • 1 bunchthyme
  • 1 red chile, optional
  • Salt and pepper
  • 1/2 cupfull-fat coconut milk, soy cream, or heavy cream
  • 1/2 cupvegetable stock, plus more as needed
Directions
  1. Heat the oven to 480°F (250°C).
  2. Drizzle some oil into a deep baking dish. Add in the onion, garlic (cut side down), basil and thyme, chile, and tomatoes. Drizzle more olive oil on top, plus a big sprinkle of salt and pepper. Bake for 25 to 35 minutes, until the tomatoes are slightly charred.
  3. Let cool for 5 to 7 minutes. Remove and discard the thyme. Add the rest of the ingredients to a blender, along with the coconut milk and vegetable stock. Remove the little plug from the blender lid, then cover the lid with a kitchen towel and blend until smooth. Taste and adjust the salt and pepper if needed.
  4. Serve with a piece of buttered toast or a grilled cheese sandwich.

Tags:

  • Soup
  • American
  • Vegetable
  • One-Pot Wonders
  • Fall
  • Winter
  • Vegetarian
  • Vegan
  • Gluten-Free
  • Dinner

See what other Food52ers are saying.

  • Christine Tetreault

  • Jessica Stirling

  • Medora Van Denburgh

  • peachespeaches

Recipe by: Carolina Gelen

Carolina is a resident at Food52. She's also one of the hosts of Choose Your Own Recipe Adventure, our YouTube show where our Food52 readers pick the ingredients and techniques for a brand new recipe. Carolina recently immigrated to the U.S. from Transylvania, a place she spent most of her life. She continues to get inspired by the classic Romanian and Hungarian foods she was raised on, creating approachable, colorful, and fun recipes. For more cooking ideas and candid moments, check out her Instagram @carolinagelen.

Popular on Food52

73 Reviews

peachespeaches October 28, 2023

Delicious! Thank you! BUT can you please specify a few things:

1) How much is a “bunch” of thyme? Could you estimate in number of sprigs? My grocery stores don’t sell thyme by the bunch and I’d like a more accurate way to measure.

2) How much is a “bunch” of basil? Could you estimate, for example measurement in packed cup(s)? My grocery stores don’t sell basil by the bunch and I’d like a more accurate way to measure.

Thanks!!

Medora V. October 29, 2023

Reminds me of my grandmother's recipes, which included phrases like "a handful of flour" and "a piece of butter the size of an egg." Whose hand? What size egg? I think she had a measuring cup, but I don't remember ever seeing her use it--and everything always came out wonderfully.

howmuchisin.com to the rescue. They determined that the average bunch of thyme is about an ounce, or about 44 sprigs. But if I head out to Grandma's garden for a bunch of thyme, I'm neither weighing or counting. It's just what feels right in my hand. After going on seven decades of cooking, I've come to believe that measuring is overrated.

Danielle October 7, 2023

Made this recipe exactly as instructed with coconut milk (I was a little heavy handed with the milk) - it was phenomenal. And it’s even better next day. The whole family liked this one, including the tomato-hating kid.

luxy September 25, 2023

I loved making and eating this recipe. I left out the chili peppers and used a whole can of coconut milk, instead of 1/2 a cup. I will be making this soup all the time!

TAYLOR W. September 25, 2023

This was delicious and super easy! I'll second the other reviewers that the immersion blender just doesn't get it to the right consistency. I started with it but gave up and used my Ninja in the end.

cdesousa5 September 25, 2023

I happen to like my immersion blender better than my food processor. You can get the herbs much more blended into the soup than in a blender or food processor. However you do need to use it for more than just a few seconds.

cdesousa5 September 24, 2023

This recipe is a great base to add more ingredients to make the flavor more complex. For example: roasted red pepper, oregano, a little sugar to cut the acid, etc. I took one star off because I am surprised nobody talks about all the seeds that are in the soup from the cherry tomatoes. After I blend everything together except the cream I sieve the liquid to remove all the seeds. With a double recipe I had nearly 1/3 cups of seeds! Also nothing is mentioned about putting on stove to heat but not to boil because of the cream. Even without sieving out the seeds this would be luke warm if you did not heat it up before serving. As I said before I love this recipe as a base and will use it for making with my fresh tomatoes and freeze some (before adding the cream) to have after tomato season has ended on a cold winter day.

Danielle October 7, 2023

I blended in a Vitamix and didn’t have this problem

michellelhoughton September 21, 2023

OH. MY. GOSH. Not only does my kitchen smell like a restaurant, but this just seriously made me swoon while smiling with glee at an amazing way to use some of the bounty of tomatoes in the garden! Thank you! I love the coconut milk - what a deliciously and subtle complexity.

michellelhoughton September 21, 2023

I should add: I thinned some Greek Yogurt to swirl on top, along with another recipe from a french website for radish top pesto. Highly, HIGHLY recommend!

Lauren September 19, 2023

Made this for lunch while I worked from home - so easy and delicious. Doubled the recipe so we could enjoy a grilled cheese and creamy tomato soup dinner on this fall day.

WWLady September 18, 2023

Absolutely delicious!! So flavourful! I hate it when people review a recipe and they've made a lot of changes, so I must confess, I didn't have any vegetable stock, only chicken stock, and I doubled the recipe AND it was beyond fantastic! The best tomato soup I've ever had!

Ambrrk September 18, 2023

Has anyone has good results freezing this? I have a ton of tomatoes to use up now. Hope the cream doesn't turn weird in the freezer...

JV September 18, 2023

I haven’t tried freezing, but if you’re worried you can easily leave out the cream and add it after defrosting - it’s added at the end, doesn’t get cooked in.

Ambrrk September 19, 2023

Thanks, great idea

michellelhoughton September 21, 2023

I doubled it and froze the second half! It froze beautifully in ziploc bags. Can't tell you how it thaws, yet, though! :-)

Dorota D. February 9, 2023

Don't think any longer just make this recipe ! it's a keeper for me .

pamela T. January 10, 2023

I too loved this recipe but it was a little too sweet for me so I added a bit of curry. Loved it!

Bernadette January 3, 2023

This soup is absolutely delicious! From the aroma while the ingredients roast in the oven to the first taste, this recipe is perfection! Thank you for such a nutritious and yummy recipe. I cannot imagine using another tomato soup recipe now that I've found this one.

reywints November 29, 2022

This recipe has become one of my all-time favorites! It's become the only tomato soup my family will eat!

adparnell October 26, 2022

This soup has become a staple in our house. It is nourishing, comforting, delicious and customizable. Can't recommend it enough!

nercon5 September 27, 2022

Gosh this was delicious. I did it all in my dutch oven and just used the stick blender in the pot. This will seem like a glib comparison, but for all my ladies from tx (hey y’all!) it reminded me of a sophisticated version of la mad’s tomato bisque

Christine T. September 2, 2022

Ermygawd! This is the best tomato soup I have ever had…and the easiest. I followed the recipe exactly, the red chili is the finishing chef’s kiss.

Deborah January 18, 2022

This soup was fantastic, even without any fresh herbs. I used extra broth and greek yogurt, dried basil and no chili. My ingredients were limited. But it's delicious. I urge you to roast extra garlic to spread on a baguette.

cmhgmantsch January 11, 2022

Delicious and so easy!!!

Sadieray August 2, 2021

I am looking at a photo with this recipe that has pesto and maybe cream on top? Can someone clarify as I see no reference to a topping in the recipe. Thanks!

Medora V. August 3, 2021

Apparently the pesto comes up in the Instagram video.

Jessica S. April 20, 2021

Wonderful! I make it weekly!

Tomato Soup With a Whole Head of Garlic Recipe on Food52 (2024)

FAQs

Why do you put baking soda in tomato soup? ›

- Adding baking soda to tomato soup and tomato sauces helps balance the acidity of the tomatoes. Tomato flavors really shine, and your sauce or soup will not curdle if you add milk. - Adding ¼ teaspoon of baking soda to 1 cup of tomato sauce or soup will make flavors sparkle and become less acidic.

What can be added to tomato soup to make it thicker? ›

How To Thicken Up Tomato Soup
  1. Add Tomato Paste. One of the easiest ways to thicken your tomato soup is by adding tomato paste. ...
  2. Use Flour or Cornstarch. ...
  3. Incorporate Bread. ...
  4. Utilize Heavy Cream or Yogurt. ...
  5. Blend or Puree. ...
  6. Add Vegetables or Beans. ...
  7. Simmer and Reduce.
May 10, 2024

Can you leave skin on tomatoes when making soup? ›

If you've ever made a tomato soup and fished out some tomato skin, you know it's not always the most appealing texture. Sometimes, you want the smoothest, silkiest texture for a sauce or soup possible, and for those cases, it is ideal to use peeled tomatoes.

How to jazz up tin tomato soup? ›

Add Protein. Adding cooked meat that's high in protein is an easy way to make canned tomato soup taste better and more filling. Chopped bacon pairs well with tomato soup for a BLT-esque soup, or try adding in crumbled ground meat like spicy sausage for some added flavor.

What can I add to tomato soup to make it taste better? ›

10 Simple Ingredients to Add to Tomato Soup
  1. 1) Fresh Rosemary. Kicking off the list is the simplest way to jazz up your tomato soup – fresh herbs. ...
  2. 2) Sauteed Onions. ...
  3. 3) Crispy Bacon. ...
  4. 4) Cream. ...
  5. 5) Chutney. ...
  6. 6) Melted Cheese. ...
  7. 7) Tinned Anchovies. ...
  8. 8) Toasted Pine Nuts.
Mar 21, 2022

Is tomato soup better with milk or water? ›

When Made With Milk, Tomato Soup Should Be Rich And Creamy. Not all soups are created equal. A soup made with milk is usually richer and more luxurious than one made with just water or stock. This addition helps make the soup feel more comforting.

Why add flour to tomato soup? ›

Tomato soup can be a bit thin, especially with the addition of cream at the end of cooking, so flour is added to the sautéing aromatics to thicken the soup.

What is the difference between tomato soup and tomato bisque? ›

While both are delicious, they are quite different, especially when it comes to the texture. Tomato bisque is thicker and creamier in texture, and calls for the use of milk and/or cream.

How do you reduce the acidity in tomato soup? ›

If it tastes overly acidic or sharp, add a quarter teaspoon of baking soda. The soup will bubble and fizz wherever the soda lands as carbon dioxide is released. Give it a good stir to make sure the soda is fully spent; when the bubbles subside, taste again and add another quarter teaspoon if needed.

Should you deseed tomatoes for soup? ›

You don't need to worry about removing the seeds if you're making a soup or sauce. The seeds will actually add an extra dimension to your dish and if you blend well you won't have to worry about them getting stuck in your teeth. It's a different story if you're making a salad, salsa, omelette or casserole.

Should I strain my homemade tomato soup? ›

I find it unnecessary and also time-consuming to strain the soup through a fine-mesh strainer. In my opinion, the tomato skin is barely noticeable after pureeing the soup to a super smooth consistency. Also, leaving in the skin and bits of pulp will keep the added fiber and other nutrients in the soup.

How do you keep tomato soup from curling? ›

Stir some hot soup liquid into cold dairy product to temper it, then add to the soup. Do not boil the soup after adding any dairy product, especially cheese. Add acid to the milk instead of milk into the acid. This is especially important for tomato soup.

Should I add tomato paste to my tomato soup? ›

1) Cook chopped onion in olive oil until tender, then add tomato paste. Every great soup starts with an onion! Once it's tender, we'll stir in a dollop of tomato paste and let it cook for a couple of minutes. Tomato paste offers deep tomato flavor and adds a lot of intensity to this soup.

What if I add too much baking soda to my tomato soup? ›

If you've accidentally added too much, you can simply add more tomatoes. And yes, it is perfectly OK and safe to use baking soda as an ingredient in soup and other savoury recipes.

How do I make my Campbell's tomato soup better? ›

You can add fresh herbs like basil or oregano, a splash of heavy cream for richness, a drizzle of olive oil for depth of flavor, or a sprinkle of grated cheese on top for added creaminess. You can also sauté some onions and garlic to add complexity, or even add cooked pasta or rice to make it heartier.

What does baking soda do when added to soup? ›

Adding baking soda to a soup raises the pH and contributes sodium ions, both of which make the pectin that holds many vegetables' cell walls together break down faster. The result? Restaurant-level creaminess.

What does adding baking soda to tomato sauce do? ›

Even a small amount of baking soda significantly raises the pH of the sauce. While this reduces acidic taste, it also tamps down on the brightness that gives the tomato complexity.

Does baking soda reduce acidity in soup? ›

Use Baking Soda

Here's how to use it effectively: Dissolve a small amount of baking soda in water to create a paste. Add the paste gradually into the soup, stirring well after each addition. Taste the soup regularly to ensure you do not overshoot and end up with an overly alkaline taste.

References

Top Articles
Latest Posts
Article information

Author: Pres. Carey Rath

Last Updated:

Views: 5700

Rating: 4 / 5 (61 voted)

Reviews: 84% of readers found this page helpful

Author information

Name: Pres. Carey Rath

Birthday: 1997-03-06

Address: 14955 Ledner Trail, East Rodrickfort, NE 85127-8369

Phone: +18682428114917

Job: National Technology Representative

Hobby: Sand art, Drama, Web surfing, Cycling, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Leather crafting, Creative writing

Introduction: My name is Pres. Carey Rath, I am a faithful, funny, vast, joyous, lively, brave, glamorous person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.