Roasted Tomato Soup

With the cooler weather settling in I was in the mood for some good ol’ comfort food. I remembered making a tomato and red pepper soup last year and I made mini grilled cheese sandwiches to go with. That sounded perfect to me, but I felt like that soup recipe wasn’t quite what I was looking for. So, I looked through my fridge and cabinets to see what I had and I started cooking. I saw that I had some carrots sitting lonely in the fridge and thought they might make a good addition to the soup. I tossed the carrots along with the onion, red pepper and garlic cloves and decided that roasting them would bring out their sweetness.

I roasted them for about 25 minutes, just until they were a little charred and threw them into the crock-pot. Next, I added the tomatoes. Now, I could’ve roasted my own tomatoes with the veggies, but I had some canned tomatoes on hand that I decided to use instead. They were fire roasted, which I thought would go along great with the other roasted vegetables. I picked these up at our local Whole Foods.

Then I added in some chicken broth (you could use veggie if you want to keep it vegan), a few spices and let it all cook on low for about 6 1/2 hours. Once all the vegetables were nice and soft I used my immersion blender to blend it all up. The soup was delicious just as it was, but I wanted to add in a little almond milk which just made it all the yummier! You could use any type of milk or even use some cream if you wanted to fatten it up a bit. I was trying to keep this on the light side since I knew I was making some crazy delicious mini grilled cheese sandwiches to go with. Yes, I had to splurge a bit, but hey, they were small, right??? 🙂

Roasted Tomato Soup

Print Recipe

Super easy and super yummy tomato soup with some added roasted vegetables for some extra tastiness!

• Author: Dawn
• Cook Time: 6-7 hours
• Total Time: 1 minute
• Yield: 5–6 servings 1x
• Category: soups
• Method: crock-pot
• Cuisine: comfort food

Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• 1 yellow onion, quartered
• 1 red pepper, roughly chopped (you can keep the pieces big)
• 2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 1–2 inch chunks
• 4–5 garlic cloves, peeled
• 2 14.5 ounce cans fire roasted tomatoes
• 4 cups low sodium chicken broth or vegetable broth
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 2 TBL tomato paste
• crushed red pepper to add kick, if you’d like
• 1 cup almond milk (or any milk of your choice)
• fresh basil for garnish

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Toss the onion, red pepper, carrots and garlic cloves with a tablespoon or so of olive oil.  Place on a baking sheet and bake for 25-30 minutes.  Once they are done, put them in the crock pot and add all of the rest of the ingredients except the milk, if you are using.  Cook on low for 6 hours.  Use an immersion blender to blend the veggies until smooth.  Add in the milk and let it heat up just a bit more and then serve.

Notes

• I feel that the type of tomatoes I used (fire roasted) really enhanced the flavor of this soup.  
• It probably doesn’t need to cook for this long, but that’s just what I did. It doesn’t hurt it to cook it longer either.  
• You do not have to use any milk or cream.  I enjoyed what the little bit of almond milk did for mine.  Try it out either way!

Now…on to the yummy sides! I basically used the cheeses and other ingredients I had on hand, with just a few extra that I added when I picked up the bread for the mini grilled cheeses. You can do them simple, with just cheese, or you can add a few other surprises like I did!

The ingredients I used for my sandwiches were –

• mozzarella cheese
• sharp cheddar cheese
• 18 month gouda
• 4 yr aged butternut swiss cheese
• pesto
• honeycrisp apple
• bacon
• fresh rosemary
• tomatoes
• fresh spinach
• arugula
• demi french baguette

I came up with 4 different types total –

• Mozzarella, pesto, tomato and balsamic reduction
• Sharp Cheddar, bacon, tomato and spinach
• Gouda, apple slices and arugula
• Swiss, apple slices and rosemary

They all turned out amazing, I mean, how could they not when they all include cheese!!! We were very surprised by the swiss cheese one. This was both of our’s favorite. Yes, our swiss cheese was aged, but this would be awesome with even just a regular swiss cheese. The way the flavor mixed with the sweetness of the apple and the punch of the rosemary was awesome! You’ll have to let me know if you try any of these!