Creamy Tomato Soup
- Savory
- Creamy
- Stovetop
- Oven
Sweet onions and garlic softened in olive oil, simmered with ripe tomatoes and a little vegetable stock, then blended silky with cream and finished with fresh basil. A comforting bowl that tastes like a long simmer but comes together on the stovetop.
- Total
- 42 min
- Prep 10 · Cook 32
- Serves
- 4
- Difficulty
- Easy
You'll practice: Sweating · Simmering
Instructions
-
Peel and finely chop the onion. Peel and thinly slice the garlic. Roughly chop the tomatoes into 3 cm chunks, keeping any juices. Pick the basil leaves and set them aside.
~10 min
-
Warm the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion with a pinch of the salt and cook, stirring, until soft and translucent, about 7 minutes. Do not let it brown.
~7 min
Sweating the onion gently draws out moisture and sweetness without browning, which keeps the soup's flavor clean and mild rather than caramelized.
Sweating Cook the onion over medium heat with a pinch of salt until soft and translucent, never browned. If it starts to color, lower the heat so the sweetness stays clean.
-
Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for 45 seconds until fragrant. Add the tomatoes, 300 ml vegetable stock, remaining salt and black pepper. Bring to a gentle simmer, then cover partly and cook until the tomatoes collapse and the liquid reduces slightly, about 20 minutes.
~20 min
Simmering partly covered lets the tomatoes break down and the liquid concentrate, deepening flavor while garlic cooks just long enough to lose its raw bite.
Simmering Keep a gentle, lazy bubble rather than a rolling boil, and partly cover the pot. Stir occasionally so the tomatoes collapse evenly without scorching on the bottom.
-
Take the pot off the heat. Blend with an immersion blender until smooth, or blend in a stand blender in 2 batches, filling it no more than halfway and venting the lid each time.
~2 min
Blending off the heat and in small batches prevents steam pressure from building up and keeps hot soup from splattering or bursting out of the blender.
Blend the soup before adding the cream: hot cream blended at high speed can turn grainy, and stirring it in at the end keeps the texture silky.
-
Stir in 120 ml cream and return the pot to low heat for 2 minutes, just until hot. Do not boil once the cream is in. Taste and adjust the salt.
~2 min
Stirring cream in at the end and keeping it below a boil prevents the dairy proteins from curdling and splitting, which would make the soup grainy.
If the soup looks thin after blending, simmer it uncovered for a few minutes before the cream goes in so it thickens without diluting the flavor.
-
Ladle into bowls and scatter the basil leaves over the top.
~1 min
