Creamy Roasted Garlic Tomato Soup

This Tomato Soup is so easy and delicious you will wonder how you ever tolerated the canned stuff! The trick to really amazing tomato soup is super-ripe, almost mushy, tomatoes! The more ripe they are the sweeter and more complex their flavor, and the more tomato-y your soup will turn out.

The summer will soon be fading fast into fall but if you’re like me you probably still have a bunch of tomatoes hanging around. If you’re looking for an easy and quick recipe to help you transition in to soup season this dish does the trick! So flavorful and creamy even your non-veggie family and friends will ask for seconds! Bonus: canning this soup is super easy and because it’s tomato based doesn’t require any extra processing to safely preserve!

What you are going to need to buy:

Tomatoes - 8 small to medium vine ripened tomatoes will make abut 2 servings of soup. I recommend roasting 4 small - medium (think between the the size of a medium plum) for each serving

Sweet Onion

Olive Oil

Balsamic Vinegar

Sugar or Maple Syrup

Minced Garlic - (we like these jarred options from Spice World!)  

Veggie Stock - 1 cup, per desired serving

Your favorite Vegan Cream Cheese - (We used this one from Kite Hill Foods)

Cayenne Pepper, to taste

Salt & Pepper, to taste

Paprika, to taste

Basil, Chives, Oregano (optional)

What you are going to need to do:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Start my chopping an onion (1/2 for 2 servings or a whole onion for 4 servings)
Lightly oil a large skillet, (one with deep sides works the best)
Cut tomatoes in half. and arrange in skillet cut side down along with onions and 2-3 tablespoons of garlic.

Sprinkle with 2 tablespoons of sugar and drizzle with 2 tablespoons of Balsamic Vinegar and a pinch of Cayenne Pepper.

Saute’ on medium/high heat until the onions are translucent and the mixture is bubbling.
Transfer your skillet to the oven and roast the mixture for 15-20 minutes checking occationally. If it’s looking too dry you can add 1/4 cup of water to the skillet to make sure that the mixture does not burn.

After 20 minutes remove the onions and tomatoes from the oven and add to the pot your veggie stock.

Simmer on the stove-top for another 10 minutes. You can also add any herbs you’d like at this time.

Using a stick blender, blend soup until smooth! No need to worry about small seeds and skins, they all get blended together. Optionally, if you don’t have a stick blender, carefully transfer the soup to a stand blender and blend until smooth.

Stir in the cream cheese 1/4 to1/2 cup depending on number of servings.

Add salt, pepper, and paprika to taste. You can also add a touch more cayenne at this time, if desired. If you like a sweeter tomato soup add another tablespoon of sugar or maple syrup at this time.

This soup is great garnished with toasted pine nuts and sun dried tomatoes!

Enjoy!