Name: Roasted Tomato and Basil Soup
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 1 h
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 1.2 kg ripe tomatoes, halved; 1 whole head garlic, top sliced off; 2 red onions, in wedges; 3 tbsp olive oil; 1 ½ tsp fine sea salt; ½ tsp black pepper; 1 tsp dried oregano; 700 ml vegetable stock; 30 g fresh basil, leaves and stalks separated; 1 tbsp red wine vinegar

Roasted Tomato and Basil Soup

Tomatoes roasted until they collapse and caramelise at the edges, blended with garlic and basil. No sugar, because roasting does the job sugar is usually added to do.

1 hr total Serves 4 servings Easy

What Goes With It

A grilled cheese sandwich
Crusty bread, to serve
A glass of Chianti

How to Make Roasted Tomato and Basil Soup

Tap a step to highlight it, or turn on Cook Mode for large type and step-by-step focus.

Heat the oven to 200°C / 390°F fan.
Toss the tomatoes and onions with 2 tablespoons of the oil, the salt, pepper and oregano and spread them cut side up in a large roasting tin.
Sit the garlic head in the tin, pour the last tablespoon of oil over its cut face and cover just the garlic with a scrap of foil.
Roast 45 minutes. The tomatoes should be collapsed and browned at the edges — that browning is the whole point, so do not pull them early.
Squeeze the garlic cloves out of their skins into the tin and discard the papery husk.
Tip everything into a pot with the stock and the basil stalks and simmer 5 minutes.
Blend until smooth, then stir in the vinegar and most of the basil leaves.
Taste for salt. If it still reads sharp, another few minutes of simmering will do more than sugar would.

Something wrong or unclear in this recipe? Report a problem with this recipe.

Worth Knowing Before You Cook

Do not crowd the tin. Tomatoes packed together steam in their own juice and never brown, and unbrowned tomatoes will taste as though they need sugar.

Basil stalks have more flavour than the leaves and hold up to simmering. Save the leaves for the end, where the heat will not flatten them.

If your tomatoes are out of season and dull, roast them 10 minutes longer rather than reaching for sweetener.

Ingredient Swaps

An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.
Fresh herbs work in place of the dried oregano at roughly three times the quantity — a teaspoon of dried is about a tablespoon of fresh, chopped.

Keeping What's Left

Refrigerate up to 4 days and freeze 3 months. It thickens as it stands; loosen with stock rather than water so the seasoning holds.