Smoky Roasted Yellow and Red Cherry Tomato Soup

When deciding what recipe to post as my very first 4 Love of Food post EVER, I thought about what is truly happening for me right now. That my friend (because at this point there is probably only one of you haha) is the harvest of my tomatoes from my greenhouse and my deck. This Smoky Roasted Yellow and Red Cherry Tomato Soup is a great way to use up my abundance of cherry tomatoes.
I love to grow tomatoes! This is a soup recipe that can be served hot or cold. I made this soup for lunch and served it with a nice grilled cheese sandwich. Not an original combo by any means but so delicious.
This recipe takes a little more time than other tomato soup recipes because of the roasting of the vegetables first. If you are pressed for time, you can certainly skip that step but I love the way the roasting intensifies the flavours!
I start with my cherry tomatoes. I like a blend of yellow and red but that is probably just because that is what I grow. You can use a single colour if that is what you prefer or what you have!
I am a huge fan of parchment paper because I HATE scrubbing a stuck on mess. I line a jelly roll pan with parchment paper as a first step and put my oven on to 350 F.
Then I wash up my cherry tomatoes and drop them on my sheet.
Add the onion and garlic.
Throw it in the oven to roast at 350 degrees F for 20 – 30 minutes.
Skin your tomatoes to result in a smoother texture. Take a pot, add olive oil and put your roasted veggies in there along with the minced thai peppers as desired and let simmer for 5 minutes or so. You can substitute other peppers if that is what you have or remove them altogether if you do not like spice.
Then add the veggie broth, herbs and smoked paprika to the pot and bring it to a boil then lower temperature to simmer for 5 minutes.
Take a clean spoon and TASTE! Do you like the flavour? Flavour too strong for your tastes – add some more veggie broth. A bit bland — add some more salt, herbs and/or smoked paprika and for those who like a spicier kick, you can always up the Thai peppers, just be careful, a little goes a long way!
Finally, once you are happy with the flavours, dump it into a blender and blend until smooth so that you get a nice texture in the end product. After blending, return it to the pot to reheat if necessary.
Serve in a bowl with a dollop of sour cream or greek yoghurt unless you are trying to make it vegan!

Smoky Roasted Yellow and Red Cherry Tomato Soup
Ingredients
- 4 c cherry tomatoes roasted (can mix red and yellow or stick with one colour)
- 1/2 to a full head garlic roasted
- 1 small yellow onion roasted
- 1/8 c olive oil plus 1 tbsp
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 3 - 4 c vegetable broth
- 1 - 2 red Thai chiles seed removed
- 1/2 - 1 tsp basil
- 1/2 - 1 tsp oregano
- Sprig of thyme
- 3/4 tsp smoked paprika
Instructions
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Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
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Cover a jelly roll pan (cookie sheet with sides) with parchment paper for easy clean up.
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Take your head of garlic and slice the top 1/4 of the top of the garlic. Take your onion and peel and quarter it. Remove all the stems from the tomatoes and wash.
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Assemble your garlic, onion and tomatoes on your parchment covered pan. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Place in your preheated oven for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, check and remove all veggies that are done. Toss the pan back into the oven to finish the remaining veggies. Depending on size of the veggies, this could be another 5 - 10 minutes.
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I put my tomatoes on ice immediately on removal from the oven as it makes them easier to handle to remove the skins. You do not have to remove the skins but I don't care for them from a texture perspective so I remove them. Remove the remaining veggies and skin the remaining tomatoes.
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Take a pot and place it on your stove top. Take your Thai peppers and carefully in half length wise. Some people use plastic gloves when handling peppers to protect their skin from the peppers' juices. Scrape out the seeds and discard. Finely mince your peppers.
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Pour 1 tbsp of olive oil into the pot and heat on medium heat. Toss in your minced peppers, skinned tomatoes, roasted onion and garlic to the pot and let simmer in the tomatoes' natural juices for 5 minutes to boil off some of the liquid and help intensify the flavours.
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Add 3 c of vegetable broth, 1/2 tsp basil and 1/2 tsp oregano to the pot along with a sprig of fresh thyme or 1/2 tsp of dried thyme and 3/4 smoked paprika. Bring the pot to a boil and then reduce to simmer for 5 minutes. At this point, you need to take a clean spoon and test your flavour. If you find the flavour too strong, add the final cup of vegetable broth. If the flavour is a bit bland for your taste, add more salt and pepper and perhaps a bit more of the basil, oregano and paprika.
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Once you are happy with the flavour, carefully pour the soup mixture into the blender and blend until smooth. Return to the pot to re-heat if necessary or simply serve immediately.
Made this for dinner tonight, super yummy!
This soup has a really great flavour. Love the smoked paprika. It would be helpful to have a picture of how the veggies should look when they are done roasting. I wasn’t sure if I should cover the pot when I was simmering the veggies (I did cover it and my soup turned out great). Also, I noticed that in your step by step portion you instructed us to blend the veggies after simmering them but this instruction was missing from the recipe section. I will definitely make this again and look forward to trying it with hot peppers as I didn’t have any handy when I made it today.
Thanks for the feedback, Judy. I appreciate the info. I will fix the error in the recipe.