For Tomato Season: Roasted Tomato Soup with Parmesan Crisps
August 23, 2009 
Homemade tomato soup is good, but roasted tomato soup is even better. With the abundance of tomatoes right now in the markets, this makes great use of all those tomatoes and may be the best tomato soup you will ever have.
This method calls for roasting the tomatoes, along with some whole garlic, before making the soup. Roasting the tomatoes concentrates their flavor and adds a depth to the soup that you would not have otherwise.
I used beautiful San Marzano tomatoes for this soup because a vendor at my farmer's market had them. Use whatever nice, ripe tomatoes you have. Any Roma or plum tomato is a good choice.
The parmesan crisps, sometimes called fricos, are a favorite in our household and we use them to accompany salads sometimes (or a glass of Prosecco). These lacy wafers make the absolute perfect flavor compliment to this soup. They are surprisingly easy to make - they only have one ingredient - and fast, too. They only take about 6 to 8 minutes in the oven. Once you make these, you will find all kinds of uses for them. You can even crumble them up and add them to your salad, which we saw Naomi Pomeroy do when we had dinner at Beast. Some recipes call for a little flour added to the cheese, but I make them like Thomas Keller does - without flour. When warm, they can even be placed into egg cartons to mold them into little cups, cooled and filled with whatever you like as little appetizers.
This soup can be made a day ahead, cooled, refrigerated and then gently reheated.
In late summer when there is an abundance of ripe tomatoes, I make big batches of this soup and freeze it in small plastic containers. It's a great treat all winter long.
Roasted Tomato Soup with Parmesan Crisps
makes abot 8 servings
*If you are making the soup to freeze, omit the cream when you make it and just add it when you defrost and warm up the soup.
adapted from Gourmet
Ingredients:
For the Soup:
- 4 pounds Roma tomatoes, cut in half lengthwise (or any tomato you want to use)
- 5 garlic cloves, unpeeled
- 4 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
- freshly ground black pepper
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 3 cups chicken stock
- 1/2 cup heavy cream*
For the Parmesan Crisps:
- 1 cup grated parmigiano reggiano cheese, grated on large holes of box grater
- ground black pepper
Instructions:
For the Soup:
Arrange tomatoes, cut sides up, on a large baking sheet lined with heavy duty aluminum foil (makes for easier clean up). Add unpeeled garlic to tomatoes. Drizzle 3 tablespoons of the olive oil all over the tomatoes and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast tomatoes for 1 hour, let tomatoes cool for a little while and then peel garlic.
Cook onion, oregano and sugar in 1 tablespoon of olive oil and the butter in a very heavy pot over medium heat, until onion is soft, about 5 minutes. Add tomatoes, garlic and stock and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes.
Place an immersion blender into the pot and puree the soup. If you do not have an immersion blender (promise yourself to go buy one), pour the soup into a regular blender and puree. You may have to do this in batches, if you use a regular blender. Don't skip this step of pureeing the soup first - the soup will have a richer flavor, if some of the seeds and skins get pureed. Force pureed soup through a strainer (or use a food mill - it's easier) to remove remaining skins and seeds. (if you absolutely just don't want to strain the soup, don't worry - you can skip this step, if you don't mind the seeds. You will just have a chunkier soup. I prefer my soup strained.) Pour strained soup into a small clean pot, stir in cream* and taste for salt and pepper. Simmer just a couple of minutes to reheat.
Ladle soup into bowls and place a parmesan crisp on top. Serve another crisp on the side.
For the Parmesan Crisps:
(these can be made a couple of days ahead and stored in an airtight container. Layer crisps with wax paper.)
Makes 8 crisps
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Line a large baking sheet with a Silpat. (update:: I've ditched my Silpats and just use baking parchment paper now). Take a 2.5 inch biscuit cutter and place about 2 tablespoons of the cheese into the cutter. Press down a little on the cheese, to shape. Gently remove cutter. Repeat until you have made 8 mounds of cheese. If you like, add a little pinch of black pepper on top of each one. Bake for about 7-8 minutes, just until set and before they start to turn golden. Remove from oven, let cool on pan for a few minutes. They will firm up as they cool. Gently lift off with a spatula.
Reader Comments (48)
Saw you on twitter, LOVE your blog and can't wait to try this soup!
Those parmesan crisps are something new to me. Can't wait to try. And, I can eat soup anytime, even in very hot weather. I like your tomato soup recipe a lot.
Boy do I have tomatoes to use up! This is wonderful,I love the parm crisps to, a great combination!
This looks so delicious! The crisps definitely add something special. I've been looking to make a good tomato soup! I think this will be the one!
Mmm, this just screams comfort.
This looks fantastic!
This sounds so delicious!!! I may just have to plan a date to make this soon!
love this soup! and the parm crisps! All I need now is a big fat grilled cheese and I am good to go!
Oh, this looks so wonderful! Those parm crisps are great (on burgers, too). Can't wait to try this...
I've seen Giada make Parmesan Crisps before and have always wanted to try them. This soup sounds perfect with them!
Parmesan Crisps sound perfect with your soup.
PERFECT summery dinner with a big salad. Of course, my husband might argue w/ me on that one, but I think it's perfect :)
Beautiful pictures!I have bookmarked this and will make it!
I really like this.
Your timing is perfect (have I said that before, I meant it then but now I mean it even more.)I have been meaning to look up a recipe for parmesan biscuits ever since we ate them with caponata in a place in Roma recently (they had moulded them over a cup while still warm to make little paremsan bowls which they filled with the caponata)
The soup, the soup........
Hi Elaine! Just bookmarked this one. I have tried sooo many tomato soups and haven't fallen in love with any yet. I've got a serious crush on this one though.
I'm with Susan, bookmarked! I have a ton of tomatoes I'm trying to use up and your recipe sounds sooo good along with those crisps. I need to get some silpats and stop using parchment!
The soup was great, very fresh tasting. It wasn't difficult at all. Love all the recipes. Great site!
*so* delish. Just made this today - a double batch! The kitchen is in ruins, but I'm having everyone over for a "welcome-back-to-campus" party - everyoe's excited! thank you for this recipe!
Proud Italian Cook: Actually, I love parchment - no clean up!
Misha: You made my day!
Just wondering if it would be possible to substitute skim milk for the cream without compromising the integrity of the dish. Thoughts?
Jenny: You can, actually, substitute milk for the cream. Of course, it won't be nearly as rich, but it will give it a little creamy flavor. I've actually used 2% milk when that was all I had in the house. Try it out and see what you think.
This soup looks so beautiful with the crisp on top. I love making roasted tomato soup, even in fall when the tomatoes aren't as beautiful--roasting them really concentrates the flavor of imperfect tomatoes--but I've never thought to roast the garlic along with them as well. Such a great idea.
Another pretty alternative to the crisps (if you are less inclined to bake as I am), is to put some crispy pancetta and a basil drizzle on top of the soup:
http://tinyurl.com/dn79ga
thanks!
Elaine, We LOVE this soup! I wanted to make it the minute I read your recipe, but Leta beat me to it. It was in our refrigerator when we came home from a 2 week trip. SO delicious and the parmesan crisps were a perfect finishing touch.
ciao I make little parmesan baskets - i heat the pan and add the parmesan but what I do next is put the parmesan disk while it's still hot on an upside down handless cup and create a little basket I then place small salads or other cocktails!
I have just picked the last of my ripe tomatoes. Wondering if you have roasted and then frozen them to be used later for soup?
L.
I made 4 homemade soups last week. This was by far everyone's favourite - no leftovers! I have a new batch of tomatoes roasting in the oven right now for a second batch. Thanks for the great recipe.
From The Italian Dish:
Linda: I've never roasted and then frozen the tomatoes. If you do that, let me know how it turns out!
Shirley: You made my day!
Two summers ago, I found a recipe for tomato soup containing a basil vinegar. I canned it and we've been loving it ever since. (Yes, I made a lot.) I think I am going to go with this recipe this summer. I don't see why it wouldn't can just as well, although it will need to be pressure canned with the chicken stock base.
Thanks so much for the recipe. I'm can't wait until the tomatoes are ripe!
Hi,
can you make this soup ahead and freeze it or refrigerate it?
Thanks
One of my favourite blogs with some of the best food photography. Simple, quick, fancy and fast. Can you ask for more? This blog inspires me to live life, love and enjoy our 5 senses!
Many thanks and keep up the great contributions!
Scott
do you need to use fresh tomatoes? how about whole canned tomatoes?
I made your ROASTED TOMATO SOUP last night and we loved it. Thank you for sharing it. (I posted a link to it on my blog.)
I love this soup. My family loves this soup. It's easy to make and so delicious.
Thank you for the recipe.
About how much soup does this recipe make?
I made this tonight and it's delicious! The husband was blown away by the yumminess!
My wife and I made both the soup and the parmasan crisps last night. They were delicious. Thanks.
I just made this soup tonight after getting beautiful organic roma tomatoes from our farmer's market. I have had this recipe for some time and couldn't wait to try it. It is delicious! Thank you for sharing with us!
Hello! I made this soup this evening and it is wonderful. The flavor is rich and deep, just perfect. Thank you for sharing this.
I have been making this for the past year because we love it so much. This year we had a super abundant tomato crop so I roasted the tomatoes and garlic, cooled it, bagged it and froze them. I now have 13 bags in the freezer for winter so we can enjoy. This week I started making my chicken stock to also freeze and have on hand. Thank you for such a wonderful recipe and blog!!
I just made this tonight. SO GOOD!! I was wondering how it would be with heirloom tomatoes? At the next farmers market, I will get as many as I can to try. I will definitely look at following Suzanne's idea of roasting the tomatoes in season and them freezing them for the fall and winter soup season.
Thanks again for all of your posts. Yours in the best blog around!
I saw another post with the same question, though I didn't see if you answered it. Since it's January in New England, I'd like to used canned San Marzano tomatoes. Have you tried roasting with them? Thanks. I love your blog! I'm want to learn to make things myself, it's fun learning but challenging, worth cutting out all the questionable ingredients though, and it tastes better!
I made cheese crisps with asiago cheese and pignoli nuts, my new favorite snack, ill have to try them with soup- looks good!
How many servings does this make? I'm a student just cooking for herself, so although I would love to have extra batches to freeze, I wouldn't have the freezer room for too many :(
I would love to make this ahead today for a dinner I'm doing tomorrow. How many cups would you say each batch makes?
From The Italian Dish:
Eve/Madeleine: This recipe makes about 8 servings of soup. Hope this helps! I will note that in the recipe - it slipped by me.
Oh my goodness, this is the best soup my family has ever tasted! I am being asked to make it DAILY, even in the African heat...now that's really saying something. Alice Clayton has this recipe in her new book "Nuts", bet she got it from here....(as in research)
This looks so delicious! The crisps definitely add something special. I've been looking to make a good tomato soup! I think this will be the one!
Yummy! As I live in New Mexici, I added a little New Mexico Chile powder to the grated Parmesan. The improvement in flavor was quite measurable. Try it!