I have no shortage of recipes to help you use up your fresh tomato haul, but I am thinking it is time to give you something really easy, with no peeling, no stovetop tending or clock watching… and my offering is this soup.
This is a “set and forget” kind of slow cooker recipe, where we just have to dump our ingredients in for a few hours, then blend it all together to make soup.
We end up with a fairly classic tomato basil soup, with just a little cream and parmesan. There’s onion and garlic but no additional vegetables – it is pure tomato flavor! Of course, you can use this as a base recipe and add any additional flavors or ingredients you like.
The Best Tomatoes for This Soup Recipe
- This recipe was developed with San Marzano tomatoes, which are ideal. They are fleshy enough for the soup to come out with a nice body to it, not too watery. Other plum or Roma tomatoes will work great too.
- Don’t hesitate to try this with heirloom tomatoes, though the color and final texture will be a bit less predictable. (I also have a roasted heirloom tomato soup recipe if you’d prefer to try that).
- If you want to use smaller or cherry tomatoes, feel free to try, but the smaller the tomatoes, the higher the ratio of skins and seeds to flesh will be, and that will affect how thick and smooth the soup ends up. So my hack for a good cherry tomato soup is to add a little sweet potato. It thickens the soup and adds so much velvety creaminess to help counteract the grittiness. I would recommend adding up to 1 cup of cubed sweet potato for this recipe – you can add it raw along with the tomatoes in step one, and it will cook in the juices, but when it comes time to blend the soup you may need to top up the liquid levels with some vegetable broth or stock.
What to Serve with Your Tomato Soup
Use the final stretch of cook time to prepare a tasty accompaniment such as…
Slow Cooker Tomato Soup (with Fresh Tomatoes)
This simple slow cooker tomato basil soup is sweet, creamy and oh so so flavorful. The crockpot makes it easy to turn a batch of fresh tomatoes into a tasty soup with minimal effort! No peeling or pre-cooking required. I use San Marzano tomatoes but any large plum or Roma tomatoes should work here.
Ingredients
- 1.5 kg (3.5 lb) fresh tomatoes, roughly chopped
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 medium onion, sliced
- 6 cloves garlic, crushed
- 50 g (3.5 tbsp) butter
- 1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar, use less if yours is a very thick premium vinegar
- 2 tsp sugar
- 50 g (0.5 cups) parmesan, pecorino or Italian hard cheese
- 60 ml (60 g) double cream
- 1 handful fresh basil leaves
Instructions
- Add the tomatoes, onion, garlic, butter, balsamic vinegar, sugar and salt to the slow cooker dish. Set to HIGH and cook for 3 hours minimum, or LOW for 5+ hours.During the cooking time, you may wish to lift the lid once just to give everything a good stir through once the butter has melted.1.5 kg fresh tomatoes, 1 medium onion, 6 cloves garlic, 50 g butter, 1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar, 2 tsp sugar, 1 tsp salt
- You are ready to move on once the tomatoes have broken down and the onion is soft. All slow cookers will do this at slightly different timescales, but for me, 3 hours on high was about right. If you want to leave it longer before proceeding, you can switch it to LOW.
- Once you are ready to eat, it's time to blend the soup. You can either use a hand blender to blend it directly in the pan (my favorite method!) or transfer it to a blender, but it will need to cool down a little before you can blend it.
- Once the soup is completely smooth, stir in the cheese and cream. Add the basil and pulse until it's blended in but there are still distinct flecks of green.1 handful fresh basil leaves
- If you've used a hand blender, you can serve immediately or leave it on the KEEP WARM setting until you are ready. If you have used a blender, and the soup has cooled down a little, you can return it to the slow cooker for another 15-20 minutes to heat back up, and then serve.60 ml double cream, 50 g parmesan, pecorino or Italian hard cheese
