Homemade Tomato Soup

San Francisco generally has a really warm October which always disappointed me. Fall is my all-time favorite season (shocker, I know), and I hated that the warmest days reared their head during this month. But this year, it’s as if the Bay heard my discontent. Because it turned chilly three weeks ago and has been raining quite frequently or drizzling unexpectedly ever since. In fact, October 24^th marked the wettest day in San Francisco history going back to the Gold Rush. That weather makes me content to hunker down inside and read my annual Stephen King. (By the way, did everyone have a great Halloween?! A spooky, cozy, sweet Halloween?)

My favorite thing to make on days like this is soup. And I was craving some tomato soup! Something about it brings me back to when I was a kid heating up Campbell’s tomato soup on crisp autumn days with some grilled cheese triangles a la Kraft Singles.

This is a decidedly fancier grilled cheese take with multigrain bread and goat cheese broiled right on top (optional by the way—the soup is great on its own!), and the soup is simple with just a few ingredients. I used a technique like this previously, and I absolutely loved how it creates this big, crisp crouton in the soup with just the right amount of sogginess on the bottom from soaking in the soup for the best kind of contrast in texture and flavor.

For today’s little cocktail food science tidbit, I’d like to touch on lycopene! Lycopene is the source of red color in tomatoes. It belongs to a family of compounds called carotenoids. (It’s related, for example, to beta-Carotene, the compound that gives a carrot its orange color.) Carotenoids have gotten a lot of attention in the past dozen or so years as antioxidants. You know that powerful buzzword—ANTIOXIDANT. To be honest, there is a lot of mixed messaging around antioxidants, especially as they manifest in real food versus hyped supplements. Some promising research points to cancer-fighting potential of these compounds. Where it goes a little off the rails, however, is treating a compound that has shown some effect in an isolated experiment as a magical cure-all for anything that ails you. Don’t go out and purchase that huge supplement stack being shown to you on Instagram and expect it to make you feel brand new.

That being said, there is an overall theme we can all agree on. There are tangible benefits from eating the rainbow! There is plenty of evidence to support this. Diversifying your diet and getting plenty of different types of fruits, vegetables, proteins, grains, and fats will help support a healthy lifestyle. In this case, we’ve got red to get started on our color journey. And any small benefit from lycopene as well. Let’s not forget that 😉.

Now let’s get cozy! Enjoy!

Homemade Tomato Soup

Serves 2-3

Print Recipe

1 medium yellow onion, peeled and quartered

4 Tablespoons unsalted butter

1-28oz can crushed tomatoes

1 ½ cups water, chicken stock, or vegetable stock

½ teaspoon smoked paprika (optional—adds a little smokiness to the flavor)

Salt

Black Pepper

1. Over medium heat, add the butter, quartered onion, can of tomatoes, and water (or stock) to a soup pot. (I opt for a larger one over a saucepan because there will be some tomato splatters, and taller sides prevent you from doing some messy cleanup)
2. Bring the contents of the pot to a low boil. Give the pot a stir to incorporate the melted butter into the tomatoes and prevent scalding. Reduce the heat to low to bring the boil down to a simmer.
3. Add the smoked paprika to the pot and give it another stir to incorporate.
4. Keep the pot on low heat and simmer the soup for 40 minutes, uncovered.
5. Once finished, remove from the heat. Blend with an immersion blender (or pour the soup into a standup blender if you don’t have an immersion blender) until it reaches the consistency you prefer. You can make it as smooth or chunky as you’d like!
6. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
7. Enjoy!

Broiled Goat Cheese Toasts on Tomato Soup

Serves 2

2 servings tomato soup (see above)

2 slices sandwich bread (I like to use Dave’s Killer Bread because of the extra flavor from the seedy loaf)

1 oz goat cheese, at room temperature

1. Set your oven to broil and move a rack in the oven near the top. Divide the tomato soup into two oven-safe bowls or mugs. Spread each slice of bread with half of the goat cheese.
2. Top the bowls of soup with a slice of bread each. If you’d like some nutty, toasted goat cheese, place it cheese side up. If you just want to toast the bread and have the goat cheese melt into the soup, place it cheese side down.
3. Place the bowls on a sheet tray and move it to the oven. Depending on how strong your broiler is, this could take 3 minutes or 5-6 minutes. Take the tray out when the bread begins to brown, or you just can’t wait anymore.
4. Wait until the handles of the mugs or the bowls are warm enough to handle. Enjoy!