Roasted Tomato Soup with Basil

Made with fresh ingredients, this easy tomato basil soup is a lovely way to use up a glut of ripe tomatoes. This is perfect comfort food and is so good with toasted cheese sandwiches! 

Jump to:

• 🛒 What You'll Need
• 🔪 How To Make It
• 👩‍🍳 Top Tips
• 🔄 Variations
• 💭 FAQs
• 🍲 More Tasty Soup Recipes
• 🥣 Evan More Soup Recipes!
• Roasted Tomato Soup with Basil

Onions and garlic are roasted alongside juicy ripe tomatoes until soft and golden. Roasting brings out the natural sweetness and the most intense flavours, making this soup rich and tasty.

Soup is an excellent way of using up a glut of ripe tomatoes and what goes hand in hand with tomatoes? Basil of course. They were made for each other! Add in some sweet roasted onion and garlic and you have a deliciously light and flavoursome soup.

Perfect for the end of Summer this soup is excellent served with some homemade croutons or some soda bread. We love this for lunch or as a light dinner.

🛒 What You'll Need

• Tomatoes - ripe fresh tomatoes are the best tomatoes for this recipe, I use tomatoes on the vine. If you want, add a mix of cherry tomatoes too. If you have fresh garden tomatoes then they would be perfect!
• Onion - I use a large brown onion for this soup but red onions work well too, they will add a little more sweetness to your soup.
• Stock - to keep this soup vegan I use a vegan vegetable bouillon. You can also use stock cubes or make your vegetable stock if you have time. You could also use vegetable broth if you like.
• Basil - I use fresh basil leaves for this recipe. You could use dried basil if you're stuck, however, fresh herbs are best for this one.
• Other Ingredients - olive oil, tomato puree (tomato paste) garlic, salt and black pepper.

🔪 How To Make It

This is just a quick visual guide. Please see the recipe card below for full instructions and an ingredient list.

1.  Place the tomatoes and onions in a single layer on a large baking sheet, cut side up for the tomatoes. Drizzle some olive oil over the tomatoes, onion and garlic. Season with salt and pepper then roast until soft and slightly tinged at the edges.  Cook at 180°C(350 degrees F) fan oven 200°C (390°F) for about 20 minutes.

2. Transfer the roasted tomatoes and onion to a large pot. Carefully remove the garlic from its skin and add that to the saucepan as well. I add most of the juice from the tray to the pan too.

3.  Add the hot stock to the saucepan along with the tomato puree (paste) balsamic vinegar and brown sugar, season with salt and pepper then bring to a boil. Reduce to a slow simmer and cook for 20 minutes. 

4. Blend the soup with a handheld blender or immersion blender check the seasoning then stir in the fresh basil. If you don't have an immersion blender you can use a food processor.

👩‍🍳 Top Tips

• Balsamic vinegar and soft brown sugar balance the acidity of the tomatoes so please don't skip these. You could sprinkle the brown sugar onto the tomatoes before roasting them, this works really well too in balancing the acidity.
• This is a light summery soup so deliberately not thick, however, if you want a thicker creamier soup you could stir in some coconut milk or double cream (heavy cream). You could also add a chopped floury potato to the soup while it's simmering, this will keep the soup vegan but will make it thicker once blended.
• This soup is great hot but it's also good cold, it's even tastier the next day! So if you have time to make it ahead of time then I recommend doing that. 

🔄 Variations

• Make it spicy - add a pinch of red pepper flakes to spice this up. I add these when I add the garlic.
• Optional Add-ins - chickpeas, butterbeans, or cannellini beans are great in this soup! Just add them after you have blended the soup and heat until the beans are cooked through. I sometimes add some dried red chilli flakes to this when it's cooking which is really good too!

This is such a great budget-friendly soup. It's perfect for lunch or a light supper and the kids will love it too. We love this on its own with some good bread or with a grilled cheese sandwich. It's also really good alongside my halloumi and grilled veg sandwich for a more substantial meal.

💭 FAQs

🍲 More Tasty Soup Recipes

• Easy Tofu Laksa - A spicy and creamy soup with rice noodles and crispy tofu this soup is delicious! Great for a tasty vegan lunch or dinner.
• Spicy Tomato Soup with Lentils  - This soup is one of my all-time favourite soups. It’s so easy to make and ready in 3o minutes! Perfect for lunch or a light dinner. 
• Spiced Sweet Potato and Carrot Soup - With just a few ingredients you can have this delicious, warmly spiced, Sweet Potato and Carrot Soup on the table in no time! It’s very easy to make, tasty, filling and vegan too!
• Spicy Cauliflower Soup - A rich and creamy cauliflower soup that will keep you warm and satisfied. Easy to make and ready in under 30 minutes this soup is also vegan & gluten-free.

🥣 Evan More Soup Recipes!

*This recipe was first published in Aug 2017. Updated August 2021 with new photos, step-by-step guide and nutritional information. Further updated Aug 2023 with more information.