roasted tomato soup with white beans
a delicious, easy, hands-off, year round soup
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As we move into autumn, soups begin to take center stage again. On a long day, on a cold day, on a sad day or a sick day or a windy day- what other food is always appropriate, always comforting, smoothing away the rough edges of our days? Soup is a magical, healing entity in traditional cultures, folklore, children’s books. Stone Soup was one of my favorite books to read as a young child, the sheer magic of transforming something into nothing through community. Soup is easy, generous, cheap, and filling. Its ability to stretch means it can easily feed an unexpected friend at dinner, or transform into lunch the next day. I’ve often had just a small bit of soup leftover, then added a handful of this and that and a little more broth the next day to make a full meal. It’s one of my favorite things to eat, especially with a hunk of good crusty bread alongside.
I hope to share many soup recipes with you over the course of this coming cool season. To start, a year round favorite: tomato soup, which I have a particular fondness for, and which I make very often. The one I make is made with canned tomatoes, which means you can make it in the dead of winter and it will still be delicious, and you probably always have the basic ingredients around. The addition of white beans adds texture, nutrition and comforting starch.
To make it, you dump the whole can of tomatoes, juices and all, with a chopped onion, garlic, olive oil, and salt, and then roast it in the oven until sticky and delightful smelling and the flavors concentrate. If it’s a cool day, cooking it does double duty by warming your kitchen. Then you just blend it up with some broth to thin, and stir through the cooked white beans. Add some bread and salad and you’ve got a wonderful meal.
roasted tomato and white bean soup
notes: I’ve made this with so many different brands of tomatoes, my personal favorite being Bianco DiNapoli, but any whole peeled tomatoes work just fine here, as even lackluster ones get transformed by the magic of the oven roast. You can also make this with a cooked grain instead of the beans (arborio rice, or pastina is especially nice). This soup is delicious on its own, but topping with parmesan, basil, red chile flakes, etc is also very good. If you like a cream of tomato soup, you can reduce the broth by 1/2 cup and swirl in any type of cream: I often do a thinned cashew cream. For the beans, I strongly prefer cannellini for this one, as they have a larger size and firmer texture than other white beans, which makes for a nice heft/contrast in the soup, but i’ve made it with all kinds of white beans and it is always delicious. You can definitely use canned, but if you have the time, it is well worth making your own for superior flavor/texture, less waste, and economy- here is my recipe for herb and garlic white beans (if you have leftover beans, they freeze beautifully!). Serve with crusty bread, a grilled cheese, or garlic bread and a green salad with vinaigrette for a simple, full meal.
a 28 oz can of whole peeled tomatoes, in their sauce
an onion, roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic, peeled but whole
1/4 cup // 60 ml olive oil
salt
1.5- 2 cups // 360-480 ml broth
2 cups or more cooked white beans
Preheat the oven to 400F/200C. Open the can of tomatoes and dump the whole thing into a baking dish, mine is about 8x12. Add the onion and garlic, then drizzle over the olive oil and sprinkle with salt- I use a teaspoon of kosher salt, if you are using granulated salt or quite salty broth you should err on the side of less, you can always season it more at the end.
Pop in the oven and roast for 45 minutes to 1 hour, this can depend on how large or watery vs saucy your tomatoes were.
Remove pan from oven and let cool till safe to handle, then transfer contents, including any juices, to a blender (this is usually about 2.5-3 cups volume of tomatoes at this point). Add the broth, starting with the smaller amount first, adding the extra 1/2 cup // 140 ml if needed. Blend until as smooth as you like it. Pour the soup in a pot and stir through the white beans, letting everything simmer for a few minutes, then serve.