![Spicy Tomato Soup with Basil Cream Recipe](https://stpetersburgfoodies.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Spicy-tomato-soup-with-basil-cream-770x328.jpeg)
Tomato Soup is perhaps one of the more simplistic soups to throw together and undoubtedly one of the tastiest. A handful of ingredients and a little bit of patience is all you need to whip up a piping hot pot of comforting tomato soup. The most important aspect of this recipe, of course, is the tomatoes. A lot of recipes call for canned tomatoes, which of course is the easiest of routes. However, I prefer the utilization of beautiful, ripe and in-season tomatoes whenever they’re available. Tomatoes are in season here in Florida and I fully took advantage of that for this recipe. In fact, these juicy jewels were my inspiration after noticing an abundance of them at the grocery store recently. Rollin’ Oats, my favorite health market, specifically has a beautiful array of Roma and beefsteak tomatoes that are organic of course.
Basically any tomatoes will work for this recipe as long as they’re ripe. Roma, vine ripe and beefsteak are my recommendations. Prepping the tomatoes for the soup is easier than you may think. All you need to do is cut an “X” into the stem end of each tomato, drop the tomatoes into boiling water for one minute, transfer them to an ice bath and then easily remove the tomato skin.
![X's cut into the stem side of the tomatoes](https://stpetersburgfoodies.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Xs-cut-into-the-stem-side-of-the-tomatoes-scaled.jpeg)
Aside from the tomatoes, the only other components needed for the soup are garlic, onions, vegetable broth and heavy cream; however, this isn’t just your standard tomato soup – this version has some spice. For the spice element, I used jarred chopped Calabrian chilies, but if you can’t find those, one teaspoon or so of crushed red pepper flakes will suffice. The spice is certainly present in this soup, but it isn’t overpowering and should be tolerable for most all palates.
Serving tomato soup with some basil and some cream is a must in my opinion, so, why not combine the two? I recommend throwing the two ingredients into a small blender, like a NutriBullet, and giving them a quick blend. This will of course thicken the cream mixture a bit which is great for dolloping into a steamy, hot bowl of soup.
But wait, there’s more. What’s tomato soup without a crispy and cheese-topped bread element? I like to make this tomato soup with a side of what I refer to as mozzarella sourdough dippers. I cut sourdough bread into rectangles that are about 1″ thick, drizzle them with olive oil and top with shredded mozzarella. Pop them into the oven until the cheese is melted and the bread begins to crisp and dunk them into your bowl of soup. Rollin’ Oats sells one of my favorite sourdough brands – Gulf Coast Sourdough. They have a few variations of their bread on their shelves like rosemary garlic and asiago, but I always opt for the classic, the simply sourdough. As for the cheese, I always reach for Organic Valley shreds which Rollin’ Oats also carries.
![Spicy tomato soup with basil cream and toasted sourdough with cheese](https://stpetersburgfoodies.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Spicy-tomato-soup-with-basil-cream-and-toasted-sourdough-with-cheese-scaled.jpeg)
This spicy tomato soup recipe is great for all occasions and days of the week and it’s just what you need to get yourself into the fall mode.
Spicy Tomato Soup with Basil Cream Recipe
Ingredients
Spicy Tomato Soup
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 white onion medium in size, halved and sliced
- 4 garlic cloves peeled and minced
- 3 lbs tomatoes roma, vine ripe or beefsteak - make sure they're ripe
- 1/2 tbsp jarred chopped Calabrian chilies or 1 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
- 4 cups vegetable stock
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- salt
- Basil for serving
Basil Cream
- 1 cup basil fresh, loosely packed
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1/2 tsp salt
Sourdough Dippers
- sourdough bread cut into rectangles 1" thick
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 cup mozzarella shredded
Instructions
Basil Cream
- Add basil, salt and 1/2 cup of heavy cream to a small blender like a NutriBullet and pulse for a few seconds. The mixture will become thick, but that's okay. Pour in the remaining heavy cream and stir - the cream mixture will thin out a bit. Set aside until ready to serve soup.
Sourdough Dippers
- Heat oven to 400F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Toss sourdough rectangles with olive oil and arrange in a single layer on the baking sheet. Evenly distribute shredded mozzarella onto rectangles and bake in the oven until cheese is melted and bread is toasted around 7-9 minutes.
- Remove from oven and set aside until ready to serve with spicy tomato soup
Spicy Tomato Soup
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Prepare a large ice bath in a separate bowl. Cut an "x" into the stem end of each tomato and boil the tomatoes for one minute. Carefully remove and place in the prepared ice bath.
- When tomatoes are cool, remove the skins from the tomatoes and discard (this should be quite simple to do because of the boiling process).
- Heat olive oil in a dutch oven or large pot over medium heat. Add in the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until onion begins to soften - 4-5 minutes. Season with salt.
- Add garlic to the pot and cook for another 1-2 minutes until it's fragrant.
- Mix in Calabrian chilies or crushed red pepper and cook for another 1-2 minutes.
- Turn the heat up to medium high, add in in the peeled tomatoes, pour in the vegetable stock and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium low and simmer for 40 minutes. Season with a few more pinches of salt.
- Blend the mixture with an immersion blender or carefully add the soup contents to a high powered blender like a Vitamix to puree and return to the pot.
- Stir in the heavy cream and heat the soup over medium low for 15 more minutes. Season with more salt as needed.
- Ladle soup into bowls, top with basil cream and basil and serve with sourdough dippers along side.