Chocolate chip cookies and milk, Buffalo sauce and blue cheese, grilled cheese and tomato soup — these are a few of the world’s nice pairings. However relating to the latter, I’ll admit that I’ve by no means actually had an outlined method: I’ll dump out the contents of no matter canned tomatoes I’ve received readily available and zhuzh it up with some dried herbs and maybe some dairy. Or extra probably, I’ll crack open a can of soup.
That being mentioned, the climate has been dreary and I’ve discovered myself craving easy meals — unchallenging flavors and childhood comforts. What higher time to eat tomato soup? On the subject of making it at house, the strategies are likely to fall into a number of classes: contemporary tomatoes or canned, cream or no cream. To determine what’s value doing and why, I examined 4 standard tomato soup recipes across the web, judging them for ease in each components and method, and for a balanced, satisfying tomato taste. Right here’s what I discovered.
Natasha Kravchuk, Natasha’s Kitchen
The method: stovetop-cooked canned tomatoes
An instantaneous perk of this recipe: It’s stuffed with pantry staples. Kravchuk’s weblog dominates Google rankings and her recipe for tomato soup is the highest consequence for the time period (for the same motive, I’ve examined her meatloaf prior to now). Kravchuk requires cooking down onions and garlic, then including crushed tomatoes, inventory, basil, and seasonings. The combination simmers for simply 10 minutes, and you then mix the soup and add heavy cream and a little bit Parmesan. For testing functions, I selected to solely embody heavy cream on this recipe, although it’s listed as “non-obligatory” within the Heuck and Laughlin recipes under.
I favored this recipe on a sensible degree: Tomato soup is often one thing I attain for once I need a straightforward or purely comforting meal, and in each of these situations, I normally don’t need to go to the shop for added components. I virtually at all times, nevertheless, have crushed tomatoes, some bouillon, and onions at house. I additionally appreciated the recipe’s ultimate consequence: a easy soup with a no-nonsense tomato taste. Including cream to it tempered the acidity barely and gave the soup a velvety texture. It jogged my memory of the creamy tomato soup that comes out of a can — which is to say, a lot of the tomato soup I’ve eaten in my life and my common baseline for tomato soup.
Sarah Fennel, Broma Bakery
The method: roasted contemporary tomatoes
If Kravchuk’s recipe is about being pantry-friendly, Sarah Fennel’s extremely ranked recipe is the alternative, within the sense that it depends on contemporary tomatoes. The factor about contemporary tomatoes right now of 12 months is that they’re unhappy — pale, stiff, mealy issues that make the argument for less than consuming seasonally. Might roasting them be the repair? Doing so is a well-liked method, typically also called “sheet-pan tomato soup” (Ina Garten’s well-known recipe additionally makes use of the identical method.) To make Fennel’s soup, you roast tomatoes, an onion, and garlic on a sheet pan (it makes your own home odor nice) earlier than mixing them with broth, letting the soup cut back barely.
My first takeaway, apart from the colour, which was extra orange than crimson in comparison with the opposite soups I made, was the prominence of the roasted garlic taste. It jogged my memory extra of the combination used to make pan con tomate than of basic canned tomato soup. With out including any cream, the soup had a considerably watery texture, and began to separate in my spoon once I let it sit for a couple of minutes. (Would cream have helped this? Maybe, however Fennel doesn’t name for it.) As for the tomato taste, I didn’t suppose roasting made sufficient of a distinction to justify utilizing contemporary tomatoes in February, particularly when canned tomatoes are cheaper, extra dependable, and extra concentrated in style. (3½ kilos of Roma tomatoes ran me about $10; two cans of crushed tomatoes, as used within the earlier recipe, price $6.)
Nonetheless, I feel my evaluation of this method could be very completely different if I had been making this recipe in August and particularly if I had been a gardener with an extra of tomatoes. However then once more, would I actually need to make tomato soup in August?
Lidey Heuck, NYT Cooking
The method: stovetop-cooked contemporary tomatoes
Lidey Heuck’s recipe for the New York Instances affords some insurance coverage towards the tasteless tomato downside. First, Heuck requires caramelizing a pound of shallots. Second, she asks that you simply chop your tomatoes, salt them, and allow them to sit — an excellent method for drawing liquid out of tomatoes and concentrating their taste. (I’m getting forward of myself seasonally, however: All the time do that earlier than making tomato toast.) Heuck then requires cooking down the contemporary tomatoes with the shallots earlier than including tomato paste and cooking that down too. All of those steps construct taste. Add water, the drained tomato liquid, basil, then mix and also you’ve received tomato soup.
Given the unhappy state of my tomatoes, I used to be rather more impressed with this recipe than the earlier one. The flavour was extra nuanced because of the deep toastiness of the caramelized shallots, the pronounced natural sweetness of the basil, and the grounding base observe of cooked tomato paste. Even with out cream, the feel felt much less watery than the earlier soup’s, although it was tougher to make it absolutely easy with my immersion blender. It was a scrumptious soup, however with 3 kilos of contemporary tomatoes, one that also left me questioning how worth-it it actually was with winter produce. It’s additionally value noting that due to the way in which you layer the flavors, it felt fussier than different recipes.
Jenn Laughlin, Peas and Crayons
The method: pressure-cooked canned tomatoes
As I discovered in a earlier recipe check, the Immediate Pot will be nice for soup, drawing out taste and texture that will take hours to kind on the range. However whereas it’s a wonderful software for rooster, which actually wants assist to interrupt down all that collagen, would it not make sense for tomatoes?
That is the query I had once I went into Jenn Laughlin’s recipe, which ranks first for Immediate Pot tomato soup recipes on-line. It’s appealingly easy: Like Kravchuk’s recipe, it begins by sauteeing an onion and garlic (utilizing the Immediate Pot’s saute operate). Then it requires tossing in broth, chopped carrots, seasonings, canned tomatoes, and tomato paste. This cooks underneath excessive strain for quarter-hour. As soon as the strain is launched, you mix the soup.
This soup jogged my memory a little bit of pasta sauce. By that I imply that it tasted essentially the most intensely tomatoey and felt the heaviest in each taste and texture. The carrots lent a delicate sweetness, however since I don’t at all times have carrots readily available, that barely dinged the recipe for me. Adopted to the letter, it resulted within the thickest soup of the 4 I examined, although the recipe notes that you may modify this utilizing extra broth or some cream. I favored the ultimate soup and whereas it didn’t remind me an excessive amount of of canned tomato soup due to its oomphed-up really feel, my taste-test accomplice thought-about it the most effective of the bunch.
In contrast to with rooster soup, I don’t know that the Immediate Pot made the most important distinction right here, however in case you are likely to hold yours inside simple attain, then why not use it?
The winner: Natasha’s Kitchen
On a price, comfort, and taste degree, I imagine that Kravchuk’s recipe is the only option for most individuals. Its style and texture don’t diverge an excessive amount of from what I feel quite a lot of us count on from tomato soup.
Whereas I favored the flavors of Fennel and Heuck’s takes, I don’t know that the extra effort or the usage of contemporary tomatoes was value it in early February. Nonetheless, I’d hold these strategies in thoughts for a tomato-heavy summer time, particularly since tomato soup freezes properly.
My ultimate takeaway from making an attempt all of those recipes was that I undoubtedly favor a tomato soup with some cream and I feel the addition actually improved Kravchuk’s soup. Until you’re dairy-sensitive, I’d name it a must-add — and the aspect of grilled cheese, after all, is nonnegotiable.
Soup photograph by Bettina Makalintal
