I love this soup! It’s so great with a melty grilled cheese or on it’s own. You could add veggies to it to make it more filling, or you could leave out the chicken to just have a warm creamy hot bowl of home made tomato soup. Top it with cheese, or just tons of black pepper, or even goldfish! The thing I love most about this soup, besides the taste, is that you can use up all your tomatoes from your garden by making double and triple batches and then freeze them in gallon baggies. That’s what I do with my tomatoes each year. Tons of my home made Restaurant Style Salsa, and then as many bags of frozen tomato soup that I can fit in my freezer.
Another awesome thing is that if you don’t top it with cheese, this soup is dairy free! I use lite coconut milk in it rather than cream which really lightens things up. So let’s see: healthy, delicious, freezer friendly, versatile. I think I covered it all! 🙂
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Spray a baking sheet with non stick spray and set aside. Wash all your tomatoes and slice the very end off your garlic bulb. Cut each tomato in half and place face up on your baking sheet along with your garlic. Drizzle the olive oil as evenly as you can over everything and give it a good dose of salt and pepper. It looks like I have a ton of tomatoes because I was doing a double batch.
Place in oven and let roast for about 1 hour until it looks like this and your house smells amazing.
When the tomatoes are about 15 minutes or so from being done, get out a large sauce or soup pan, heat to medium and melt your butter in it. Roughly chop your onion and basil and add it to the the pan when the butter is all melted. Be careful not to let the butter burn! Add in the sugar, salt, and oregano and let cook until onion becomes soft. Add in your chicken stock.
When the tomatoes are done pull them out of the oven and let them cool just a bit so you don’t burn your fingers on the garlic. Get out your blender. Peel each clove out of the garlic husk or squeeze it out the ends into your blender. It will be very soft like paste. Add all the tomatoes along with the onion mixture from the pan to the blender. If it won’t all fit in one batch, blend in two different batches.
Notice the slight explosion on the counter because I overfilled by blender. 🙂 Add everything back into the soup pan on the stove when it’s all blended and smooth. I let it blend for a good minute or so to get everything smooth and no chunks.
Add in the package of Italian Dressing seasoning and stir well.
At this point, if you are going to freeze it, just turn the stove off and scoot it to the back and let it cool all the way to room temperature. Now remember I said that I was doing a double batch, so you won’t have a pan quite this full if you are just doing a single batch. When it’s cooled, pour into a gallon size zip lock freezer bag and do your best to get all the air out. Lay it flat on a cookie sheet or something and place it in the freezer. When it’s frozen, you can take the pan out and the bag will be a flat square that stacks easily. When you take it out of the freezer to use, just let it sit on your counter until thawed and then pour it in a pan and bring it back to a simmer. Add in your cooked shredded chicken and a can of coconut milk and you are ready to eat.
If you are going to eat the soup right then, add in your cooked shredded chicken and can of coconut milk. Give it all a good stir and you are ready to go! Yours will have more chicken in it than this picture does. I didn’t quite have enough so I just added what I had and of course it all sunk to the bottom so you can’t see anything but it’s in there! And it was delicious!
I love it with some shredded Parmesan cheese and lots of fresh ground black pepper. If you have some extra fresh basil throw some of that on there too!
Ingredients
- 4 lbs tomatoes (quite ripe)
- small bulb of garlic
- 1 T olive oil
- salt and fresh ground pepper
- 2 T butter
- 1 medium onion
- 1/2 C fresh basil
- 2 t dried oregano (2 T if fresh)
- 1 t sugar
- 1 t salt
- 2 C chicken stock
- 1 package Italian Dressing mix
- 1 can lite coconut milk
- 20 oz cooked shredded chicken
- optional toppings: Parmesan cheese, shredded basil, black pepper, cheese crackers
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
- Spray a baking sheet with non stick spray and set aside. Wash all your tomatoes and slice the very end off your garlic bulb. Cut each tomato in half and place face up on your baking sheet along with your garlic. Drizzle the olive oil as evenly as you can over everything and give it a good dose of salt and pepper. Place in oven and let roast for about 1 hour.
- When the tomatoes are about 15 minutes or so from being done, get our a large sauce or soup pan and heat to medium and melt your butter in it. Roughly chop your onion and basil and add it to the the pan when the butter is all melted. Be careful not to let the butter burn! Add in the sugar, salt, and oregano and let cook until onion becomes soft. Add in your chicken stock.
- When then tomatoes are done pull them out and let them cool just a bit so you don't burn your fingers on the garlic. Get out your blender. Peel each clove out of the garlic husk or squeeze it out the ends into your blender. It will be very soft like paste. Add all the tomatoes along with the onion mixture from the pan to the blender. If it won't all fit in one batch, blend in two different batches. Add everything back into the soup pan on the stove when it's all blended and smooth. I let it blend for a good minute or so to get everything and no chunks. Add in the package of Italian Dressing seasoning and stir well.
- At this point, if you are going to freeze it, just turn the stove off and scoot it to the back and let it cool all the way to room temperature. When it's cooled, pour into a gallon size zip lock freezer bag and do your best to get all the air out. Lay it flat on a cookie sheet or something and place it in the freezer. When it's frozen, you can take the pan out and the bag will be a flat square that stacks easily. When you take it out of the freezer to use, just let it sit on your counter until thawed and then pour it in a pan and bring it back to a simmer. Add in your cooked shredded chicken and a can of coconut milk and you are ready to eat.
- If you are going to eat the soup right then, add in your cooked shredded chicken and can of coconut milk. Give it all a good stir and you are ready to go!
- I love it with some shredded Parmesan cheese and lots of fresh ground black pepper. If you have some extra fresh basil throw some of that on there too!
Notes
Macros: Calories 286; Fat 13; Carbs 16; Protein 24.5
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