How to Make the Ultimate Cream of Tomato Soup

[Music] a great cream of tomato soup doesn't have to come out of a can you can do so much better and i'm going to show you this easy recipe that starts with a can this is not pre-made cream of tomato soup these are canned tomatoes whole tomatoes packed and juice and these are really going to be the backbone of our tomato soup recipe that's packed with tomato flavor so i'm using two 28 ounce cans of whole tomatoes packed in juice and the first thing that i want to do is drain these now i'm going to work on these one at a time and you're going to want these to drain over a measuring cup because we want to collect all of that beautiful tomato juice remember this is packed with tomato flavor so now this is the fun and squishy part i'm just going to break these open with my hands and get rid of any seeds that are in there and then as i do this all that juice that's inside is also going to drain down into the measuring cup as i work with these i'm going to move them over to a rimmed baking sheet that i've lined with foil all right these last little solids from this first can and now i just want to press through any of that pulp that's in there all right that's looking pretty close to drained so now i'll dump in the second can again this 28 ounce can of whole tomatoes packed in juice and the same thing i'm going to seed these let the liquid drain and then we'll move on all right so that is looking good we need about three cups of tomato juice for our recipe so i'm going to let this finish draining and just put this off to the side and now let's get back to those tomatoes we're going to oven roast them and really draw out their sugars and caramelize them we're going to help that process along with a little bit of brown sugar now cream of tomato soups that come out of a can are almost like candy but this really is not nearly as sweet we're only using a tablespoon and a half of brown sugar in total for this recipe so i'll just pack a tablespoon and then what i like to do is just put it in my hand here and start sprinkling it over the tomatoes all right these are ready to go into a 450 degree oven right i'll put these on the upper middle rack and we're going to leave these in here for 30 minutes they're going to start to caramelize and get a little bit dried out looking not going to look like too much but it almost has the flavor of sun-dried tomatoes all right you can see the color on those that's all the caramelization of the brown sugar and the natural sugars in the tomato and a little earlier i did say that they taste a bit like sun-dried tomatoes no they're way better than sun-dried tomatoes sun-dried tomatoes are just dried these are dried and caramelized while these are cooling we're gonna work on the rest of our soup very easy to put together we're using shallots here they have a little bit of a softer bite than onion and our recipe calls for four shallots now i think there's two shallots in each of these yup see we got a double shallot here piggy backing on there we thought you could sneak in so we want to finely mince the shallot all in all a shallot measures about three tablespoons of minced shallots so for four shallots we're looking for about three quarter cup of minced shallots all right so let's get cooking now i'm going to add four tablespoons of unsalted butter to my saucepan and i'll put this over medium heat i'm gonna melt the butter and wait till it gets to the point where it's just foaming butter is melted that means it is time for me to add the shallots all right last little bit there so i'm going to add even more tomato flavor with a shot of one tablespoon of tomato paste and we're going to add a little bit of warm spice now you have to be careful with the type of warm spice that you add to your tomato soup things like cinnamon or nutmeg you can taste wrong but this is just allspice it's got a beautiful balance it's not too overpowering and really we only need about a pinch i call that a tip of the paring knife measurement so we're going to cook all this together let me just mix in that tomato paste once it's mixed in i'm going to turn the heat down to low put the lid on it i'm going to let this cook until the shallots have softened that's going to take between 7 to 10 minutes [Music] all right let's take a look at what's going on in our saucepan oh smells amazing and you can see that color beautiful shallots they're nice and soft all right so we do have some fat in the pan we're going to use that to create a roux i'm going to add in two tablespoons of all-purpose flour and since we want to use the room more for thickening rather than to add flavor we're only going to cook this for about 30 seconds just so that it loses its raw flour taste now that the flour is just moistened a bit we're going to whisk in the first of our two liquids and this is one and three quarter cup of chicken broth now we didn't want to add too much more chicken broth to this because then it tastes like chicken and tomato soup and we want it to taste like tomato soup and now those reserved tomato juices go in three cups to be exact all right so i'm bringing this back up to a simmer over medium and while i'm doing that i'm just going to peel off these tomatoes a great tool for this is a pair of non-stick tongs we're going to add them right into the soup the tomatoes are almost like taffy as i pull them off it's just that caramelized sugar all right so that looks fantastic i'm going to stir in those tomatoes so let's put on the lid now i'm going to raise the heat to medium i want to bring this up to a summer and then once it's out of simmer i'm going to turn it down to low and we're going to let it simmer until the flavors melt that's going to take about 10 minutes all right after 10 minutes it is time for us to puree this soup all we needed was a little bit of time for those flavors to melt but it's pretty much done cooking at this point now one of the great things about that canned tomato soup is that really velvety texture and we're not trying to mimic the taste too much but that texture is hard to beat so we want this to be super smooth now i could take an immersion blender and just put it right in there and it would get pretty smooth but really there is a foolproof way to blend soups the first thing you have to do is strain the soup i'm going to put it right back through the fine mesh strainer over the same big measuring cup i had before i don't need to get rid of all the liquid here but i am i've learned my lesson i am going to just scrape off the bottom because i'm going to transfer these solids to my blender here now i'm using a really powerful blender here but this technique is actually built for blenders that are less powerful so this is going to puree super smooth in any case no matter what kind of blender you have i want to add a cup of the liquid and this is what makes it key and gives us that real velvety texture if we were to add a lot more of the liquid in there the blender has a hard time pureeing those solids but just by using about a cup of the liquid along with those solids it keeps everything towards the bottom of the blender so you're going to get a really smooth consistency so i'm going to put the lid on and we're going to blend this until it's nice and smooth that's going to take about a minute and in the meantime i'm going to go ahead and rinse out my saucepan all right let's take a look in here the smell is amazing but you can see how super smooth that is and velvety that's exactly the texture we want all right let me put that aside i'm going to add the rest of this tomato liquid right back in there so at this point we have kind of a creamy tomato soup but it's not really cream of tomato soup until we add cream i have a half a cup of heavy cream and i'm adding the cream close to the end of cooking because i want to retain that fresh cream flavor that's starting to look beautiful all right so we're going to heat this over low heat until it's just rewarmed through and that's only going to take a few minutes that looks just about perfect just a couple more flavors again we're adding them at the end to preserve their flavor and the first one it's a little bit of brandy you can also use sherry or cognac something nice and warm this is optional but i'm going to opt in so i'm adding two tablespoons and this is off heat now so we're not cooking away the alcohol because it's cold outside let me go ahead and stir that in i'm going to give it a nice taste and it does need a little bit of salt and just a little pinch of cayenne pepper we are done with the soup so let me go ahead and dish it out look how smooth that is that's going to warm the insides up that is for sure just a little bit more this is perfect on its own of course you can always serve it with bread or crackers of course it's always perfect with a grilled cheese sandwich it's unbelievable it is so tomatoey and so deeply flavored from the roasting of those canned tomatoes it doesn't taste tinny at all it's got just enough cream to add a little bit of body but it still has some of that fresh cream flavor and then there's all the warmth in there we have the the allspice and and the brandy of course a little bit of cayenne at the end it's a bowl of perfection perfect for a winter day and if you want to make this at home the keys are roasting whole canned tomatoes using the reserved tomato juice and blend the solids with just a small amount of liquid for velvety texture so from america's test kitchen at home a velvety warming your bones my favorite the ultimate cream of tomato soup i need a bigger spoon thanks for watching america's test kitchen what do you think well leave a comment and let us know which recipes you're excited to make or you can just say hello you can find links to today's recipes and reviews in the video description and don't forget to subscribe to our channel see you later i'll see you later

Channel: America's Test Kitchen

Views: 259,428

Keywords: america's test kitchen, cook's illustrated, cook's country, tomato soup, soup, best tomato soup, creamy tomato soup, tomato soup recipes

Id: YeyHV-PPpPU

Length: 10min 43sec (643 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 01 2022