The Best Tomato Soup for Grilled Cheese Lovers

Today we are making one of my favorite comfort foods and this is my son's favorite soup. It's so easy to make, creamy, velvety smooth. It is a roasted tomato soup. And you're gonna love how we make our grilled cheese sandwiches. It's brilliant and it comes together at the same time as the soup for the perfect lunch or dinner. Okay, I'm craving some roasted tomato soup, so let's get started. We'll start out with three pounds of ripe tomatoes. I have some Roma tomatoes here plus some cute little ones from my mom's garden. Cut your tomatoes in half and if they're even larger than this, you can quarter them. Next, quarter one large yellow onion and you can use a white onion or even a Vidalia onion if you prefer. And last but not least, you'll need eight garlic cloves. You're just making me cry. To easily peel garlic, trim off the end and smash them with the side of your knife. The skins should slide right off. Add all of your veggies to a large rimmed platter. I like to arrange them cut side up. Drizzle your veggies with a few tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, then season with salt and freshly cracked black pepper. Transfer your veggies to the center of a preheated oven and bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for about 45 to 50 minutes. Roast those until the tomatoes and onions are golden brown at the edges. All right, our veggies are looking golden and caramelized. We're gonna pull those out of the oven and set them aside to rest for about 10 minutes. I personally love pairing these with a grilled cheese sandwich, so this is where I start making my baked grilled cheese sandwiches so everything is ready when the soup is done. Butter one side of your toast and set them butter side down on a baking sheet. Then add your cheese. For each sandwich, I use two slices of cheddar and one slice of mozzarella. Butter the second toast and set it butter side up. Our sandwiches are prepped. We're gonna set those aside and work on our soup. Into the jar of a blender, add half of your roasted veggies, half of your chicken stock, and half of your fresh basil leaves. Blend that together on high speed until it is completely smooth and creamy. Pour that mixture into a soup pot and repeat with the remaining veggies, chicken stock, and basil. I do this in two batches so I don't overwhelm the blender. Make sure you scrape the pan juice into the blender as well to get all of that extra flavor. Blend until it's completely smooth and add it to your pot. Now is the perfect time to sneak those cheese sandwiches into the oven and because the oven's already preheated to 400, we're gonna bake for just 10 minutes, flipping the sandwiches halfway. While the sandwiches bake, set the pot over medium heat and bring it to a simmer. To finish the soup, stir in the cream, your grated Parmesan cheese, also tomato paste, and some sugar and salt. The sugar helps to balance the acidity and you can add it to taste depending on how acidic your tomatoes are. And always, always taste your food at the end and add more seasoning to taste. If you time it correctly as soon as your soup is done, your baked grilled cheese sandwiches should be ready. Crisp on the outside and so gooey and cheesy in the center, these look perfect. Oh my goodness. Look at how cheesy and golden and crisp these are. It's literally the perfect grilled cheese and it's so easy. I mean, just flip it once halfway through, and I am so hungry for this. So I think we're just gonna dive right into the taste test. Where is my spatula? Let's get these off of the pan. Look at this. This is gonna be like ultimate cheese pool situation here. So cheesy. Just gonna move those aside and start building our bowls because you can't have a tomato soup without grilled cheese. Look at that. And I love the layers of cheese here. Looky look. So, so delicious. I also love the bits of cheese that are stuck to the pan. I'm the one that's like picking at that later. It's just so good. Oh, look at that. Look at that. Still pulling off of the pan. Okay, we're just gonna set that right there. I'm really excited about lunch. I'm excited about lunch too. Okay. I'm hurrying because I'm hungry. Okay, I'm gonna cut into one of these because I have to show you while they are hot and gooey. And I love that these are done at the same time as the soup. You've got lunch ready to go. And it takes like about an hour to make a whole meal. It's awesome. Let's just cut into this and show you what you have to look forward to. I mean, and now. The moment we have all been waiting for. This is my kids' favorite part too. They love doing this every time. And they show off, like, let's see who has the best cheese pull. You ready? I'm ready. It's like ridiculous. It's totally ridiculous. Oh man. If there was a contest, I would be winning right now. Look at this. Oh boy. I love melted cheese. I'm like ridiculous about my melted cheese. I'm gonna clean this up a little bit. Clean it up right in my mouth. That's the perfect blend. Cheddar, mozzarella. So cheesy, gooey. And it has good flavor. We've got our sandwich. And now the real star here. And that is the tomato soup. It is so creamy and smooth. I feel like I need this pot a little closer to me. Let's do this so I don't make a mess. Oh my goodness. I'm so happy right now. And look at that. It has such deep color. Deep flavor because it roasted in the oven. And then the natural sugars from the tomatoes and the onion caramelized in the oven. It's just so much depth of flavor. You guys are gonna love it. This is like next level. And I love that we can use our like homegrown tomatoes. Actually, these are from my mom's yard. She grows so many tomatoes. Whoops, look at that. I made a mess. She grows so many tomatoes every year. And this is like the best way to use them up. And I make a bunch of batches in the fall or late summer. And then I freeze them because this freezes beautifully. And it's my son's favorite soup. So we have it during the winter. I love it. And it feels extra good that they're homegrown tomatoes. I think it's his favorite because of the grilled cheese. It might be. That's a good point. You know, I never really put that together. And to top this off, we're gonna add just a little bit of zhuzh. Okay, we're gonna zhuzh this up, which is fancy for make it fancy. I don't know. I don't know what the definition of zhuzh is. If you know, drop it in the comments. Okay, what we're gonna do is put warm cream over the top. Look at that. Pretty, right? Just pretend you're like a famous chef doing this. Okay. You are a famous chef. Aw, thanks, honey. And then some freshly grated Parmesan cheese. And we're gonna add some fresh basil leaves. Just that little cherry on top, right? Because there is basil in the soup. It's a humble soup, but it's also feels decadent and elegant because it's a creamy soup. That looks good. No, a little more. We love basil. Now we dig in. And we're not gonna do this with a spoon because that's just wrong. This is how we do it in our house, okay? Copy if you want to. We take the grilled cheese while it's still gooey and cheesy and decadent, and we dip it right in. Just like so. Oh my gosh. Dunk it. Dunk it good. Okay, here we go. Followed by a spoonful more of that soup because it's so good. And I really wanna taste it. Oh, oh, oh, oh. It's just so much better than anything you can get out of a can or a box. Make homemade and you won't go back. It's seriously so good. It just like tastes extra. It tastes like there's something else in there, but really it's just the caramelization from the oven, the onion, the garlic in there, just like browns everything out. The topping is very nice too. It just makes it feel a little more elegant. I am so happy. This is lunch, aren't you, honey? Just wrap it up so I can eat it. Wrap it up so you can eat. Okay, I'm gonna go enjoy the rest of this. Let me know where you guys spotted Sharky. And, oh my gosh, I didn't even mention, wow, come on. This is a recipe from our cookbook. Wow. Okay, let's find it. Here it is. Roasted tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches. Baked grilled cheese. Yeah, if you need more ideas and inspiration, we have lots more soups in our cookbook. I will leave a link to it in the notes. How did I not mention that? Like, anyway, I'm gonna go enjoy the rest of this. Let me know if you guys have any recipe requests for a future video, and we'll see you in the next episode of Natasha's Kitchen. Over and out. I have a date with this soup right here. Mm. It's so good. A little bit of basil adds some freshness too. It's nice. Mine. Bye, guys. Okay, we're good? Hey, where were you going? Nothing.