Tomato Pesto Soup

Posted on March 4, 2016 in Cooking

With a new baby at home, it’s important that I can make easy meals since I don’t have the luxury of time that I once did. I am a soup lover…and it’s really simple to make a good soup at home. A few things that help make a good soup great:

1. Time - rushing a soup usually results in mellow flavors that aren’t well developed
2. A good pot - making soup in a sauce pan, for example, just will not do
3. Quality ingredients - I love using good olive oil, freshly picked basil and delicious tomatoes

I’m big on weekend cooking - I’m not rushing out to work, and running home to see the baby before bedtime. It’s quiet and calmer. What a perfect time for souping! Keep reading for my recipe for Tomato Pesto Soup.

Ingredients for 4 servings:

soup:
2 tbsp olive oil
1 large white onion, diced
4 ribs celery, cleaned and diced
1 cup diced carrot
2 pint cherry tomatoes
32 oz box vegetable stock

pesto:
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 cup chopped basil
2 tbsp toasted hazelnuts
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese
salt

Directions:

1. Heat olive oil over medium low heat in a heavy bottomed stock pan
2. Sweat onion, celery and carrot until soft, about 15 - 20 minutes
3. Add tomatoes and heat through until bursting and partially blistered, about 5 - 10 minutes
4. While the tomatoes are cooking, prepare the pesto by combining all ingredients in the blender or food processor and set aside
5. Add the vegetable stock, and pesto and cook about 10 minutes until hot and bubbling
6. In a blender or food processor, add the soup and blend in batches
7. Serve and top with freshly shaved parmesan cheese and red pepper flakes

I used this amazing stock pot from All Clad to make this soup. It’s seriously the best soup-making vessel I have ever encountered! It’s heavy - but not unreasonably so, heats evenly and is so gloriously non-stick. Cleaning was beyond easy, but it’s also dishwasher safe. It’s also 8 quarts making it the perfect size for cooking 2 lobsters. And we love lobster so…

-MW.

p.s.: The stock pot is available exclusively at Williams Sonoma and retails for $179.95