I absolutely love ordering Tomato Bisque when out at restaurants and was pleasantly surprised at how tasty the outcome can be at home too. We are at the very tail end of tomato season here in N.C. (thanks to the warm fall weather we’ve been having) so we
did use fresh tomatoes, but this recipe can easily be made with canned tomatoes as well. I should also mention that my kids (who are not even tomato fans other than spaghetti and pizza sauce) loved this dish! They even asked for seconds. So enjoy and don’t forget to freeze the leftovers.
Tomato Bisque
Ingredients
- 4 tablespoons butter we used unsalted
- 1 onion diced
- 2 slices bacon proscuitto, or ham, minced
- 4 cloves garlic
- 5 tablespoons whole-wheat flour
- 5 cups chicken broth
- 1 28-oz can peeled tomatoes (with liquid)
- 3 sprigs parsley
- 3 sprigs thyme
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 cup heavy cream or less if desired
- 1 teaspoon salt or more if you are using unsalted homemade broth
- pepper to taste
Instructions
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Heat the butter in a large soup pot over medium-high heat. Add the diced onion and cook for about 5 – 6 minutes or until it starts to get soft.
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Add the bacon (or other meat) and the garlic and stir for another minute or two or until the meat gets crisp.
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Add the flour and stir vigorously for 2 – 3 minutes.
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Pour in the broth and tomatoes and bring to a boil while whisking constantly.
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Throw in the herbs and simmer on low heat for 30 minutes.
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Remove the herbs and puree the soup either in a blender (in batches) or with a handheld immersion blender (if you like to make soups this is a great tool to have by the way!)
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Stir in the desired amount of heavy cream and salt & pepper to taste. Serve warm.
Think jarred diced tomatoes would work?
Hi there. Yes, it should work just fine.
Are there any suggestions to replace the cream for a dairy allergy?
Hi there. My favorite replacement is coconut cream. This might help: https://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2012/08/31/food-allergies-dairy/ and this thread has many great suggestions: http://heavenlyhomemakers.com/dairy-free-options-for-cream-soups.
Much better than can!
This recipe is beyond rediculious for the effort put into such a small yield! And it DOES NOT taste like real tomato bisque. Terrible! Do not waste your time,
I love this tomato bisque recipe! Honestly, it’s the only way I’ve had it so far! It’s easy to throw together a dive frozen it in batches for easy lunches throughout the week. Love it!
I found this soup to be a little bland even after seasoning with salt and pepper (I also simmered it with more of each herb than the recipe called for). I seasoned it liberally at the end with more fresh herbs, chopped, and with a few dried herbs as well (basil, oregano, thyme, parsley). After adding the cream I finished each bowl off with a bit of balsamic vinegar as a nice acid at the end and then I found it really good!
If you’re using fresh tomatoes, you may not need as much broth depending on the water content of your tomatoes. (I doubled the recipe and used 8 cups of broth.)
Tomato soup IS fairly bland. The key is awesome chicken broth. Thats the depth of flavor. But the flavor of tom soup is still fairly bland. Otherwise you have spaghetti sauce soup or taco salsa soup or curry soup, depending on what you add to jazz it up.
Add pasta or dunk grilled cheese or quesadillas into it if you wanna get rly crazy.
Cooked rice is rly good too for Tom-Rice Soup.
This is one of my (and my family’s) favorite soups. I make it all the time! My daughter recently requested it for her 5th birthday, and I decided to try it in our electric pressure cooker. It turned out AMAZING! Flavors seemed more pronounced. Since you can saute in the cooker, I just did everything the same as the recipe but instead of simmering, I pressure cooked it for 5 minutes. My new favorite way to cook one of my favorite soups!
I am trying to be more healthy and thought whole food would be the way to go. However, when I see ingredients such as bacon and heavy cream, red flags appear in my mind. I guess I have always equated real food=healthy food…but that is not necessarily the case. All real food is not necessarily healthy…it is just not processed which, for most American diets is a huge improvement! I think I’ll try the recipe with a few modifications. Perhaps nitrate free bacon (and cut off all visible fat) and would I be able to substitute a low fat half & half for the heavy cream?
Linda,
I use a very similar recipe of my grandmothers but have adapted it. I never use pork and I use almond milk thickened blended with soy sour cream in place of heavy cream. I also use veggie stock or broth rather than chicken. for me the key is good tomatoes and a little garnish of a quality parmesan for a zip.
Hi Linda. I do think those changes would work fine. We do not use low fat products because they are more processed and sometimes have other things added to them. Also, these two posts might give insight into our philosophy of “healthy eating”: https://www.100daysofrealfood.com/healthy-eating-defined/ and https://www.100daysofrealfood.com/portion-size-matters/.