Vegan Tomato Garlic and Olive Soup. Full of fresh Mediterranean flavors tomato, olives and basil, this soup will make you think of hot sunny days, even if you cook it in the middle of winter!
I used to love tinned soups. I would come home at lunchtime and crack open a can of lentil or minestrone, pour it into a bowl and microwave it (and I admit it, I used to enjoy seeing the peas explode), then devour it with several slices of thickly buttered bread.
That was until I decided to make my own soups. It started some years ago when I first made Wild Rice soup. I was thinking about this very first soup the other night and I came to the conclusion that it was a forerunner for my Risotto making frenzy of 2014, so thick and creamy it was, that it barely resembled soup.
After that, I have made many types of soup. It can be a quick supper or a slow simmered make-ahead meal. It can be restorative or comforting or perhaps both. It can be thick or thin, chunky or smooth, healthy or rich with cream.
Ahh, but I cannot resist the seductive lure of the bowl of soup. Last night was no exception. I have never made tomato soup before, and I have never been a fan of tinned tomato soup, finding it too sweet, too synthetic and the texture to be too thick. I like soups to have a little texture to them.
This particular recipe is borrowed from one of my favourite TV Chefs, Rick Stein. His food is always unpretentious and most importantly accessible to the home cook. There is nothing worse than finding a recipe that you simply must cook but you just don't have the skills or you can't get hold of the ingredients.
How do you make Tomato, Garlic and Olive Soup?
What makes this Tomato Soup a little different to others is that it doesn't rely on the tomatoes being roasted and it is seasoned - heavily - with black olives. This soup also contains a whole bulb of garlic!
Suffice it to say, I slashed the amount of garlic in both, thinking of my social status the next day, and the soup still turned out to be pungent with the strongest allium.
Not to worry. The flavour was rich, slightly tart and quite unlike anything you extract with a can opener. Rather than roasting the tomatoes, they are roughly chopped, stalks and all, and thrown into a pan with some sauteed garlic and olive oil and cooked for no longer than two minutes, until they just start to leech out some of their tart juices. This quick cook method retains that 'just picked' flavour of the tomatoes so it has a summery resonance (did you know that up until about a year ago, I could not eat raw tomatoes? That was until I tried some vine ripened ones. Standard budget supermarket tomatoes have tough skins, watery flesh and very little flavour. Those on the vine, whilst considerably more money, are definitely worth the added expense. I kept popping them in my mouth whilst chopping them up last night!).
At this point they are blended up and then some of the Tapenade is stirred through to taste. A final flourish of a chiffonade (that's thinly chopped to me and you) of fresh some Basil and the soup is done.
If you were really pushed for time and/or ingredients, you could use ready bought Tapenade too. Belazu do particularly good green and black olive versions. You may need to salt the soup a little more heavily though.
📋 Recipe
Ingredients
- 900 g Tomatoes preferably on the vine, roughly chopped
- 6 cloves Garlic
- 50 ml Olive Oil
- ¼ cup Black Olives
- Salt and Pepper
- 1 tablespoon Basil fresh, shredded
Instructions
- Sweat down the garlic in the warmed olive oil until fragrant, but not browned
- Add the tomatoes which have been roughly chopped (I just quartered mine) and cook for two minutes more
- Pour into a blender and process until smooth.
- Push through a sieve into a clean pan
- Stir through some Tappenade and taste for seasoning. More salt and pepper?
- Finish with a final drizzle of Olive Oil and the shredded Basil Leaves (optional).
Nutrition
Love soups? Try my other delicious vegan soups:
Amanda says
Such a delicious soup recipe! I love that it required so few ingredients but was full of flavor and super simple to make.
Amanda says
I loved canned soup, too and I still do but I like to make my own homemade version, as well. This was not only easy to make but simple and had a nice fresh taste!
Marta says
I love how simple this tomato and olive soup was to prepare, but as simple as it is, the flavor made it seem like it took hours and tons of ingredients to prepare. That means it's a winner all around for me.
Debbie says
This tomato soup is AMAZING ! So simple to prepare and it gets bonus points for being healthy . I have to agree with you , homemade soup is so much better than the stuff from a can. Thanks for a great recipe .
Loreto and Nicoletta Nardelli says
We are soup lovers, and always homemade for us. We can't wait to give this tomato garlic and olive soup a try. Looks fabulous and very tasty!
Kayla DiMaggio says
Love this tomato soup! Served it up with a vegan grilled cheese!
Jacqueline Debono says
I love making homemade tomato soup especially with our homegrown tomatoes! The combination of tomatoes, garlic and olives in this recipe sounds so good. Just one question, the ingredients list says 1/4 cup of black olives but the instructions call for tapenade. Do you do something with the olives to make a tapenade?
Tammy says
There is still a chill in the air here so I'm all for soup on these lingering spring days! This sounds fabulous and easy too.
Lori | The Kitchen Whisperer says
What an unusual and delicious recipe! I wouldn’t have thought to use olives like this. Such a great idea!
Sandhya Ramakrishnan says
We love olives at our house and this soup was a big hit. My boys loved it and this is going to be a regular from now on. I made this with plain olives. Will be making it again with tapenade!