Are you ready for the explosion of summer flavours served in a bowl?
This tomato and red pepper soup is an incredible blend of ripe cherry tomatoes and tangy red peppers, seasoned and spiced to perfection. Plus, it is the ultimate hydrating starter for the warming weather while bursting with various antioxidants!
Why you’ll love this tomato and red pepper soup recipe?
Made with staple ingredients: This tomato and red pepper soup uses staple summer ingredients you probably already have in your fridge or pantry, making it a super convenient and time-efficient starter everyone in your family will enjoy.
Easy to make: Forget about sophisticated culinary techniques for a moment, as you won’t need any for this easy tomato and red pepper soup recipe!
Hands-off preparation: As this tomato and red pepper soup is not made on the stove, it allows you to dedicate to your other daily tasks while incredible flavours develop in your oven.
Bursting with flavours: Made with the best that summer offers in addition to spices like cayenne pepper and cumin, this tomato and red peppers soup is a flavour bomb with the right balance of sweet, spicy and acidic!
Rich in antioxidants: This vegan soup is also an excellent source of antioxidants with many potential health benefits. Plus, they are more readily absorbed after the veggies have been cooked than when eaten fresh.
Ingredients for the tomato and red pepper soup
Cherry tomatoes: Opt for extra-sweet red cherry tomatoes for the best-tasting result. If you are a big fan of cherry tomatoes, you might also like my summer courgette salad.
Red bell peppers: I chose red bell peppers for this soup because of their high water content and beautiful red colour. Instead, you can go for different coloured bell peppers, such as yellow and orange. When buying red bell peppers, make sure they are firm and crisp, even though this recipe can forgive for those less fresh ones.
Carrot: I love the addition of carrot in this recipe as it improves the texture and deepens the sweet notes of this tomato and red pepper soup. Young carrots with a more concentrated flavour are my favourite pick for this soup recipe.
Onion & garlic cloves: When making soups, my favourite onion variety is the yellow onion, with a mildly sweet taste and gentle pungency that does not overpower other flavours.
Plus, I can’t imagine this tomato and red pepper soup without a sharp kick from garlic cloves.
Cayenne: Thanks to cayenne pepper, this tomato and red pepper soup has a pleasant warmth and spice while not being too hot. Still, you can always adjust the quantity to your liking.
Sweet paprika: I like adding sweet paprika powder to this recipe for a more powerful peppery flavour. My favourite is the Hungarian sweet paprika with a radiant red colour and incredible depth of flavour.
Cumin: One of my favourite spices, cumin, brings an earthy, peppery flavour and pungent, slightly nutty aroma to this tomato and red pepper soup. I prefer to buy it as whole seeds for a longer-lasting taste and aroma, but you can also find it in its powdered form.
How to make this tomato and red pepper soup?
Preheat the oven to 200 °C or 392 °F.
Toast cumin seeds
If you’re using cumin seeds, toast them over medium heat on a dry frying pan until they release an intense, nutty aroma and start to pop.
Make sure to shake them constantly to prevent them from burning.
Transfer your toasted cumin seeds to a mortar and grind them into a powder. This way, cumin will incorporate better with the rest of the ingredients and give a more round-up flavour to this tomato and red pepper soup. If you prefer buying cumin in its powdered form, you can simply skip this step.
Prepare the veggies
Wash cherry tomatoes, red bell pepper and carrot thoroughly, as you will keep their skin on.
Cut red bell pepper and carrot into dice and cherry tomatoes in half. Carrots can be cut into smaller dice as they need slightly longer cooking.
Cut the top of the yellow onion and slice it in half, going through the roots. Peel the onion halves, remove their root part and slice them following their natural lines. It is not necessary to slice them too thin as they will have enough time to cook.
Peel the garlic cloves by cutting their root part and crushing them with the flat side of your knife. By following this method, the peel will come off easily.
Combine the ingredients
Combine all the cut veggies in a mixing bowl. Then, add olive oil, spices and salt and mix everything well until evenly combined. This step will allow all the ingredients to fuse and the veggies to bake more evenly.
Bake the veggies
Transfer your mixture to an oven dish or baking tray. Spread the veggies out evenly to cover the whole surface. Cover the veggies with a suitable lid or aluminium foil and bake them in the oven for 40 minutes.
The lid or foil will help build up steam, allowing the veggies to bake and steam simultaneously. While concentrating flavours, it will allow them to keep all of their juices and prevent them from drying out.
Blend the soup
Take the veggies out of the oven and check if they are tender and soft. Then, transfer them to a blender cup together with water. Blend everything on high speed until smooth and creamy. Adjust the amount of water added depending on whether you want a thicker or more runny consistency.
Blend your veggies while still hot; it will make blending easier and give the soup a better texture.
Check the seasoning before serving, and if needed, add more salt.
How to serve this tomato and red pepper soup?
Although this soup has a slightly richer flavour when warm, it can also be served cold on those sweltering summer days. Whether warm or cold, my favourite way of enjoying it is by topping it with crumbled feta cheese and a few fresh basil leaves and serving it with a piece of toasted garlicky bread on the side.
To make the toasted garlicky bread, place slices of sourdough bread on a baking tray and toast them in the oven at 120 °C or 248 °F until nice and crisp. Peel a garlic clove and slice it in half.
Take the bread slices out of the oven and brush them with the garlic. Return the slices for another 2 minutes in the oven to mellow down the garlic.
And there you go, your spicy tomato and red pepper soup is ready to be enjoyed!
Substitutions
Cherry tomatoes: Instead of cherry tomatoes, you can simply go for tomatoes, but choose a sweet and juicy variety such as red beefsteak tomatoes.
Spices: If you don’t have cumin, you can substitute it for coriander seeds and prepare them the same way as whole cumin. As for the cayenne pepper, you can switch it for chilli powder, but if you’re looking for a milder option, increase the amount of sweet paprika instead.
Water: Use vegetable stock instead of water for an even more complex flavour.
