Caprese Soup
September 10th, 2012
This is the first day where it feels like fall here. Its gray and rainy and even a little dreary- just a sign of what us Seattleites have to look forward to until around mid-June of next year. Seriously.
It is also Coco’s first day of school for the year (well, it’s 2 hours twice a week, but still…) Hilarious!! Her backpack is almost as big as she is.
I thought that this soup would be perfect for a blustery fall school night dinner. I still have enough late summer tomatoes coming out of the garden to make this soup, but the fact that I am tuning into a steaming pt of soup verses, say, a fresh caprese salad, means that the seasons are changing.
Truth be told, I was originally going to make French Onion Soup. Then I realized that I just haaad to use up all these tomatoes I have. But I still really wanted the good part of the French Onion Soup: obviously the toast and cheese. So I made a tomato/basil/mozzarella version.
And it’s ooey-gooey-melty-cheezy-good.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Lay the slices of baguette on a sheet pan and drizzle with olive oil. Toast the baguette slice for 5-7 minutes until golden brown.
While the baguette slices are toasting, prepare the fast pesto. In the bowl of a food processor, pulse together the garlic, basil leaves, olive oil and lemon juice.
Transfer to a bowl and fold in the Parmesan cheese. Season to taste with kosher salt.
Set the oven to broil and fill 4 oven proof bowls with Tomato Basil Soup.
Generously spread the 8 baguette slices with the pesto.
Place two on the top of each bowl of soup.
Place 2 ounces of fresh mozzarella on the top of the baguette and pesto. Drizzle the top of the cheese with a little olive oil and sprinkle it with salt and black pepper
Broil the soup for 5 minutes or until the top of the cheese is golden and bubbly.
Serve hot.
Recipe: Caprese Soup
Ingredients
- -Tomato Basil Soup
- -8 slices Baguette, ¼” thick
- -Olive oil
- -8 ounces Fresh mozzarella
- -Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
- Fast Pesto:
- -2 cloves Garlic
- -2 large handfuls fresh Basil
- -¼ cup Olive oil
- -1 Tbs fresh lemon juice
- -¼ cup freshly grated Parmesan
- -kosher salt
Instructions
- 1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
- 2. Lay the slices of baguette on a sheet pan and drizzle with olive oil. Toast the baguette slice for 5-7 minutes until golden brown.
- 3. While the baguette slices are toasting, prepare the fast pesto.
- 4. In the bowl of a food processor, pulse together the garlic, basil leaves, olive oil and lemon juice.
- 5. Transfer to a bowl and fold in the Parmesan cheese. Season to taste with kosher salt.
- 6. Set the oven to broil.
- 7. Fill 4 oven proof bowls with Tomato Basil Soup.
- 8. Generously spread the 8 baguette slices with the pesto and place two on the top of each bowl of soup.
- 9. Place 2 ounces of fresh mozzarella on the top of the baguette and pesto.
- 10. Drizzle the top of the cheese with a little olive oil and sprinkle it with salt and black pepper
- 11. Broil the soup for 5 minutes or until the top of the cheese is golden and bubbly.
- 12. Serve hot.
Preparation time: 15 minute(s)
Cooking time: 20 minute(s)
Number of servings (yield): 4
This soup looks so freaking awesome! I”m totally in love and am going to try to make this this upcoming week!
3:53 am on September 10th, 2012
It’s so easy!!! huh? I hope you enjoy it!
7:18 am on September 10th, 2012
Love this soup Heather!
7:32 am on September 10th, 2012
thanks Maria :)
7:48 am on September 10th, 2012
Are you freaking kidding me? That’s it. I’m moving in. This is killing me softly. And I can’t stop writing. UUGUGUGUGGH.
I’m in love.
8:22 am on September 10th, 2012
Such a great looking soup recipe and I love the inclusion of pesto :)
9:03 am on September 10th, 2012
This is all of my loves — tomatoes, cheese, bread, pesto — in a bowl. Now if only the weather would cool down in California!
9:10 am on September 10th, 2012
I actually wrote this on the one blustery day, and now I guess we have another 10 days of sun in the forecast. I guess I should be soaking it up while I can!
9:14 am on September 10th, 2012
Thanks Marla!!
9:14 am on September 10th, 2012
This looks like just what I did. It is unusually chilly today and tomato soup makes everything better.
Erin – ekcantcook.blogspot.com
1:48 pm on September 10th, 2012
This is such a great idea for soup, Heather. I love the summer flavors, and I adore soup. This great! Beautiful photos, too.
2:30 pm on September 10th, 2012
Thank you Cassie!
2:45 pm on September 10th, 2012
Oh, yum.
3:52 pm on September 10th, 2012
what a great idea & beautiful photos!
7:37 pm on September 10th, 2012
you had me at “caprese soup”. And lucky you for it feeling like Fall. It’s disgusting down here in sunny SoCal – and I can’t take it anymore!!!
8:53 pm on September 10th, 2012
Looks amazing! It doesn’t quite feel like fall in LA yet. When it does, I am making this soup asap!
9:05 pm on September 10th, 2012
I’m italian and definitly used to “taste kitchen” but really… every time you surprise me giving simple ingredient a special touch! Looks yummy, I’m gonna try soon :)
6:21 am on September 11th, 2012
Thank you so much Alice :)
6:46 am on September 11th, 2012
Soupista is happy. Shocker, I know. :) Love the golden brown mozzarella on top and pesto toasts tucked inside!
7:43 am on September 11th, 2012
Ohhhhh Heather…..Ohhhh Heather, I thought I was holding on to summer but now I want to plummet full force into winter so that I can make this soup every.single.day. Who am I kidding, I can’t wait until winter. Looks awesome!
9:24 am on September 11th, 2012
What a delicious combination of flavors!
10:59 am on September 11th, 2012
LOL!! Oh good! It got sunny here again, so now I have to hold off on too many soup recipes, but don’t worry! they are coming!
1:40 pm on September 11th, 2012
I was just thinking that I hoped you saw that I made a soup!! Don’t worry- I have more on the way!
1:40 pm on September 11th, 2012
[...] caprese soup. /* [...]
4:19 pm on September 14th, 2012
This sounds amazing. I’m making this tonight, I’ve actually got everything I need to make it, just bought fresh basil and everything! thanks for this!
10:00 am on September 26th, 2012
of course Cathy! I hope you enjoy it!
1:25 pm on September 26th, 2012
This looks amazing! Am I missing something, I don’t see tomatoes listed in the ingredients..
7:58 pm on September 27th, 2012
I figured it out…totally seperate recipe for the tomato basil soup!
8:01 pm on September 27th, 2012
This looks so amazing. I am still getting tomatoes and my basil is now a tree it is so tall. I can’t wait to use your pesto recipe too..stock up for the winter!! Thank you.
7:01 am on September 28th, 2012
As a fellow Northwesterner (Vancouver, WA), I am so thrilled to find this recipe for dreary days! Looks absolutely delicious – one question – does your tomato basil soup freeze well? I’m not sure if I should cut the batch into a portion we could eat within a few days or make the full sized recipe and freeze it.
1:27 pm on September 28th, 2012
for sure you could freeze this. I always make big batch soups so I have lunch for a week or to just freeze. A great solution for not wasting all of your garden veggies.
11:28 pm on September 28th, 2012
This looks amazing! Such a great idea to kick tomato soup up a notch! I re-shared with my readers here: http://seektobemerry.blogspot.com/2012/09/so-long-september.html Thanks for the inspiration!
7:50 am on October 3rd, 2012
Great Meri! Glad you liked it!
9:39 am on October 3rd, 2012
[...] y a quelques jours j’étais tombée (grâce à Pinterest <3 <3) sur une superbe recette de soupe sur le blog de Heater Christo que je me suis empressée d’essayer … et c’est aussi [...]
10:08 am on October 5th, 2012
This sounds amazing but I can’t find the recipe for the soup. Where can I find ? I really want to make this !!
8:27 am on October 8th, 2012
Krystal! Just click on the link for Tomato Basil Soup on the ingredient list.
1:16 pm on October 8th, 2012
I love this soup….but please don’t call it Caprese just because there’s mozzarella and basil it doesn’t become Caprese…Caprese get it name from the island of Capri and it’s just simply a fresh salad made with slices of tomatoes from Capri Mozzarella di bufala from inland Napoli and basil. I see that in US anything with mozzarella cheese it’s called Caprese! It’s totally wrong! the soup looks outstanding but call it another name like:- Mozzarella soup. ciao
2:51 am on October 31st, 2012
[...] copper-looking letters look in this kitchen, which literally cost pennies to make?Favorite slurp: Caprese Soup. A great twist on the classic tomato soup. Yummy.Favorite place. I think 9 times out of 10, [...]
8:09 am on November 2nd, 2012
Mid-June? Lol, we say ‘After the Fourth’ 30 miles south of you. Soup looks delicious. I’m going to try it without the pesto (I know, but it’s not the DH’s favorite herb).
9:28 pm on November 2nd, 2012
This looks fantastic! Do you mind me asking where you got your lion’s head soup bowls from?
7:35 am on November 10th, 2012
Williams Sonoma!
3:51 pm on November 10th, 2012
delicious :)
8:07 pm on November 12th, 2012
[...] pepper. Broil the soup for 5 minutes or until the top of the cheese is golden brown. Source: Heather Christo Cooks TweetPin [...]
7:11 pm on March 18th, 2013
[...] can eat it everynight. Insert evil laugh here….. I digress. Once I saw this post on Heather Cristo Cooks I knew I needed to make it. So she really goes above and beyond with her ingredients. Home made [...]
12:25 pm on April 10th, 2013
This soup is like a hug for my belly! Looks yummo Heather!
9:41 am on May 29th, 2013
[...] kids and I will have tomato basil soup topped with leftover bread and fresh mozzarella, inspired by this recipe. Caesar salad to accompany it. Wednesday: I got some great bell peppers from a local [...]
5:00 am on June 3rd, 2013
[...] Caprese Soup: We haven’t had this soup in over six months, but that doesn’t mean we don’t all want it! Holy Cow! Three words: Bread. Cheese. Basil. It doesn’t get any better. [...]
2:08 pm on June 4th, 2013