Roasting vegetables in the oven caramelizes their flavors. Blend them with herbs and seasonings into this Roasted Vegetable Soup for a lovely meatless meal.
Years ago when my husband and I were visiting friends in France, they had to step out for a few hours, promising to be home for dinner. We encountered a little culture clash when six o’clock, our dinner time, rolled around, and they weren’t yet home. Somehow we forgot that French diner is quite different than ours.
I knew Michele had started a soup and stashed it in the refrigerator. When I went to investigate, I found broth and some very large chunks of vegetable floating in it. Hubs and I both raised our eyebrows and snacked on bread and cheese instead.
Later I came to find out that Michele was preparing a pureed soup, something that was absolutely foreign to me, one who had been raised on Chicken Noodle that came in a red and white can. A ha. More culture clashes.
Today, I love pureed soups. And since I purchased an immersion blender, I love making them! This soup is as easy as could be.
A chunk of good French cheese and a baguette would make it a perfect meal. If you’d like, you could also add some cooked shrimp on top, but you won’t need to. Want to go meatless? Serve a salad on the side. Soup is good food always.
Tools to make this recipe easy:
- plastic cutting boards
- Ergo Chef chef’s knife
- sheet pan
- a large soup pot
- immersion blender or a A food processor
- Pyrex pint-sized glass bowls with plastic lids
Soup is good food.
I’ve come to love all kinds of blended soups since that cold night many years ago. These are some of my favorites:
Roasted Vegetable Soup with Fresh Oregano
Roasting vegetables in the oven caramelizes their flavors. Blend them into soup with fresh herbs and you’ve got a lovely meal.
Preparation Time:10 minutes
Cook time:1 hour 30 minutes
Total time:1 hour 40 minutes
4 servings
Ingredients:
- 1 eggplant, trimmed and split lengthwise
- 1 large patty pan squash or two yellow squash, trimmed and split in half
- 2 ribs celery, trimmed
- 2 bell peppers, seeded and halved
- 1 cup baby carrots or 2 large carrots, peeled and cut into 2 inch chunks
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes or 2 medium tomatoes, halved
- 4 large cloves garlic, unpeeled
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano or 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 bay leaf
- 4 to 6 cups vegetable or chicken broth
Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 400 °. Place the vegetables on a rimmed baking sheet. Brush the vegetables with the oil.
- Roast the vegetables for 45 minutes, until tender and spotted with brown.
- Scoop the eggplant pulp from the skin and place it in a large stockpot. Remove the garlic from its skins and add to the pot as well as the other vegetables, oregano, and bay leaf.
- Add 3 cups broth and bring to a simmer. Simmer the mixture for about 45 minutes or until the vegetables are very tender.
- Remove the bay leaf and discard. Use an immersion blender to blend the vegetables until smooth. (You can also blend the soup in a blender or in a food processor.) Thin with more stock, if desired. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve hot.
- To freeze: cool the soup and store in meal- or individual-sized portions in the freezer, for up to 2 months. Reheat before serving.
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Post updated March 25, 2017.
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What a great story! I can’t wait to try this recipe next week.
Did you take the bay leaf out before the blending? Sounds good, I’ll have to add this to my meatless meals recipe box!
@Courtney, YES! Thank you for asking. I forgot to write that bit down.
The roasted vegetable soup sounds wonderful!
yum! We love smoooooth soup around here. The kiddos favorite is roasted butternut squash, sweet potato, and carrots. I like to add a few sprigs of fresh rosemary with the veg in the oven.
This looks amazing. Do you think it would turn out well using water in place of broth?
@The Gentle Mom, if you have flavorful veggies, I think it should be fine. You will probably need to add more salt and pepper.
Although it’s autumn, I’m not feeling it yet in Phoenix, AZ. But I love soup and this recipe looks so good. I’m always on the lookout for new recipes to try and I think this will be one I will attempt. I posted it on Pinterest as I find that way I never lose the recipes. It links back to your blog post.
Blessings,
Debbie
Wow, I love the sound of this! Wish I had an immersion blender to make this less of a hassle, but you’d better belive I want to try it anyway!
I like both chunky and smooth soups. But for the rest of my family, pureed is the way to go.
Hmmm, eggplant in a pureed soup. Never tried that before, sounds good!! 🙂
mmm, sounds so good. we love roasted vegetables around here. and i am totally a smooth soup kinda girl. 🙂
I prefer chunky and I like lots of “stuff” in my soup but I think one of those stick blenders would be cool to have. This looks like a very tasty combination of vegies.
I made a roasted veggie fontina cheese crab soup yesterday. It was awesome!!!! I didnt think I’d like it too chunky but it didnt matter.
Bringing up your recipe for our fourth batch I have to finally leave a comment saying how much we LOVE this soup! I found it on Pinterest (I wonder how many repines it’s seen since Debbie? Thanks Debbie!) and it’s been a go to this Fall. It’s really forgiving- squash, zucchini eggplant and cauliflower have all been switched in to act as the bulk veggie and worked great. Thank you for writing it out!
So glad you’re enjoying it! Yeah!
I have some zucchini and summer squash in my freezer that will need to be used. Do you think these would roast up okay? Obviously not like fresh, but hopefully okay? It’s not yet soup season, but coming soon!
@Holly, how did you prep it for the freezer? I’m thinking it might not work for roasting those. But, you could roast the other vegetables and then add the frozen ones when you simmer.
This soup is delicious!! I have one question, though. I’ve never pureed a soup before and I ran into an issue: strings. A bunch of long, hard pieces (I think from the tomato skins) and some thinner strings (celery? eggplant?). Do you think my blender is just not powerful enough? Or do you have any tips to avoid this? Thanks!
Bummer! I’ve not had that problem before. I guess an added step would be to strain the soup after blending. I use an immersion blender, also called a stick blender. I haven’t used a regular blender before. The immersion blender is one of my favorite tools.
Hello! This soup looks wonderful and I”m looking forward to trying it. I hate eggplant, though. Can you suggest other veggies that might work in place of the eggplant? Have you tried sweet potatoes or root veggies, like parsnips or turnips?
I think you could use any vegetables that you like. Just be sure that they cook soft enough to blend smoothly.
this roasted vege soup idea is now my go-to produce box, salvage recipe. if we had a week of reacting to life, instead of tossing out the wilting produce i make this soup. it tastes different every time and there are absolutely no leftovers.
i think my favorite taste came from kohlrabi-love that spicy kick. this time i’m cooking up my first eggplant, and that chunk of red onion that never made it into a salad.
i buy and add two boxes of fit-n-active reduced sodium chicken broth from Aldi. if i have a bit of half&half or heavy cream about to expire i add toss that in after the blending process for a bit of creaminess.
the more i read your blog, the more i realize your eats are good as well as cheap.
Thanks for your kind words. I’m so glad to hear this is working well for you!
Just made this today with beets, eggplant, bell pepper, carrots, and garlic. Yum! My toddlers loved it!
So glad to hear it!
Best ever!!!! I love this soup so much!!! So simple! Love. Those French!!!
Glad you enjoyed it!