I love soup – it is warming and nourishing and a delicious way to eat more vegetables. Living in Ireland I find I can eat soup all year round as, even in summer, we have days that call for a bowl of warm, nourishing soup.
This tomato and parmesan soup is rich and delicious.
It is also a great way to use up the heels of parmesan cheese that would otherwise go in the bin. I store them in the freezer and they can be dropped straight into the saucepan. They add such a depth of flavour to this soup and lift it from just another bowl of tomato soup to something rather special.
You can tie the herb sprigs together to make it easier to remove them at the end.
It should look like this after simmering for 45 minutes. You will need remove the herbs and Parmesan crusts that you can see in the photo before blitzing. Both have done their jobs and aren’t needed anymore.
Make sure to serve it with some lovely crusty bread and butter. Yum, yum!
Tomato & Parmesan Soup
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 2 small onion
- 2 sticks celery
- 3 cloves garlic
- 3 tins plummed tomatoes
- 500 ml vegetable stock
- 1 sprig rosemary
- 1 sprig thyme
- 2 bay leaves
- 4 parmesan heels
- 1 bunch basil leaves
- 1/2 lemon (juice)
- Salt
- Pepper
Instructions
- Roughly chop the onion and celery
- Heat the olive oil in a saucepan and gently saute the onion and celery for 5 minutes being careful not to get any colour on it
- Add the garlic and saute for another minute, again being careful not to burn the garlic
- Add the tins of tomatoes and the stock and bring to the boil
- Add the herbs and parmesan heels and simmer for 45 minutes
- Remove the fresh herbs and parmesan heels and blitz the soup
- Add the basil leaves and lemon juice and blitz further
- Season with salt and crushed black pepper
- Serve with crusty bread and butter
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