Tomato Bisque

This tomato bisque recipe is tangy and creamy! This classic soup makes a tasty lunch paired with bread or grilled cheese.

Here’s a cozy, creamy soup that works in nearly any season: try Tomato Bisque! This vibrant puree melds bright tomatoes, garlic and aromatic vegetables with a touch of creamy for a rich, silky body. It’s pure and simple, perfect with a hunk of crusty artisan bread or a grilled cheese sandwich. Here’s how to make a simple tomato bisque!

Ingredients in tomato bisque

A bisque is a creamy pureed soup that’s French in origin. A traditional bisque uses ground seafood shells as a thickener, like ground lobster or shrimp shells, and heavy cream to add richness. There are also vegetable-based bisques that are blended and thickened with cream, like butternut squash, red pepper or tomato.

While it sounds fancy, a tomato bisque is simple to make: it’s essentially a French-style creamy tomato soup. Here are the ingredients you’ll need:

Butter or olive oil
Yellow onion
Carrot
Celery
Garlic
White wine vinegar (or white wine)
Fire roasted diced tomatoes (or San Marzano or best quality tomatoes)
Vegetable or chicken broth
Sugar and salt
Heavy cream

Use fire roasted or best quality tomatoes

The key to this tomato bisque recipe? The quality of the tomatoes. Low quality canned tomatoes have a bitter, flat flavor that can’t be compensated with extra seasoning. If you can find fire roasted tomatoes, they have a pure, developed flavor with less simmering time. Here are a few notes on finding best quality tomatoes:

Fire roasted tomatoes are a type of canned tomato that’s cooked over an open flame before canning. It makes the flavor beautifully sweet out of the can, instead of acidic like many canned tomato varieties.
Where to get them? This type of tomatoes are becoming pretty easy to find in grocery stores in the US; they’re sold by several brands (Muir Glen is a favorite of ours). Look in the canned tomatoes section.
What if you can’t find them? Substitute the best quality canned tomatoes you can find and increase the simmer time by 10 minutes. Add 1 teaspoon of sugar if the flavor still seems bitter.

Tips for tomato bisque

This tomato bisque recipe is simple to make: you’ll sauté the vegetables, add tomatoes and broth and simmer, then puree the soup and add cream. Here are a few pointers:

Sauté the vegetables until tender. It’s important to make sure the vegetables are tender before adding the tomatoes so they’re not crunchy in the final soup.
A standard blender works best (vs a stick blender). We used to love the convenience of an immersion blender (aka stick blender), but it doesn’t get the soup nearly as creamy of a texture.
Don’t skimp on the cream. The cream brings a rich, thicker texture and a luxurious mouthfeel. It’s absolutely essential!

Ways to serve it

Pureed soups like tomato bisque are delicious: but they’re not a meal in themselves! You’ll need to add some protein to make a filling meal. Here are a few ideas: