buttery tomato and fennel soup with seedy, cheesy toasts

an easy, quick and versatile tomato soup for anytime

lovely bowl featured here from helka ceramics

call it confirmation bias but i feel like i’ve been seeing a lot of green soups making the rounds this soup season: see this one, this one, this one and this one, aptly named “swamp soup.” i have nothing against green soups, but i have to say, if someone made made me choose just one for the rest of my life, i’d without a doubt be team #redsoup (side note: this hashtag has just over 6,000 posts whereas #greensoup has over 37,000 lol).

there are probably many different, perhaps even deeply personal, reasons for my red soup inclination, but i think the simplest answer is probably the right one: i just love tomato-y soups. so here we are (again), with yet another simple red soup for the soul.

this soup is made with just five ingredients (butter, onion, garlic, fennel, canned tomatoes) that could even be stripped back to three (butter, onion, canned tomatoes) if you don’t feel like making a trip to the grocery store or just feel #lazy (side note: over 11.6 million posts with that hashtag lol and sorry, i’m done with the hashtags now).

at its core, this recipe is based on one of, if not the single most, famous tomato sauce recipes ever: marcella hazan’s tomato sauce. google it and you’ll find the recipe published on nyt cooking, food52, food & wine, simply recipes, and the list goes on. it really is a great recipe, so if you never have, you should give it a try.

anyways, back to soup: to make this one, you simply sauté the onion, garlic and fennel in butter until softened, add the canned tomatoes plus a can of water, bring to a simmer, blend, and serve. it’s that simple. the flavor of the fennel is subtle and the blended fennel just enhances the nice, thick texture of the soup. after testing multiple times, i chose not to sieve it (and not to ask you to sieve it) before serving, but if you want a super smooth soup, it’s always an option.

as always, you can make the recipe as written or see it as a base from which to play around: add some spices in to sauté with the veg, blend it out and enrich it with a splash of cream or dollop of crème fraîche, use fresh tomatoes or fire-roasted ones, swap in shallots or a little bit of fresh ginger, swap the fennel for something like carrot or even squash—you get the point.

i chose to serve the soup with a seedy homage to the best friend a tomato soup could ever ask for (grilled cheese is the only right answer), but of course these little toasts are also really flexible. you can use whatever bread you have or like best (i prefer baguette here personally) and mix up the seeds to your liking as well. depending on how many toasts you’re making, you may have leftover seed sprinkle—save it! use it to top salads or another soup, sprinkle over fried eggs, mix through breadcrumbs or a simple pasta, or just use for more of these toasts to serve with leftover soup.

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buttery tomato and fennel soup with seedy, cheesy toasts

serves 2 - 4

for the soup

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 white or yellow onion

2 cloves garlic

1 head fennel

1/2 teaspoon salt

two 400 gram cans of tomatoes (crushed or whole both work here)

freshly ground black pepper

for the seedy, cheesy toasts

2 - 8 slices of your favorite bread (the amount depends on how many people you’re serving and how thick your slices are; i used sliced baguette about 1/2 inch/1.5 cm thick and found 2 slices per person to be perfect)

olive oil

3 tablespoons raw sunflower seeds

3 tablespoons raw pumpkin seeds

1 tablespoon flaxseeds

1 tablespoon raw sesame seeds

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

1 teaspoon chili flakes (optional)

2 - 8 tablespoons shredded cheddar cheese (one tablespoon per slice of bread)

2 - 8 teaspoons grated parmesan cheese (one teaspoon per slice of bread)

flaky sea salt

1. add butter to a saucepan and melt over medium-low heat. peel and roughly dice the onion. peel and thinly slice the garlic. halve, core and dice the fennel. once the butter is melted, add the onion, garlic, fennel and salt. cook until the onion and fennel are soft, translucent and just starting to brown, about 8 - 10 minutes.

2. add canned tomatoes. fill one of the cans just shy of the brim with water and add to the pot. let cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes more or until it’s starting to simmer, then use an immersion blender or transfer carefully to a stand blender and blend until smooth; if you used a stand blender, transfer the soup back to the pot. taste and season with more salt as needed. let sit, off the heat, while you make the toasts.

3. preheat your broiler. transfer the bread slices to a baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil. add the sunflower, pumpkin, flaxseeds, fennel seeds and chili flakes to the other side of the baking sheet, mixing them together with your hands and spreading them into an even layer.

4. broil until the bread is lightly toasted, starting to get some color around the edges and the seeds are starting to smell fragrant, 1 - 2 minutes. toss the seeds, then top each piece of toast with the shredded cheddar and parmesan. broil again just to melt the cheese; the seeds may start to pop and smoke a bit, that’s okay, but if they’re smelling or looking burnt you can scoop them off the baking sheet.

5. once melted, carefully take each slice of toast and dip it, cheese side down, into the toasted seeds, making sure to cover the entire surface with the seeds by pressing the bread firmly into them.

6. divide the soup between serving bowls and top with a crack or two of freshly ground black pepper before serving with the cheesy, seedy toasts for dipping.