Callie Cooks: Easy and Healthy Soup Recipes for Fall

I’m Callie, Sydney’s younger sister. I live in Charlotte, North Carolina with my fiancé and pup, Bean. If you’ve been following Sydney for a while, then I'm sure you know she is not a fan of cooking. Her specialties are eggs, eggs, and more eggs. Oh, and there are times I have witnessed her microwave a hot dog. But I have to admit, she has definitely improved over the years. She's lucky she has a fiancé that is a great cook! I am basically the opposite of Sydney when it comes to all things kitchen. I absolutely love to cook. I'll give myself a pat on the back and toot my own horn for a second because I'd like to think I am a pretty good cook... chef if you will (lol definitely not). 

I'm excited that Sydney asked me to pop in every now and then to give you guys the recipe posts you’ve been asking for. First up is one of my most favorite things to make: soup! I have an entire arsenal of soup recipes but for now, I’ll leave you with two of my easiest and healthiest options that are great for the fall and winter season. 

The first is a recipe I made up when I wanted tomato soup, but something cleaner than anything from a can. You really only need a sheet pan and a blender for this recipe, which means minimal clean up (my favorite!). It’s a pretty clean recipe that you can tailor based on your diet or preference. This soup is meat-free, so perfect for a meatless meal to incorporate into your week. This will make about 6 servings so it's great for a family or for leftovers! 

Ingredients:

4-6 large tomatoes

1 large yellow onion

¼ of a lemon for juice  

¼ cup of olive oil

2 bulbs of garlic 

1 tablespoon honey or agave 

½ cup of milk of choice (I usually use almond) 

⅓ cup packed basil

1 Tablespoon dried oregano 

2 Tablespoons of nutritional yeast 

Salt and pepper to your liking 

Red pepper flakes to your liking 

Parmesan for topping 

Directions:

Set your oven to 400 degrees 

Quarter your tomatoes and onion. Place them in a bowl (you can also do this directly on the sheet pan) and add lemon juice, olive oil, agave/honey, and 3/4ths of the basil chopped. Toss to coat. 

Cut the tops off of your heads of garlic so that you can see the cloves inside (but don’t remove). Place them in foil, drizzle the tops with olive oil and loosely seal the foil packet. 

Place your foiled packet of garlic, tomatoes, and onion on a sheet pan and roast for about 20 minutes. 

Remove from oven and put onion, tomato, and one head of garlic in the blender. Since the garlic is tender from roasting you should be able to just squeeze the head of garlic and it should come right out. I usually save the other head to spread on toast. 

Blend for about 30 seconds then add in your milk, nutritional yeast, oregano, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes.

Blend for about 2 to 3 minutes more or to your desired consistency, then you can pour it right into your soup bowls and it should still be hot from the tomatoes roasting in the oven.

Top with parmesan and chopped basil.

I found this recipe when I was looking for a chicken noodle soup but without the noodles. It's definitely still a hearty soup without the noodles! This is not a recipe that I made up, so you can find the recipe from this website here. It's so full of flavorful and pretty healthy, too. 

I make this all the time and it’s great to make on a Sunday or Monday and use it for lunch all week as it makes about 8 big servings. I mainly do my grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s so I usually just get the mirepoix instead of buying celery, onion, and carrots separately. The mirepoix is an easy shortcut as everything is already chopped up for me. I also omit the chickpeas for 3/4 of a can of great northern beans. You could do either- or even both if you want! The fun thing about cooking (vs baking) is that you can edit the ingredients to your personal preference.