Roasted Tomato Bacon Soup -- The Bowl That Was Enough

April 2020. The pandemic is a month old and Detroit is reeling. The city has one of the highest infection rates in the country. The neighborhoods I grew up in — Black neighborhoods, working-class neighborhoods, the neighborhoods where people do not have the option to work from home — are being hit hardest. People I know are sick. A guy from the plant, a man named Earl (the same Earl who had the heart attack two years ago), tested positive and was hospitalized. The virus is not abstract. It is here, on the line, in the break room, in the parking lot where I walk to my car every evening. I wear a mask. I wash my hands until they crack. I wipe down my station at the start and end of every shift. The precautions feel like ritual — prayers offered to a virus that does not listen and does not care. The line runs. The vehicles are built. I go home to an empty apartment and make dinner for one and FaceTime my children and lie in bed in the dark and think about mortality in ways I have not thought about since Marc — but Marc is a thought for later, a thought for a future that is approaching with the weight of a freight train, and I cannot carry it yet. Mama is seventy and I am terrified for her. I told her to stop going to the grocery store. She said, "I have been going to the grocery store since before you were born and I will not stop because of a virus." I said, "Mama, please." She said, "I will wear a mask and I will wash my hands and I will buy my groceries and you will stop telling me what to do." Cheryl Carter does not take orders from viruses or sons. She takes orders from God and her own judgment, and her judgment says: live your life. Cautiously, but fully. I made chicken soup. Again. The healing soup. I made it for myself and I ate it alone and I thought about all the times I have made this soup: when Aiden was sick, when the world was hard, when the marriage was breaking. The soup does not fix anything. But it fills the bowl. And a full bowl, in a pandemic, in an empty apartment, in a life that has been emptied of three people I love — a full bowl is something. A full bowl is enough.

I have made chicken soup so many times it has become reflex — grief soup, fear soup, the soup I make when I don’t know what else to do with my hands. But that spring in Detroit, alone in my apartment with the news running and the FaceTime calls getting harder to hang up from, I needed something with a little more weight to it, something that felt like it had been cooked slow and with intention. This roasted tomato bacon soup is what I landed on: the tomatoes go into the oven and they caramelize and the whole apartment smells like something good is happening, even when nothing outside feels good at all. Mama would have approved — maybe not of me cooking it instead of calling her, but of the soup itself.

Roasted Tomato Bacon Soup

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 55 min | Total Time: 1 hr 10 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

2 1/2 lbs Roma tomatoes, halved lengthwise
1 medium yellow onion, quartered
6 cloves garlic, unpeeled
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
1/2 teaspoon black pepper, divided
6 strips thick-cut bacon
2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1/4 cup heavy cream (optional)
Fresh basil or parsley, for garnish

Instructions

Roast the vegetables. Preheat oven to 400°F. Arrange tomato halves cut-side up on a large rimmed baking sheet along with the onion quarters and unpeeled garlic cloves. Drizzle with 2 tablespoons olive oil and season with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Roast for 35–40 minutes, until tomatoes are caramelized and slightly collapsed.
Cook the bacon. While the vegetables roast, cook bacon in a large Dutch oven or heavy pot over medium heat until crisp, about 8–10 minutes. Transfer to a paper-towel-lined plate. Reserve 1 tablespoon bacon drippings in the pot; discard the rest.
Build the base. Add remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil to the pot with the reserved drippings over medium heat. Add smoked paprika, thyme, and tomato paste; stir and cook for 1 minute until fragrant.
Combine and simmer. Squeeze the roasted garlic cloves from their skins. Add the roasted tomatoes, onion, and garlic to the pot. Pour in the chicken broth. Season with remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Bring to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes.
Blend the soup. Use an immersion blender to puree the soup until smooth, or carefully transfer in batches to a countertop blender. Return to the pot over low heat.
Finish and serve. Stir in heavy cream if using. Taste and adjust seasoning. Ladle into bowls and top with crumbled bacon and a few fresh basil leaves.

Nutrition (per serving)

Roasted Tomato Bacon Soup -- The Bowl That Was Enough