Tomato Fennel Soup
You’ll love the depth of flavor from the roasted fennel and leeks in my Tomato Fennel Soup recipe! Enjoy it while wrapped in your favorite blanket on a cold, blustery day.
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Tomato soup is tomato soup is tomato soup. Right? Well, it is unless it’s this delicious version with roasted fennel and leeks!
You’ll love this richly flavored soup with your favorite grilled cheese sandwich alongside. It’s the perfect antidote for a miserably cold day.
How to Make Tomato Fennel Soup
You’ll start the recipe soup by prepping the fennel and leeks. Clean the fennel, slice off the top, and then cut the bulb crosswise into thin slices.
Remove the dark green parts from the leeks and cut them crosswise as well. Separate the fennel and leeks into rings.
Put them on a baking sheet, drizzle them with a little olive oil and then bake until the fennel is brown around the edges and some of the leeks are charred. Trust me on charring the leeks – it really does add a nice flavor to the finished soup.
While the fennel and leeks are cooking, put the rest of the olive oil in a large deep skillet over medium high heat. Add the tomatoes with all their juices and bring to a boil. Add the herbes de Provence, reduce the heat, and let simmer.
Next, add all the roasted leeks and fennel along with the beef broth. Bring the mixture back to the boil, reduce the heat again and let it all simmer together for a few more minutes.
Using either a hand-held blender or a regular blender working in small batches, process the soup until it’s the texture that you like.
We like this soup very thick and chunky, but you can process it as smoothly as you want. I kinda like seeing the little flecks of charred leeks and chunks of fennel in my bowl. If you want a thinner soup, I’d suggest just adding water rather than more beef stock since this soup is very rich.
Garnish with some homemade croutons (pumpernickel is nice) and tiny threads of fennel fronds.
🧾 More Recipes You’ll Like
- Classic Tuscan Minestrone
- English Onion Soup
- Turkey Mushroom and Potato Soup
- Creole Black Eyed Pea Soup
- Vegetable Soup
- Mushroom Soup
More Questions? I’m happy to help!
If you have more questions about the recipe, or if you’ve made it and would like to leave a comment, scroll down to leave your thoughts, questions, and/or rating!
Thanks so much for stopping by!
Tomato Fennel Soup
Ingredients
- 1 fennel bulb sliced thinly
- 3 leeks white part only, sliced thinly
- 4 tablespoons olive oil divided
- Salt and pepper
- 43.5 ounces canned diced tomatoes with their juice (3 14.5 ounce cans)
- 1 tablespoon herbes de Provence
- 1 ½ cups beef broth
- Water
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
- Gently separate the slices of fennel and leeks into rings. Place on a baking sheet and drizzle with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper. Toss to coat all with the oil.
- Bake in preheated oven for 25-30 minutes or until fennel is browned around the edges and softened and some of the leeks are charred. Remove from the oven and set aside.
- In a deep skillet over medium high heat, add the remaining two tablespoons of olive oil and the tomatoes with their juice. Bring to the boil.
- Add the herbes de Provence and reduce the heat to a simmer. Cover and cook for 15-20 minutes or until the tomatoes soften and begin to break down.
- Add the beef broth, fennel and leeks. Cook for an additional 15 minutes.
- Using either a regular or hand-held blender, process the soup until it reaches the texture you like. Add water if needed to thin the soup.
- Taste and adjust seasonings if needed.
- Garnish with croutons and fennel fronds.
Notes
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information is calculated by software based on the ingredients in each recipe. It is an estimate only and is provided for informational purposes. You should consult your healthcare provider or a registered dietitian if precise nutrition calculations are needed for health reasons.
How many oz are the tomato cans?
That was three 14.5 ounce cans, Paulina.
Tomato fennel soup sounds just about perfect for dinner tonight. :)
This is perfect! I’ve been loving fennel lately and can’t seem to get enough.
Oh the Biltmore estate is so beautiful and all the museum-type visits are just what we love – this is so our kind of day. And that soup is fabulous! I absolutely love roasted fennel, love it, and adding it into a tomato soup is wonderful. I admire anyone that can taste a dish and then recreate it at home. Fabulous recipe! Great post, adorable grandkids!
Great pics! It seems you are always off somewhere new and exploring somewhere exciting :)
I really need to invest in a hand blender. I don’t know why I haven’t done it yet–it would save me so much time!
Oh, definitely! You’ll use a hand held blender so much more than the traditional kind. I really enjoy mine.
What a fun day!!! Touring the south is definitely on my to do list – so many wonderful sites to visit and SO much amazing food to sample!!
This soup sounds wonderful as well and right up my alley!
I think you’d enjoy a tour, Nancy. We’re pretty proud of our heritage here and, most especially, our cuisine. We really mean it when we say, “Y’all come back now, you hear.”
Thanks for the memories Lana; I loved visiting the Biltmore House when I lived in NC.
And thanks for another tomato soup recipe…ever since venturing into making my own, I have not bought one can of Campbells; now THIS is umm umm good!
No need for Campbell’s when making your own is so, so easy! So happy to remind you of Biltmore and here’s hoping you enjoy a nice pot of homemade tomato soup soon.
That’s definitely a hay rake. We’ve been there several times and its always enjoyable. We usually combine a trip to Lake Lure/Chimney Rock since its only about 45 mins from there.
That’s a great idea, Travis. There’s so much to do around Asheville! As you said, Lake Lure and Chimney Rock are right there, along with the beautiful scenery on the Parkway. Great place to spend a vacation.
Recreating memorable dishes that I’ve eaten at restaurants is one of my inspirations in the kitchen. One of these days I’ll get to Asheville and visit the Biltmore – until then, I have your deliciously chunky tomato fennel soup!
It is fun, isn’t it, to get into your own kitchen and try to make a dish that you especially enjoyed in a restaurant! I don’t always get it right, but this one did turn exceptionally well, if I do say so myself :-) And I really hope you get to visit Biltmore one of these days. It’s unforgettable.
Oh beautiful! I live two hours from Asheville in South Charlotte, I need to go to the Biltmore:-) Thank you for sharing, I look forward to sharing this with my hubby:-) Your soup looks fantastic! Hugs, Terra
Terra, if you’ve never been to Biltmore you should take a day to do it! Really. And it does take a full day to really see the whole estate and the house. Hope you do it soon!