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I know that a lot of people might cringe at the sound of garlic soup. And I can see why. A lot of people associate garlic with Italian restaurants, where they dump mounds of raw garlic into sauces, breads, meat, etc. And for the rest of the night you’re burping, breathing, and sweating out garlic. I am not a fan of the unappealing garlic breath either, so I made it my goal to make this soup with a mild and sweet garlic flavor. And I think I succeeded! :)

I made this soup for the soup swap I went to this past Sunday with some fellow food bloggers. They’re all garlic lovers, so they really enjoyed the soup. But even if you’re not used to eating a lot of garlic, I think even a garlic newbie will enjoy the nutty sweetness of roasted garlic in this soup.

Roasted Garlic Soup (Adapted from epicurious.com)

Makes 8 servings

Ingredients:

  • 70-75 cloves of garlic, unpeeled (depending on how large the cloves are–you be the judge)
  • 4 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 tbsp unsalted butter
  • 4 cups onions, chopped (about 2 large onions)
  • 3 tsp chopped fresh thyme
  • 15-18 cloves of garlic, peeled
  • 7 cups low-sodium chicken broth
  • 1 cup half & half
  • 1/4 to 1/3 cup Kraft Parmesan cheese (or store brand, or fresh)
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 4 oz tub of freshly grated Parmesan cheese (for serving)
  • Freshly squeezed lemon juice (for serving)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place the 70-75 garlic cloves in a roasting pan. A jelly roll pan sprayed with cooking spray will do just fine. Toss the garlic cloves with 2 tbsp of olive oil and sprinkle evenly with salt and pepper. Roast for 45 minutes or until the cloves are tender to the touch. (Note: the original recipe calls to roast the garlic in a glass baking dish and then covered with foil. I do not have a glass baking dish so I opted for the jelly roll pan. And I only covered the garlic in foil for half of the cooking time. This worked perfectly fine for me.)

2. Cool the roasted garlic. Then squeeze the garlic between your fingertips to release the cloves. Transfer to a small bowl and set aside.

3. Melt the remaining 2 tbsp of olive oil and the 2 tbsp of butter in a large pot or dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onions and thyme and cook until onions are translucent, about 8-10 minutes. Add the roasted garlic and the 15-18 raw garlic cloves and cook for about 3 minutes. Add the chicken stock; cover and simmer until the raw garlic is very tender; about 30 minutes.

4. Puree the soup in a blender until smooth. Return the soup to the pot; add the cream and bring to a simmer. Sprinkle with desired amount of salt and pepper. Stir in the Parmesan cheese, starting with 1/4 cup. Taste; add more as needed for your liking. Add more salt and pepper as needed.

5. Serve sprinkled with freshly grated Parmesan cheese and the juice from 1 lemon wedge. Cover and refrigerate any leftovers.

My two cents: First of all, this soup will make your house stink. But it will make it stink in a great, Italian-restaurant sort of way. Also, it takes a while to make. But not at all in an annoying way, especially if you love to just veg out in the kitchen in your garlic-smelling pajamas on a Saturday morning-afternoon with the TV on in the background.

As for how many cloves of garlic to use, you be the judge. The original recipe called for a higher ratio of raw to roasted garlic. And a lot of the reviews complained that the soup was delicious, but way too pungent. So they simply upped the amount of roasted garlic and put in fewer raw cloves. I took that advice, and I’m glad I did. I put in 15 cloves of raw garlic, and that was plenty–any more than that and I would’ve smelled like a garlic mess after my work out the day I ate it. Also, if a clove of garlic is particularly big, you might want to count that one as two cloves. You’ll notice that sometimes one big clove on the outside has little baby cloves inside (those pregnant little sneaks). In the end, I used four heads of garlic for the roasted garlic, and 1 head of garlic for the raw garlic–but garlic heads vary in the amount of cloves in them, so go by that number.

Beware, some of the roasted garlic will actually turn into paste, which makes for squeezing it out of the skin a very messy experience. But also kind of fun… ;)

The cheap ol’ bottle of Kraft Parmesan cheese is my own add in this recipe. When I originally tasted the soup, I thought it needed some more balance in it. So I sprinkled a little at a time in the soup and tasted it until I got it to a sweet and mild flavor. I’m pretty sure it ended up being about 1/3 of a cup.

Also, to get a milder flavor from the raw garlic, I left it simmering in the chicken stock for a while. I even cranked up the heat to a boil and let them roll around like that for a while. This is step 3 in the directions.

And here’s a convenient little trick to get the smell of garlic off of your hands (and trust me, you’ll NEED this after you’ve worked with garlic all day)–Simply rub your fingertips with lemon juice. Actually, scrub them with lemon juice. I read that somewhere, and somehow, for some reason, it works. Don’t ask me why. It’s science.

Okay, enough of me talking about garlic. Now it’s time for you to go give this recipe a try…and I hope you love it :)