Garlic Soup

Garlic soup is a cold-weather warmer. Any creamy soup is comforting on a cold day, but garlic somehow hits the spot in a way that many other soups don’t. This recipe gets its flavor almost entirely from roasted garlic, which means that it’s as mellow as it is rich. The soup comes together pretty quickly, but you can speed things even more by roasting your garlic in advance and having it ready to go when mealtime rolls around.

Garlic Soup Ingredients

• Garlic: Garlic’s distinctively aromatic and slightly sweet pungency provides the soup with its dominant flavor.
• Olive oil: Brushing the garlic with olive oil before roasting it protects the exposed surfaces from scorching in the oven.
• Butter: Using butter to cook the onions and other flavorings adds richness, and helps develop their own flavors.
• Onion: Onion and garlic are botanical cousins, and here the onion plays a supporting role by rounding out the flavor of the garlic itself.
• Thyme and sage: Both thyme and sage are versatile and flavorful herbs that pair beautifully with garlic.
• Flour: The all-purpose flour serves as a thickener for the soup, giving it a smooth and creamy texture.
• Chicken broth: Reduced-sodium chicken broth provides most of the soup’s liquid as well as a supporting flavor.
• Bay leaf: The bay leaf adds an aromatic note to the broth that brightens and complements the garlic flavor.
• Whipping cream: Heavy whipping cream enriches the soup, and smooths out the bold flavors of the garlic and herbs.
• Sherry (optional): A tablespoon of sherry is optional, but definitely upgrades the flavor. Use a dry sherry, not a cooking sherry, because those are packed with unwanted salt.
• Grated Parmesan and fresh black pepper: Toppings of grated Parmesan and fresh-cracked black pepper are optional, but they’re a nice touch that elevates an already-good soup.

Directions

Step 1: Roast the garlic

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Preheat your oven to 425°F. Remove the loose, papery outer skin from the garlic bulbs, but don’t peel or separate the cloves. Cut off the top of the garlic bulb, to expose the tips of the individual cloves, and brush the exposed surfaces with olive oil. Wrap the garlic in heavy-duty foil and bake until it’s softened, 30 to 35 minutes. Open the foil, and let the bulbs cool for 10 minutes or until they’re cool enough to handle. Squeeze the cloves from each garlic bulb into a bowl, then mash them with a fork until they’re smooth.

Editor’s Tip: To eject the cloves from each bulb, grasp the bulb with the root end facing your hand and the cut surface of the garlic facing your bowl. With a good, firm squeeze, the same kind you’d use to get juice from a lemon, the cloves should slide out neatly. If part of a clove is stuck in its skin, use the tip of a paring knife to ease it out.

Step 2: Cook the soup

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In a Dutch oven, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the onions and cook them until they’re slightly caramelized at the edges, about 8 to 10 minutes. Stir in the garlic, salt, thyme, sage and pepper, and cook for 1 minute longer. Stir in the flour and cook until it’s slightly browned, 1 to 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Slowly whisk in the chicken broth, then add the bay leaf. Bring the broth to a simmer and cook until it thickens, approximately 8 to 10 minutes, whisking frequently. Add the cream and, if desired, the sherry.

Step 3: Puree the soup

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Remove the soup from the heat, discard the bay leaf and cool it slightly. Process it in batches in a blender until it’s smooth, then return it to the pan. If desired, top each serving with grated Parmesan cheese and freshly cracked black pepper.

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Garlic Soup Variations

• Double down on garlic: The recipe as written uses all roasted garlic for its mellow, sweet flavor. If you’re a big garlic lover, you might opt to lean into the garlic a little more heavily. One option is simply to use another bulb (or even two!) of roasted garlic. This doesn’t alter the flavor profile, but gives you more of the same. For a bolder version, many garlic soup recipes suggest mincing a few cloves of fresh garlic and adding them to the pan at the same time as the roasted garlic. Sauteing the fresh garlic briefly in butter mellows it a bit, but you’ll still get a much bolder flavor than from roasted garlic alone. If you have access to fresh garlic scapes from your garden or a farmers market, pureed scapes or scape pesto make an appealing garnish.
• Make it heartier with an added protein: Garlic soup makes a rich starter on its own, or a light lunch with crusty bread or a salad. If you want to craft a more substantial version, adding a protein ingredient of your choice is an easy way to do that. Diced leftover chicken is an obvious choice, but it’s far from the only one. Flaked leftover (or canned) salmon is surprisingly good in a soup like this, and so are shrimp. Another tasty option is a bold-flavored sausage, like Spanish-style chorizo. Dice it small and brown it in the Dutch oven as you cook the onions, then proceed with the recipe as written. The chorizo adds a bit of spice and a huge hit of flavor, and tints the soup slightly because of its paprika content.

How to Store Garlic Soup

Any soup that’s left over should be transferred to food safe containers and refrigerated after the meal. The soup will cool more quickly (and remain food safe for longer) if you use small, flat containers rather than one large one. The added surface area dissipates heat quickly, compared to a large and deep container. Leave the lids off initially, until the soup cools to room temperature, to speed the process.

Can I make this cream of garlic soup ahead of time?

Yes, you absolutely can. In fact, like many soups, it will taste even better after being refrigerated overnight. The only potential downside is that a creamy soup with lots of garlic is prone to sticking and scorching when you reheat it. Use a heavy-bottomed pot and low temperatures, and heat it slowly while stirring frequently. Alternatively, you can warm individual portions in the microwave. If you have a home espresso machine its steam wand reheats cream soups and sauces very quickly, without scorching, but you’ll need to clean the wand really well before you use it again for a latte (unless you want a garlic flavored coffee).

How long will my garlic soup keep?

It should be fine for 3 to 4 days in your fridge, in a tightly-sealed container (you probably don’t want everything in your fridge to smell of garlic). For longer-term storage you can freeze it in individual or family-sized portions. In the freezer it can last 3 to 6 months, though it’ll be best within the first 1 to 3 months. Stir frequently as it thaws and reheats, to help preserve a smooth consistency. If the consistency is uneven, adding a bit more heavy cream or thickening it back to its original texture with a cornstarch slurry will help.

Garlic Soup Tips

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Why can’t I cut the top off of my garlic? It seems hard and woody.

Broadly speaking there are two kinds of garlic, softneck and hardneck. It sounds like what you have is the hardneck kind. Supermarket garlic is almost always a softneck variety, but hardneck garlic is common at farmers markets and for home gardeners. That woody central stem is the remnant of a flowering stalk, which you might know as a garlic scape. Simply cut around the stem at the appropriate height, exposing the tips of the cloves but leaving the stem in place. You could try to cut it off with a sharp, heavy knife or kitchen shears, but it’s an unnecessary extra step.

How do I puree soup in a blender without making a mess?

You’re probably trying to do too much soup at once. Never fill your blender jar more than 1/3 of the way, because the hot soup will leap to the lid and very often blow it right off. That makes a big mess on your counter, and there’s also a scalding risk. Your best bet is to fold a kitchen towel and put that over the blender’s lid to protect your hand, then hold it firmly in place when you push the button to start.

Can I use an immersion blender instead of the regular kind?

Yes, that’s often the most convenient way to puree a soup if you have a reasonably powerful immersion blender. Instead of working in small batches with a regular blender, just plop your immersion blender into the pot and let it do its thing. The only thing to be aware of is that even a really good immersion blender will seldom puree every little bit of the soup. For the smoothest possible result, pour the soup through a fine strainer to remove any noticeable pieces. You can always put those into a measuring cup with a bit of the soup, and puree them separately before adding them back.

Should I be worried about “garlic breath”?

Roasted garlic doesn’t linger on your breath in nearly the same way that fresh garlic does, so it’s not a big concern. If you’re worried about it, garnish the soup with sprigs of fresh parsley and then chew the parsley when you’re done. It helps tone down the garlic on your breath.