Roasted Red Pepper Soup with Cilantro Lime Sour Cream and Roasted Corn

This soup is a dream come true. It’s Cassia‘s recipe, and we made it for the cooking class ladies last Friday before they arrived. There was going to be enough for them to do with butterflying naked chickens and chopping pounds upon pounds of brussel sprouts without adding this soup to the tasklist.

The sweet flavor of the red peppers with the depth of the onions and garlic—oooooh. Aaaaah. It’s creamy, light, and perfect in every way.

And as I discovered by accident, it’s delicious cold! Its light sweetness is reminiscent of gazpacho, and I can’t wait to serve it chilled during the summer.

Ingredients

(Serves 6)

8 red bell peppers, halved and seeded

½ cup sweet corn

2 TBS butter

1 white onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

¼ cup tomato paste

6 cups chicken stock

2 cups heavy cream

1 ½ TBS cornstarch, mixed with 2 TBS water

½ cup cilantro, chopped

Salt and freshly ground pepper

1 cup sour cream

½ lime, juiced

1 TBS cilantro

First things first: crank up the broiler in your oven.

Now grab those peppers and give them a nice wash. By the way, we tripled the recipe, so if it looks like we’re using waaaaay more ingredients than I listed here, it’s because we did.

Slice the peppers in half lengthwise (removing the stems and seeds) . . .

. . . and arrange them on a roasting pan with the skin sides facing up. No need to oil or season them.

Broil those sweet red darlings until the outside skin is black and crispy. This took us about 20 minutes, but the timing will vary depending on the power of your broiler and the proximity of your peppers to the element/flame. So keep an eye!

Poifect.

Oh my gosh! I said that just like my Mom. She says ‘poifect’ too–what is the world coming to? I think I’m becoming my mother.

Cassia’s method for de-skinning these little beauties involves placing the peppers in paper bags . . .

. . . and putting them in the freezer for a while–maybe 10 minutes? I wasn’t counting.

This cools them quickly so that the skin can be removed asap. However, I’ve also heard you can put them in a ziploc bag and seal it for a couple minutes to help things along. Either way, the skin must go.

Here’s a plate of naked peppers. Please avert your eyes.

Here’s a pile of red pepper guts. Please avert your eyes again.

And that’s the end of the PG-13 material! All pictures are family friendly from here on out.

Since the broiler is still going strong, spread the corn (fully drained!) on a roasting sheet:

Broil it for a few minutes, until the kernels are starting to blacken.

Put it into a bowl–this is going to be one of our two lovely garnishes.

Now it’s time to dice the onion and garlic:

Don’t worry about making it pretty or uniform since it’s all going to be blended anyway.

In a Dutch oven or large pot, melt the butter over medium low heat, and sauté the onion and garlic until soft (about 5 minutes).

While that’s cooking, roughly chop up the roasted bell peppers–they will feel a little slimy.

But also kind of cool. If you think slimy = cool, that is.

Add the tomato paste to the onions and garlic, and cook for another few minutes to take the can-like edge off the paste and give the whole shebang some extra depth of flavor.

Add the peppers to the pot and cook for a minute or two longer.

Now it’s time to pour in the chicken stock.

Bring the soup to a boil and then reduce the heat down to low; cover and simmer it for 10 minutes.

While it’s simmering, let’s assemble the lime cilantro sour cream. Mince up some cilantro nice and fine:

Squeeze the lime juice into the sour cream, and whisk until smooth.

Add the cilantro and whisk a little more (by the way, you should really use a whisk instead of a spoon–it helps give it a creamy and silky texture).

Give it a taste and add more lime juice to taste, then refrigerate it until you’re ready to serve the soup.

And back to the soup! It’s time to add the cream:

And the 1/2 cup of cilantro:

And some salt and pepper to taste:

And some cornstarch (mixed with a little water to form a slurry). Please take a horrible picture of this step, just to make me feel better.

Thanks.

Simmer the soup for about 5 more minutes to thicken it a little more. Then, grab an immersion blender and blend the soup up until it’s uniform and creamy.

You can also do this in a blender (in batches), but I really don’t want you to burn or hurt yourself, so please be careful it you do it this way!

Time to eat! Serve the soup with dollops of cilantro lime sour cream and a sprinkling of roasted corn on top.

If you’re into wine pairings, this is the wine Cassia selected to accompany the soup:

Take me home to glory, baby. This is heaven.

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34 thoughts on “Roasted Red Pepper Soup with Cilantro Lime Sour Cream and Roasted Corn”

  2. The Food Hound

    I love soups with corn in them, but I usually find them kind of thin and blah, except for the flavor of the corn. This does NOT seem to be the case with this one because of the heavy cream!! You are my hero- I love heavy cream in soups 🙂 I’m glad it didn’t turn out pink- I was kind of thinking it might with all those red peppers, haha 🙂 Love the roasted corn as a garnish! You could totally make this for a crowd!

    1. Jenna

      Yeah, pink soup would be . . . weird. Weird and wrong. I love the deep orange color it becomes by the end, and the flavor is seriously out of this world.

      1. Mads

        I made a corn chowder recently and it came out brown. Not at all the rich yellow color I was imagining.
        In any case, this soup looks like it could beat my soup up. Can’t wait to make it!

      2. Jenna

        Yeah, I can see how brown corn chowder would be a little off-putting. I can vouch for the beautiful color of this soup–it’s a gorgeous dusty orange. Though now that we’re talking about chowder, it’s been forever since I’ve had a good clam chowder . . . all of a sudden I’ve got the hankering.

  3. SoupAddict Karen

    You had me at “soup.” But of course! I love roasted red pepper soup, and my latest mini obsession is lime cream … only now I’ll be adding cilantro … the two together must be fabulous!

  4. Wendi

    Love the idea of lime cilantro sour cream with roasted red pepper. Has a very summery feel…which gets my mind off the fact that it’s dreadfully cold out.

  6. Wendy

    Yumm. We have people over for soup on Good Friday… a church tradition….. and this just fits the bill for a good new soup (without gluten). Hooray for good soup.

  7. Sarah

    once upon a time, i tried roasted red pepper soup. it was at a campus eating facility and it was oily and disgusting. but jenna… you might have just convinced me to make this soup. you have a gift. 🙂

    p.s. i didn’t know jewel was even still in existence anymore. i guess i did, my grandpa still shops there. but oh that grocery store reminds me of my youth! (i lived in NW indiana until i was 8…a strong jewel community lol)

    1. Jenna

      Sarah, I promise that no oiliness or disgustingness will happen with this soup! Throw off the shackles of the past and take the leap–you’ll absolutely love it!

  9. Joanne

    I was kind of worried about what’s going to happen to my soup obsession once summer hits. Now I don’t have to. You’re always looking out for my best interest.

  10. Carol Ann Hoel

    I must try this recipe, too. The roasted red peppers with all those other good ingredients cannot be anything but delicious! Thank you for sharing this recipe and for the link to Cassia’s blog. Blessings to you, Jenna…

  11. Becky

    Jenna,

    Thanks for visiting my blog, Daily On My Way to Heaven and leaving a kind comment.

    This is my first time visiting you and I need to say that I will cook this soup TODAY! Can’t wait no more, it looks delicious.

    Blessings as you walk under His sun and by His grace!

    1. Jenna

      The idea isn’t to freeze the peppers, but just cool them off so that you can take the skins off them. Just pop them in the freezer for 10 minutes or so, and it helps things along. Hope that clarifies things!

      1. sb

        Oops sorry, I mean would the soup itself freeze well? When we make a batch of soup, we usually freeze so we can have an easy meal another day.

      2. Jenna

        That’s a great question . . . I know it refrigerates well, but I haven’t tried to freeze it. If you try it, let me know, because now I’m curious! If other cream-laden veggie soups freeze well, I can’t imagine this one wouldn’t. Hmmmm. Further research is required! =)

  13. Diane

    Thanks so much for your visit and for your very kind comments. I have bookmarked this recipe it sounds soooooooo delicious. Take care Diane

  16. At Home and Away

    AAaaaaa!!! This looks amazing!! and like it might make a great addition to the r&r menu plan. Of course, i will have to make it before hand to test it out…:) can’t wait to sink my teeth…or whatever, into this!

    1. Twinky

      …and doesn’t Anne of Green Gables say that imitation is the highest form of, of, of…. oh yes, flattery! Notice that is flattery, not FATtery! =) So keep on quoting me, it is doing wonders for my self esteeem (bwahahaha!)

  23. Three-Cookies

    Very interesting looking bowl, I have never seen this before. And of course the soup looks and sounds delicious. Roasted peppers are awesome. Have you tried ajvar – roasted pepper spread from Serbia/Balkans?

  25. Rox

    Jenna this looks so good! I’ve had corn on the brain recently and this fits the bill! I can’t wait to hear more about your cooking classes!

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