Delicious and Simple Carrot Soup
Carrot Soup
This carrot soup is creamy, delicious, super healthy for you and easy!
- Prep Time5 min
- Cook Time15 min
- Total Time20 min
- Serves4-6
Ingredients
- 7 Carrots
- 4-8 Cups Water
- 1/4 Onion
- 3 Garlic Cloves
- 1 Sprig of Fresh Oregano or 1/2 tsp dried
- 1 TBS Fresh Thyme, or 3/4 tsp dried
- 2 Fresh Basil Leaves or 1 tsp dried
- 1/2 Can Tomato Paste (about 2 heaping TBS)
- 1 tsp Pepper
- Salt to taste
- 1 TBS Olive Oil
Method
Roughly chop carrots and place them in a saucepan filled with stock or water, enough to cover the carrots.
Boil the carrots until soft. About 10 minutes
Meanwhile, roughly chop the onion, garlic, oregano, thyme and basil and place them in a saucepan with the olive oil.
On medium heat, cook the onion and spices until fragrant and the onion is soft and translucent.
Once the carrots are soften and the onions and herbs are cooked, place them all into a blender, including the water. Add the tomato paste and pepper.
Blend on high, while adding water as needed to reach desired consistency.
Add salt and taste. Continue adding salt and tasting until the desired amount is reached and the dish is flavorful.
Serve and enjoy. Leftovers heat up easily. Feel free to drizzle a bit of cream or half and half over the top for vegatarians, and your favorite vegan cream substitute for vegans for added flavor.
This is such an easy way to get those veggies in. Enjoy with toast and a side salad. We love to eat this with toasted tuna melts.
Hearty Soup ready in minutes
Do you have some extra carrots lying around that just aren’t getting eaten? This is usually the case around my house. I sort of don’t love carrots, but I also don’t hate them. I just need to find a better way to use them. Since I don’t like them raw, I decided that I needed to cook them. I’m not a big fan of carrots that have been softened by either boiling them or roasting them and then eating them whole, so I decided to take them to the next level.
So, my mind took me to the blender. Time to whiz ’em up! I thought about different flavors that would compliment them as well as what I had on hand and I came up with this beauty. It’s the easiest soup to create with just a few ingredients that you most likely already have on hand. We just went to a “U-Pick Garden” where they had fresh carrots for $1/lb. Score! Fresh is best and since I don’t have a garden of my own, this is a great way to get some in season fresh veggies. So let’s get crackin’ on how to make this amazing soup.
Here's how to do it...
Take your carrots and chop them up. You don’t need to spend a bunch of time making them perfect, you’re just going to blend them up. So chop them up and get on with your life! I do try and cut the thicker end pieces in half as they will take the longest to cook through, but you don’t have to do that. They’ll just take a bit more time to cook and that’s fine. Either way just make your life easier whatever that means. There are not hard and fast rules with cooking, so don’t sweat the insignificant details and make your food work for you. Once cut, throw them into a pot and add your chicken stock or water. I don’t measure this, I just add enough liquid to cover them while they boil. You’ll most likely be adding more at the end to thin out your soup so don’t fret about if you’re adding too much. Water is great but chicken stock will enhance the overall flavor that you’ll get, so if you have that use it. If you want to learn how to make your own broth click here. Boil on high with the lid off or cover it and cook them on medium low, making sure they don’t boil over. Cook them for about 10 minutes.
While your carrots are cooking, use your same cutting board and knife that you used for the carrots and chop up the onion, garlic and herbs. I used red onion this time, but I have used yellow onions as well. Sweet onions cooked down until caramelized is another great way to add a bit more depth to this soup that you’ll really love. It’s sweet and rich. If you go that route then wait to add the garlic and herbs as they will burn before the onions brown. If you’re in a bit more of a hurry, then throw them all in a pan and cook them on medium high with a drizzle of olive oil until the onion has softened and before the garlic burns. If your onions are cooking slower than your garlic, turn down the heat and keep cooking until the garlic is browned but not burned. At this point take it off the heat. Cooking your herbs and spices together create great flavor in your soup. I don’t know about you but I’m not a huge fan of raw garlic. It’s sharp and unpleasant and it lingers in the back of your throat. I don’t care for that so I cook them to get the garlic nice and roasted as well as coax the flavors out of the herbs and onions. Together they create some great flavor that will play well in our soup.
After 10 minutes of your carrots boiling take a fork and give them a poke to see if their soft or not. They don’t need to be completely mushy to be done, but they shouldn’t feel too boney either. If they feel boney, cook them for another 5 minutes. Feel free to add water or broth if you need to to keep them from burning.
Once your carrots are soft, throw them into a blender, liquid and all. Add in your onions, garlic and herbs as well. Put in your tomato paste and pepper. Feel free to add in a teaspoon of salt. Turn on the blender and add chicken broth or water while it’s blending to get your desired thickness and to help it blend. I like to blend on high for at least 3 minutes. This ensure that the soup is smooth and silky. After 3 minutes taste the soup. It most likely will need more salt, so don’t freak out if it’s not amazing yet. Add in more salt, whiz it up, and taste again. Continue this until the soup tastes well rounded in flavor. If it feels like it’s lacking, you probably still need some salt. Just be careful not to over salt. If you do, you can always add some more water or broth.
We love to eat this with toasted tuna melts and a simple side salad. There’s something so yummy about dipping that crunchy sandwich into the soup. My boys really love it that way and often gobble it up. You can also just make some croutons or toasted bread to throw in there if you don’t want to make a sandwich.
Versatile for any type of eater
If you are a vegetarian and want to add more protein to this meal it’s so easy. Throw in some chickpeas or beans into the blender while it’s blending. Whabam! If you like your soup to have more of a tomatoey flavor then add the entire can of tomato paste and maybe even throw some chopped tomatoes into the carrots while they are boiling. Add some parmesan on the top to make this super fancy and delicious. Get creative and make it fit you and your families taste.
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