Last week my husband came home with a 5-pound bag of organic carrots. “Kroger was out of the smaller bags,” he said. “So I thought you could make that carrot soup you’ve been talking about.” Me? Carrot soup? Clearly D has some other, carrot-loving wife he’s confusing me with because carrot soup is not something I spend much time talking about. You see–true confession–I’m a vegan who doesn’t really care for carrots.
Oh, I like them fine as a small component of some soup or stew. And I prefer them cooked to raw, though I can tolerate raw baby carrots if I load them down with enough hummus. I’m just not a big fan of concentrated carrot flavor, so no carrot juice or carrot soup for me. Or so I thought.
My over-crowded refrigerator convinced me otherwise. The gargantuan bag of carrots wouldn’t fit inside a vegetable drawer, so I had to clear out space for it smack dab in the middle of the fridge. I couldn’t get anything on that shelf in or out without moving the carrots, so very quickly I started trying to think of ways that I could get rid of them. And, of course, I came back around to the idea of carrot soup. I mean, did husband D really think I mentioned carrot soup, or was that his smooth way of asking for carrot soup? Maybe I should make carrot soup.
And so I started looking at carrot soup recipes and trying to imagine how all those carrots were going to taste. I looked at curried ones and gingery ones and one hummus-inspired one, but in the end, they all revolved around carrots. (Imagine that.) Finally, I spotted one that offered me an answer. It combined carrots with tomatoes. I love tomato soup, so I could imagine loving a carrot-tomato soup. And I did.
I got out all my appliances for this recipe. I used a food processor to chop the garlic and ginger and to slice the carrots, making the prep time very short. And then I used my Vitamix to blend the soup and my spiralizer to make the garnish. I’m just lucky that long ago my husband agreed to always clean up if I cooked. He didn’t know what he was getting himself into! The clean-up may have been tedious, but we both loved the soup. The fire-roasted tomatoes cut the carrot flavor just enough for my taste without completely hiding it. Unfortunately, our teenager thought it was too gingery, so if you’re cooking for a picky child, consider replacing the ginger with cumin or Italian seasonings.
Gingery Carrot and Tomato Soup
Ingredients
- 1 large onion chopped
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 1 1/2 tablespoons ginger root minced
- 3 - 4 cups vegetable broth
- 1 1/2 pounds carrots about 6 large, trimmed, peeled, and sliced
- 1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes fire-roasted preferred
- 2 - 3 teaspoons low-sodium soy sauce or wheat-free tamari
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper or hot smoked paprika
- 1 teaspoon tahini
Instructions
- Heat a large, non-stick pot and add the onions. Cook, stirring often, until they soften. (If they start to stick, add water by the tablespoon.) Add the garlic and ginger and cook for another minute.
- Add 3 cups of the vegetable broth, carrots, and pepper or paprika. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and cook until the carrots are tender, about 20 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients, EXCEPT tahini.
- Transfer half of the soup to a blender. Leave the top ajar (or remove the center cup from the Vitamix) and cover with a kitchen towel to allow steam to escape. Blend, beginning on low and increasing to high speed, until soup is completely smooth. Pour into another pot and repeat with the remaining soup.
- Simmer, covered, on very low heat for at least 20 minutes to allow flavors to blend. (The soup tastes better the longer it cooks, so if you have the time, give it longer.) If it seems too thick, add additional vegetable broth. Stir in the tahini, check seasonings, and add salt or additional red pepper to taste. Cook for another minute or two before serving hot, garnished with spiralized carrots, if you like.
Notes
Nutritional info is approximate.
Vitamix
I count on my Vitamix to make soups like this silky smooth. Though more expensive than normal blenders, Vitamix blenders are much more powerful, and they are built to last for years, sometimes decades, and have the warranty to back them up. If you don’t want to spend over $500 on a blender (who does), consider buying a certified reconditioned model, like the one I have.
Enjoy!
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stacey hanley
Will cashews, or peanut butter work instead of tahini? just trying to cut down a little bit on the cost
Susan Voisin
Yes, I think that either would work. Hope you enjoy it.
Emma
Looks delicious! I happen to love carrots and probably eat them pretty much every day, raw, cut into sticks for dipping usually. My family joke that I’m turning orange 🙂
Great idea to use the food processor for quick prep.
Susan Graham
Looks like a great recipe! I think there may be a mistake in the first instruction. Did you mean to add the onions to the pot as the first step rather than the carrots?
Susan Voisin
Thanks! That’s exactly what I meant. I’ll make the change now.
Rochelle
How did you know I had too many carrots 🙂
You always seem to have the answer of “What’s for dinner?” 🙂
Chana
Susan, if I fly you and your family in to NYC will you live here and cook for me every day?? All your creations are so beautiful and inspiring.
When’s your book coming out????
Best
Chana
Julie
Susan,
Any way you can use measurements instead of one large onion and 4 cloves of garlic? My husband is taking over cooking duties and this kind of “measurement” drives his engineering mind crazy!
His complaint – and I do agree with him – is onions, garlic or other fruit or vegetable size varies so what I would consider large may be 2.5 cups while his large may be 1 cup.
While I know many recipes it doesn’t really matter but I thought I’d ask, especially for new cooks, it can cut down on the stress while learning.
Thanks,
Julie
Tami@Nutmeg Notebook
Over the summer I had the best carrot ginger soup at a vegan restaurant and I never thought I’d enjoy a carrot based soup so much. Your recipe with tomatoes sounds wonderful!
moonwatcher
Hi Susan,
This sounds divine! I am a lover of carrots, but I am also a lover of carrots and fire roasted tomatoes together. I usually put a small amount of carrot in my pasta sauce made with fire roasted tomatoes. I like the addition of a little tahini into this soup–I think that would go just right with the ginger, carrots and tomatoes. And I love the spiralized carrot on top!! Beautiful photos. xo
Kate
I had boxed carrot/ginger soup last night! This looks WAY better, though.
nicole
Do you drain the can of tomatoes first? Also, could you roast your carrots first?
Susan Voisin
No, I use the tomatoes juice and all. I haven’t tried roasting the carrots, but I’m sure that would be good.
Karen Faivre
Don’t forget abut juicing – you can blow through a lot of carrots that way. And the Eat to Live cookbook has recipes that use carrot juice…
Susan Voisin
Thanks for the idea, but I really, REALLY hate carrot juice in any way, shape, or form. That’s one of the reason’s Dr. Fuhrman’s recipes don’t appeal to me.
Victoria
I thought this would be good, but it’s way past good and well into the AMAZING spectrum. Thank you!!!!
orthohawk
This sounds simply marvelous and it just so happens the store down the street had a huge sale on organic carrots this week. I’m assuming it’s OK to use a stick blender instead? I don’t have a Vitamix (and due to the price probably won’t anytime soon) plus my lazy side has an extreme aversion to dirtying more dishes than is absolutely necessary ;).
I wonder how this would taste with a can of coconut milk in it? Yes, I know that would defeat the “fat free” part of your blog ;), but I do a curried carrot and red lentil soup with coconut milk and it’s heavenly, even if my curry hating friends say it tastes like feet…..feh what do they know!
One more note for all the Kindle users out there: If you copy the recipe in a Word document, you can send it to your “kindle address” that you got from, er, “the company” and it will download onto your kindle in the proper format (no pics though, drat). I have nice little FFV “cookbook” on my machine now.
Lisa @ Je suis alimentageuse
Hi! I’m a first time commenter and I recently started subscribing to your blog (it was suggested by BlogLovin). I love love love this soup! I have a bag of carrots sitting in my fridge untouched, but lately all I’ve been craving is cooked, hot food and raw carrots just don’t seem appealing to me right now. This soup looks amazing and I’m totally going to steal that little carrot garnish trick for my photos =P
Just wondering why you don’t add the tahini until the end? Does cooking tahini do something funny to it?
Rebecca
Hi Susan,
Do you remember however many weeks ago on FB when you asked what people were having for dinner that night? Someone mentioned a soup she had made. . . and I swear, I really think it was a curried ginger carrot soup. I remember a few of us commented on it, saying that sounded great (I even think *you* did!). . . and unless I really have lost my mind, I think I may have asked you to recreate that reader’s soup for us. I have to wonder if you had mentioned that reader’s comment/soup to your husband. . . and maybe it’s YOU who’s nuts – not us! 😉 Either way, though, I can’t wait to make this! Your soups are in a constant daily rotation for my dinners (I, too, prefer one-pot cooking that gets all my high nutrient foods in one easy bowl)!
-x-
Susan Voisin
Ha! Rebecca, you are probably right! These days I can hardly remember my name, so I probably mentioned your request for a carrot ginger soup to my husband. That would explain a lot. Thanks for solving the mystery (though not the mystery of my missing memory)!
Rebecca
Ha! Happy to help 😉
Werner
Didn’t like carrot juice back in the 70s and still don’t – and not really a huge tomato soup fan, either. But…this soup is delectable! Complex taste, luscious texture, so filling yet low-cal. Perfect balance of savory/sweet seems so “foodie”. Served with a dollop of homemade soy yogurt (forced into my own resources since the Whole Soy & Co. hiatus). Absolutely wonderful, a family favorite. Thanks!
Kathy G
Susan,
This looks and sounds good! I do love carrots and tomatoes so I imagine this to be a good combination.
One question though, what did you do with the other 3 1/2 pounds of carrots?!
Susan Voisin
Ha! They’re still in the fridge! Let me know if you have any suggestions for what I can make with them. 🙂
orthohawk
How about a couple more batches of this soup! I made it today and it is truly dee-vine! My stick blender left it a bit too “gritty” so I ended up running it thru the blender anyway; I used the saucepan I cooked up the veggie broth out of the carrot, onion, and garlic scraps from prep. Plus I went a little overboard on the cayenne (used half a tsp instead of a quarter) but I like spicy food, so it turned out OK. Another “go-to” soup for my collection!
Linda Melgoza
Make more soup and freeze it for a simple meal on a busy or tired day 🙂
Sunshine
Could you do this in the electric pressure cooker? I have a Fagor that also has the slow cook function that may work well for letting it simmer longer. I think I shall try it and report back.
55walker
I was in a hurry and just put all the raw ingredients in my electric cooker at high pressure for two minutes with quick release and it is awesome soup.
Corrin Radd
Made this today. Yummy.
Brenda
What a tasty soup! I’m not crazy about carrots, either, but based on your blog, I decided to give it a try. I’m an certainly glad I did. This was very good!
I’ll be cooking this one again!
Debbi
I love tomato soup, but not so sure about the ginger. Will give it a go though. Nothing gained and all that 🙂
devyani
Have you tried vegan gajar (carrot) kaa halwa?
YUMM to eat in winter. Best use of carrots ever.
Julie
Mmmmm. Perfect winter soup. Usually I juice carrots when I buy them in abundance, but this is a great tip. Tasty idea Susan!
Lisa
I made this recipe over the weekend. I decided to add a bit of light coconut milk and some leftover cooked sweet potato. Enjoyed it for breakfast, lunch and dinner!
Amanda
Hi Susan!
Wondering what you think about substituting low fat pb for the tahini, and/or omitting it altogether (for allergy reasons)?
Thanks!
Susan Voisin
I think peanut butter would give it a great flavor. Good idea!
Marion
I just made this. I added 3 cups of broth, and 28oz of diced tomatoes, and 1 tsp of ground pepper. I didn’t add the tahini though as I didn’t want to purchase it for 1tsp. However! this is the best thing that I’ve ever made. EVER. To quicken the cooking process I grated the carrots before adding it in as I used my Kenwood immersion blender. It worked really well. The recipe made about 7.5 cups.
Mary
lucky me–I just found your site! 😀 I suppose it would be alright to just juice the carrots (vs. chop/cook) and add the tomatoes, sauteed garlic/onion after? It would save my lazy bones some of the prep time 😉 I wonder if adding in a can of cannellini beans would taste good too, though I do like tahini. great ideas 🙂 thanks
PS I have yet to find ‘smoked’ paprika, is it actually labeled smoked? Will it make a diff if I just use regular?
The Vegan Junction
Carrot and tomato, I’m sure that’s a combination that’ll go over well. I’ll give this recipe a go tonight!
Patricia
I came across your soups and thought wow , I hope you don’t mind but would love to use your reciepes
Janet
I also dislike carrots, but I made this earlier in the week in a slow cooker and loved it!!! Tasted like a delicious tomato soup. Today I am attempting it in the InstantPot.
Anders Svenson
Hello Susan! This recipe looks great and crispy. All the creations of this recipe are so beautiful and inspiring. The sound of this dish is very tasty. Thanks for sharing.
denise condreay
Sounds wonderful! I make a wonderful carrot and canned pumpkin soup with potato!!! Sweet, creamy and wonderful!!!
Billie St. Marie
Love, love, love all your recipes. I will try this one too. My vitamix is fabulous ! Can you recommend a good food processor, I’m not sure which one to get, sooooooo many…Thank you
Susan Voisin
Thank you, Billie! I bought a Breville food processor last year, and I absolutely love it. I’d had Cuisinarts before, and the Breville is just so much better and easier to use. But it’s very expensive. Here’s a link to the one I have, but there’s a smaller version that costs less: http://amzn.to/2CJ4Nhx