Creamy Carrot Soup Recipe (2024)

FAQs

How can I make my soup more creamy? ›

The best options for thickening soup are cream or half and half. Plain yogurt or even freshly grated cheese works well and adds an extra layer of tangy, salty flavor. Add the dairy at the end and avoid bringing the soup to a boil since this can cause yogurt, cheese, or cream to split.

If a soup is tasting bland in the bowl, consider adding acid rather than salt. A squeeze of lemon or lime, or a dash of yogurt or sour cream can add brightness to the bowl. Start with the basics. Ensure you've added enough salt and black pepper.

Heat the oil in a large pan, add the onions, carrots and garlic, sauté for 4 mins, until they are beginning to soften but not colour. Stir in the ground coriander and plenty of seasoning and cook for 1 min. Add the stock and bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 20 mins or until the carrots are really tender.

Yes, you can definitely add cream to your soup. Whether you use a few tablespoons or a few cups, cream gives soup a silky mouthfeel and rich flavor. You can definitely add milk or other dairy as well, though it will taste gradually less creamy as you go down in percent.

Add Flour Or Cornstarch

You can thicken soup by adding flour, cornstarch, or another starchy substitute.

Start by sautéing onions, garlic, maybe celery, then adding the water and beans, and simmering. Add the carrots in the last half hour or so or when the beans are close to tender.

Add flour or cornflour

Put a tablespoon of either into a small bowl and stir in 2-3 tbsp of the soup until you have a smooth mixture. Stir this back into the soup and bring it to a simmer. Cook for a few minutes to allow the starch granules to burst to thicken, and to cook out any flour flavour.

A common mistake is to not run the blender long enough. This results in a grainy-textured soup. The soup should be blended long enough to create a silky-smooth texture. Once the soup has been fully blended, it can also be strained through a fine mesh strainer to ensure any skins or tough fibers are removed.

For clear, brothy soups, stock is your most important ingredient. If you want to make a good soup, you need to use an excellently flavored stock — otherwise, the entire pot could be tasteless.

What not to do when making soup? ›

“Low and slow” is the way to go, according to experts. Making soup from scratch seems relatively simple — you throw ingredients into a pot and let it simmer away. But small mistakes, like adding too much salt or putting all of your ingredients into the pot at once, can ruin the taste and texture.

Foods that have a great deal of acidity, like lemon juice, vinegar, white wine, and tomato puree, can help liven up the flavor of bland-tasting bone and other broths. "The acidity of these ingredients works to complement and enhance the broth's flavors, not mask it.

Carrots are loaded with nutrition, including fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C and calcium. And while it's true that carrots are good for eye health, their antioxidants also help protect your heart, skin, brain and immune system while reducing inflammation.

Combine carrots, chicken broth, and onion in a large pot. Pour enough water into the pot to assure the ingredients are covered; add garlic, thyme, and tarragon. Bring the liquid to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low, place a cover on the pot, and simmer the mixture until the carrots are very tender, 40 to 50 minutes.

Go for uniformity when selecting carrots by eye — it's the best way to ensure you're getting as close to a pound as possible without relying on a scale. From there, you can scale up or down as need; 10 carrots will get you to two pounds, and two to three carrots equates to half a pound.

The thing to do when thickening soups without dairy is to add a type of starch. Starch molecules thicken and take on water when exposed to heat, which can take any liquid from runny to thick and creamy. Bread and wheat are starches, but so are rice and potatoes, cornmeal, and other cereal grains.

Pantry hot sauces, like Tabasco and Cholula, generally have vinegar as an ingredient, so they introduce both acidity and heat. They are best when added to creamy canned soups and chowders such as broccoli cheddar, clam chowder, and corn chowder.

The consistency can be adjusted by adding stock or water if it's too thick, or if it's too thin either simmer it on the stove or add roux or a slurry of refined starch (cornstarch, potato starch).