Fresh carrots are one of the most budget-friendly and versatile ingredients at the grocery store. So when money is tight, grab a bag of carrots and make this truly outstanding, rich and creamy, warm and cozy roasted Carrot Soup. I used brown butter for nuttiness, cream to add body, and ginger and thyme to elevate the flavors and make it truly extraordinary! The incredible flavor in this carrot soup will blow you away!
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Ingredients for Carrot Soup
This luscious and creamy carrot soup is deceptively simple. Here’s all you’ll need to make your own homemade carrot soup:
- Carrots: These budget superstars become deliciously sweet and caramelized when roasted, which adds a unique and complex flavor to the soup that you won’t get from just boiling carrots.
- Olive Oil: Olive oil coats the carrots as they roast so they slowly caramelize instead of drying out.
- Butter: A generous amount of browned butter is used to sauté the onions, making this carrot soup extra rich and adding even more nutty flavor.
- Onion: Onion provides a nice savory base to the soup.
- Ginger: Ginger adds a subtle warm heat to the soup that balances the sweetness and creamy texture perfectly.
- Thyme: A little bit of thyme adds earthiness and dimension to the flavor profile.
- Chicken Broth: Chicken broth adds volume to the soup and provides plenty of savory flavor.
- Heavy Cream & Sour Cream: Heavy cream makes the soup rich and luscious and, if you choose to use sour cream, the acidity from the sour cream adds a bright richness. You can use only heavy cream if preferred.
How to Store and Reheat carrot soup
Carrot soup will stay good in the refrigerator for about five days, or frozen for up to three months. Freeze the soup in individual portions so you can thaw as much as needed at one time. Frozen carrot soup can be thawed in the refrigerator overnight and reheated in a pot over low heat, or pop the individual portion into a microwave straight from the freezer—cover to avoid splatter, and cook until it’s steaming.
Carrot Soup Add-Ins
This carrot soup is deliciously simple, but if you want to add even more flare to your carrot soup, try adding some of these ingredients:
- Add curry powder when sautéing the onions
- Replace heavy cream with full-fat coconut milk
- Drizzle chili crisp over each bowl
- Add a heaping spoonful of red Thai curry paste
- Drizzle a little pesto on top
- Add homemade croutons
- Freshly cracked black pepper for even more of a peppery bite!
What to Serve with Carrot Soup
Carrot soup is very filling on its own, but it also pairs well with these fantastic recipes:
- Spinach Feta Grilled Cheese
- Crunchy Kale Chicken Salad
- Lemon Pepper Chicken With Orzo
- No Knead Bread
Carrot Soup
Servings 4 2 cups eachIngredients
- 2 lbs. carrots ($1.49)
- 2 Tbsp olive oil ($0.12)
- 1/2 tsp salt ($0.03)
- 4 Tbsp salted butter ($0.50)
- 1 yellow onion ($0.65)
- 1 tsp thyme ($0.10)
- 3 cups water ($0.00)
- 3 cups chicken broth ($0.36)
- 1 cup heavy cream ($1.12)
- 2 tsp fresh ginger ($0.21)
- 2 sprigs Italian parsley (optional) ($0.05)
- 4 Tbsp sour cream (optional) ($0.08)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400°F. Clean the carrots and cut them into 1/4 inch rounds. Add them to a sheet pan, then drizzle with olive oil and salt. Roast the carrots at 400°F for about 35 minutes until they have softened and begun to caramelize.
- While the carrots roast, dice the onions. Add the butter to a large Dutch oven and cook over medium heat until it foams and the milk solids start to brown. Turn off the heat, add the thyme and cook for one minute, to infuse the butter.
- Turn the heat to medium and cook the onions in the browned butter until the onions are translucent, about two minutes.
- Add the chicken broth, heavy cream, ginger, and water. Cover and leave the lid slightly ajar. Simmer until carrots are done. Do not boil, as the cream will curdle.
- When the carrots have begun to caramelize, take them out of the oven.
- Add the carrots to the chicken broth. Cook uncovered until carrots easily fall apart when pressed by a fork. There is no exact time for this, but it will be anywhere from 30 to 40 minutes, depending on the age of the carrots, how thick you cut them, how long you roasted them, and the cook temp of your soup.
- Add soup to a blender, Take the center cap off of your blender lid and cover with a towel. Blend in two batches and puree.
- Season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve. Garnish with a dollop of sour cream and a few leaves of Italian parsley
See how we calculate recipe costs here.
Equipment
- Dutch Oven
- Enamelware Sheet Pan
- Parchment Paper
Nutrition
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How to Make Carrot Soup – Step by Step Photos
Preheat your oven to 400°F. Peel the 2 pounds of carrots and cut them into 1/4 inch rounds. Drizzle with 2 tablespoons olive oil and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Roast the carrots at 400°F for about 35 minutes until they have softened and caramelized.
While the carrots roast, dice the onion. Add 4 tablespoons of salted butter to a Dutch oven and cook over medium heat until it foams and the milk solids start to brown. Add 1 teaspoon of thyme and let it cook for a minute.
Add the diced onion to the browned butter and thyme. Cook the onion until they are translucent, about two minutes.
Add 3 cups of chicken broth, 1 cup of heavy cream, 2 teaspoons of ginger and 3 cups of water. Scrape up any brown bits stuck to the bottom of the pot. Add the ginger. Cover and simmer with the lid on until the carrots are ready. It’s important that you not boil the soup, as the cream will curdle.
Once the carrots have started to caramelize, take them out of the oven.
Add the roasted carrots to the chicken broth mixture. Simmer until they soften so much they fall apart easily when pressed by a fork. There is no exact time for this, but it will be anywhere from 30 to 40 minutes, depending on the age of the carrots, how thick you cut them, how long you roasted them, and whether you simmer or boil your soup.
Before blending the soup, remove the center cap off of your lid and cover the hole with a kitchen towel. This prevents steam from building up and blowing the lid off your blender. Add half of the soup to the blender and puree. Repeat.
Season to taste with salt and pepper. If you’d like to garnish your soup, try it with a dollop of sour cream, some Italian parsley, and black pepper.
This was delicious. I used half whole milk and half cream, and it was still very rich.
So, so bland, and that’s even after reading the recipe and doubling the ginger and adding several cloves of garlic. I tried to eat it because I hate wasting food, but it was just so meh and disappointing I had to toss it. I also disliked how necessary information – like an estimate on how long to simmer the soup – isn’t on the recipe card, but is buried in the step by step photos.
It was very tasty. The only critic I would have would be the directions. I don’t read the picture directions (only the written one) so it wasn’t clear that 1 the carrots would be roasted on a pan; I would just emphasis that. I would also clear up to do step 2 while the carrots roast; as it is written it seems like you want to wait for the carrots to roast and then continue. I made it with homemade bread and I used my immersion blender to blend the soup
Hi, Alicia!! Yes, the carrots are roasted on a pan. And you should definitely make use of the 40 plus minutes that the carrots are roasting, and make the broth. Thanks for being here. XOXO -Monti
This is one of the best soups I’ve tried and as others have noted, it’s also super versatile. I doubled the spice and heat with extra ginger and cayenne but even without it, the flavor is rich from caramelized carrots and browned butter. This is now a new staple, right up there with the best potato, chicken tortilla, and zuppa toscano favorites. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ thank you for sharing this!
Woot!!! Thanks for your kind review! XOXO -Monti
I love this soup, and am sometimes using it in place of tomato soup for grilled cheese! (Recipes halved because there’s only two of us and this makes a LOT)
I do want to mention that for some reason, this page will NOT come up when I type carrot coup, carrot, or go to the ingredient index for carrots. The only way I found it was going to the all recipe page and scrolling down.
Thanks for letting us know, Katie! We will see what’s going on ASAP. XOXO -Monti
I noticed this too, and discovered that there is a tag that is “Carrots” instead of “Carrot” and this soup is the only recipe that comes up with the plural tag.
I haven’t tried this yet, but do you think it would work well with pureed cannellini beans if I want to swap out the heavy cream? I really enjoy the tomato soup recipe on this site that is made that way and wasn’t sure if the beans-instead-of-dairy was transferrable, lol! Thanks in advance!
Very mild, creamy soup. Not sure I would make it again, but my preschooler sure loved it! I will pair the leftovers with a grilled cheese to add more flavor to the meal. Found it unusually hard to follow this recipe compared to other Budget Bytes recipes. A time estimate for the “cook uncovered until carrots easily fall apart when pressed by a fork” would be a useful addition.
I’m cooking it now so I can’t attest to the flavor outcome, but I agree on needing more timing specifications throughout (e.g., step four days simmer until the carrots are done, which assumes that I followed the recipe process exactly). It would be great to include the cooking time throughout.
Hi Elaine and Sarah! When it comes to soups, visual and physical cues are more precise than an amount of time. There are too many variables for everyone to have the carrots at the right consistency at the same time: the amount of heat, the size of the pot, the age of the carrots, the thickness of the cut, the amount of time left roasting etc. And if you take the carrots out and blend them when ‘the time” is up instead of checking for their consistency, you might end up with chunky carrot soup. I hope to show you how to cook with your senses, which is much better than relying on a generic recipe. That being said, the carrots will soften in anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes. Just scoop one out and press it with a fork. When it falls apart, the carrots are ready. I promise this is the best way. XOXO -Monti
I’m sorry. I’m new to working with carrots. When you say to clean the carrots, do you mean to scrub them, or peel them? Or both? Thanks! Can’t wait to try this soup!
Never mind! If I had read the directions I would have seen you peel them. 😊
Hi Diana, you just have to scrub them. But you can peel, if you prefer. XOXO -Monti
This is my new favorite soup! I could seriously eat this every meal. I used milk instead of heavy cream as that was what I had on hand. It was still nice, thick, and flavorful. Thanks for another winner, Monti!
DUDE!! Thanks, Ashley!! XOXO -Monti
This was really delicious :) I left out the heavy cream because I didn’t have any and added about a cup of red lentils for added heft. Finished it off with a stray dollop of cream cheese I found in the fridge, which rounded out the saltiness of the soup (I think this was because of the missing cream). Will definitely make this again!
Woot! XOXO -Monti
Long story but i haven’t made soup in about four years. I made this tonight and it was so good! Very easy and tasty. I’m freezing some and having some for leftovers. Yum!
i gave it a try last Sunday. But I guess my onions were a little overcooked as I accidentally left them for a little longer. Will try it again. I wanted to ask can I add tomato to this recipe to give a tangy taste? If yes, how much?
I’ve never tried that before but if you give it a shot let me know how it turns out. XOXO -Monti
This was so good! I had carrots to use up; this is really making lemonade out of lemons. I didn’t have heavy cream, so used whole milk instead; still terrific.
Awesome! XOXO -Monti
I’m looking forward to trying this! Do you think you could sub some of the cream for milk to cut back on the calories, or would that make the soup too thin?
I’ve had other people sub milk for cream and they loved the results. XOXO -Monti
Carrot have vitamin c and Calicium. So, drinking the carrot soup is healthy once per week.