carrot ginger soup

This carrot ginger soup is velvety smooth and simple to make. Roast the carrots with a honey ginger glaze, then blend with stock, heavy cream, and a dollop of miso. Don’t skip the spicy fried shallot bits!

Why I love it:

This carrot ginger soup packs in a ton of flavor for a simple process, and I love that.

We build all sorts of caramelized flavors from deeply roasting carrots in the oven. They’re tossed in a gingery honey glaze to enhance the sweetness of the carrots and give warm spice. Then, we blend up those sweet shriveled carrots (along with a few roasted garlic cloves) with stock and a splash of heavy cream until silky smooth.

I use a Vitamix here and let it go at max speed until the kids start screaming. I want our soup extra velvety, and sometimes that takes time!

If you prefer, you can pass the soup through a fine mesh strainer at the end for a truly silken texture.

There’s a tiny secret in this carrot soup that I really love: miso paste. It counters the sweetness and adds a delightful savory element. 

We tested this a few ways, and just 2 tiny teaspoons of white miso is enough for a saline complexity that doesn’t take over the carrots.

Finally, the spicy shallot oil.

Crunchy seeds and crispy caramelized shallot bits drizzled over the carrot ginger soup are the pièce de résistance.

You don’t have to make it, but you should. The spicy oil echoes the ginger note, plays off the miso, and adds the obligatory sweet-spicy note we all secretly crave. 

You can make the shallot oil any time and keep it in the fridge for a few weeks (just make sure it stays refrigerated). Drizzle it on eggs, in ramen, spoon it on a halved avocado. It’s not hard to use up!

carrot ginger soup ingredients:

how to make carrot ginger soup:

1. Toss peeled and chopped carrots with a honey ginger glaze.
2. Roast until caramelized, about 45 minutes.
3. Make spicy, seedy fried shallot oil.
4. Blend roasted carrots with miso paste, roasted garlic cloves, chicken stock and cream.
5. Add salt or honey to blended soup, to taste.
6. Ladle hot soup into bowls and drizzle with shallot oil.
7. Enjoy!

how to make this recipe for two:

This soup freezes really well. So instead of halving the recipe (which works, if you want), I recommend making the full batch and then freezing half.

In a few months, tap into that stash and enjoy a delicious dinner.

shortcut this ginger carrot soup for a weeknight dinner:

• Skip the shallot oil and use store-bought chili crisp or your favorite homemade chili crisp.
• Peel and slice the carrots in the morning, so all you need to do is roast the carrots and blend them up.
• Make this soup in the morning and reheat for dinner.

a few more tips:

• Honey is a revelation here. I learned about using honey in butternut squash soup from Thomas Keller. It feels weird to add a sweetener to soup... how American, right? I feel as judgy about it as I do when people add sugar to tomato sauce. But the honey enhances the flavor and makes the carrots taste more carrot-y. It speeds up the caramelization for extra depth of flavor. It also balances the vegetal note that can sometimes take over. Taste the soup at the end and don't be afraid to blend in a few teaspoons of honey until the flavor pops.
• We blend up hot carrots with stock and the soup comes out hot. No stove necessary (for the soup part). If you want, though, you can transfer the blended soup to a pot and keep it warm until you're ready to eat.

storage options:

Let the soup cool completely, then store in an airtight container in the refrigerator. It will keep for up to 5 days. We prefer glass mason jars for soups like this!

This soup can also be frozen for up to 3 months. Make sure to leave about 2-inches of headspace in the container to allow for expansion!

more blended soup recipes to try:

sweet corn soup

kabocha squash soup

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