Yummy Homemade Carrot Soup Recipe

Hello! Juliet asked me to blog about my yummy recipe for ginger carrot soup. It’s extremely flavorful, healthy, and low calorie! It’s also pretty simple to make.

The whole recipe adds up to about 620 calories. When dived into hearty 2 cup servings, each serving is approximately 150 calories (or 3 WW points, although if you use less oil, you could easily make it 2 WW points). The carrots themselves make the soup very creamy, but you might consider adding a dollop of plain yogurt or fat-free sour cream if you desire. They add much of the yummy-ness of heavy cream or butter, but without adding excessive calories. You can also toast up a piece of low calorie whole wheat bread or low calorie pita bread, to dip into the soup, and complete your meal.

Ingredients:
Carrots: 1½ lbs
Ginger: ⅓ cup
Water: 2 cups
Celery, chopped: ¾ cup
Onion: 1 medium
Olive oil: 2 table
Broth (see notes below): 2½ cups
Pepper: a pinch or two

Note: I usually start with a 2 or 5 lb bag of carrots and peel them myself, but you could use baby pre-cut carrots instead.

1. Peel the carrots, cut off the ends, and chop into 1 inch pieces.

2. Peel and chop (or shred with a cheese grater) enough fresh ginger to fill ⅓ cup.

Note: If you don’t like ginger it can be omitted. You can also use ground ginger if you don’t have any fresh. Two to three tablespoons should be enough.

3. Chop up a whole onion.

4. Chop up some celery stalks into 1 inch pieces until you have ¾ cup.

5. Heat the water to boiling and add all of the chopped vegetables.

6. Cover and simmer (medium-low heat) until the carrots are tender (a fork or spoon should be able to slice through a carrot piece with minimal resistance) usually about 10 minutes.

Note: If you’re using a pot where the water doesn’t quite cover all of the chopped vegetables, stir every couple of minutes.

7. Carefully transfer the vegetables and water to a blender and blend until smooth.

8. Return the blended mixture to the pot and add the broth and the olive oil.

Shopping Note: You can use chicken broth or vegetable broth depending on how vegetarian you want to be. Either works fine. I greatly prefer the Imagine Brand Broths which we buy at Whole Foods. They’re all organic. They make chicken broth, vegetable broth, and “No chicken” broth. The “No chicken” broth is basically the same as the vegetable broth but without tomatoes. I’ve tried all three for this recipe and they’re all good. I recommend against using their low sodium broths for this recipe though. Without the salt, the soup would be noticeably blander.

Note: Instead of olive oil you could use any of the healthy oils (canola, safflower, or sunflower). Some fat should be added to this recipe. Carrots are packed with vitamins (such as vitamin A) that can only be absorbed efficiently in the presence of fat.

9. Simmer again, stirring until the broth and oil are completely mixed in.

10. Continue stirring while the soup bubbles lightly for 1 minute.

11. Add ground pepper, or other herbs (Juliet likes cinnamon or nutmeg), to taste.

Evan

Note: Carrot Soup Picture by Vic on Flickr.

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