Can you overcook carrots in soup?

Yes. The carrots are ready to be pureed when they are soft, but they should not be mushy or breaking apart. You should be able to easily pierce the simmered carrots with a paring knife.

Why does my carrot soup taste bitter?

Sometimes carrots have a strong bitter flavor rather than being sweet. Taste the carrots after you peel them and before you dice and simmer them. Since you can't try every carrot, you will find that coconut milk or heavy cream (not vegan) will reduce bitterness. If necessary, you can stir in a bit more than the recipe calls for to suit your taste.

How do you puree soup without a blender?

You can use a potato masher to puree a vegetable-based soup such as carrot soup or butternut squash soup. It won’t turn out as smooth as using a blender, but just be patient and keep mashing it to get it as smooth as you can.

Vegan Carrot Ginger Soup - Last Ingredient

Why You Will Love This Soup

It is an easy vegan recipe. This is a straightforward soup that doesn’t have any unnecessary frills. And it doesn’t need it. The ginger, garlic and cumin are there to bring out the natural sweetness of the carrots. While coconut milk gives it a little creaminess.

Anything made with ginger feels like an elixir. Ginger has an uplifting, pick-me-up kind of zest. It is a root praised for its health benefits including helping digestion, reducing inflammation and improving brain function. First and foremost, I cook with ginger because I like the taste. Everything else is just a bonus.

The soup is freezer friendly. Sometimes I will make this recipe and freeze all of it. One of the best things about fall and winter eating is the convenience of soup. My freezer is full of a rotation of soups, thawing and reheating is a total breeze.

The Ingredients

Ingredients including carrots, ginger, garlic, coconut milk, spices and olive oil

This is what you need:

Carrots: Look for fresh carrots that are firm and not soft. Since they are the base of the soup, you want to use the best carrots you can find. I like to peel them before I dice them. Even though you are simmering and eventually pureeing the carrots into soup, I still go ahead and peel them.
Ginger: You can peel the skin off ginger with a spoon or a vegetable peeler. Then I find that a microplane works best to grate it. If you don’t have one, then you can use a sharp knife to finely chop it.
Garlic: Even though it isn’t as strong as the ginger in the soup, I include a minced garlic clove to layer in more flavors.
Onions: The first part of the recipe includes sauteing chopped white onions. I do this before adding the garlic and ginger because the onions need more time to cook and soften.
Olive oil: Use high quality extra-virgin olive oil for sauteing.
Cumin, salt and pepper are the dried spices that are in this soup.
Vegetable broth: I always use low-sodium broth, so then I have control over the seasonings. If you do not mind if the soup is not vegan, you can substitute with chicken broth.
Coconut milk: Stir in a cup of full-fat coconut milk after you puree the soup. This adds richness and makes the soup creamy.
Parsley: I garnish the soup with chopped fresh herbs along with drizzling on coconut milk.

How To Make Carrot Ginger Soup

1. Heat olive oil in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium high heat.

2. Sauté the onions. They will become soft and translucent in about 5 minutes.

Olive oil in a large pot. Onions sauteing in pot.

3. Add the ginger, garlic, cumin salt and pepper. Stir everything together. The onions will be very fragrant in less than a minute.

4. Stir in the carrots.

Garlic, ginger, carrots and spices sauteing with onions. Carrots stirred into onions.

5. Pour in the vegetable stock. Bring the soup to a boil on the stove top. After that, reduce the heat to simmer until the carrots are very tender, about 18-22 minutes.

6. Blend the soup and then stir in the coconut milk. Divide the soup into bowls. Top with additional coconut milk and chopped parsley.

Soup simmering in a pot. Coconut milk stirred into soup.

The Best Way to Puree Soup

There are 3 ways to puree soup. It depends how smooth you the consistency of the soup to be:

Using a potato masher gives you the chunkiest and most rustic soup.
With an immersion blender, you can puree the soup right in the pot, so it requires the least amount of clean-up. The photos in this post show soup pureed with an immersion blender.
For the smoothest, most silky soup, carefully transfer it to a high-powered blender. Do this carefully since the soup will be hot. It’s best to do this in batches because the heat can cause the lid of the blender to pop off. You can also put a towel on top of the lid and hold it in place while it is running.

Serving

Since you only end up stirring part of the can of coconut milk into the soup, you will have extra that you can drizzle over each bowl. It looks beautiful. To serve with the soup try:

A hunk of crusty bread is good for dipping into the broth.
A green salad such as a Shaved Brussels Sprout Salad, Arugula Salad or Autumn Chopped Salad would all work well with a bowl of this soup.

Storage & Leftovers

You can store the soup in an airtight container in the refrigerator up to 4 days. Give it time to cool before you put away leftovers. To keep it up to 1 month, freeze it. I always recommend portioning out the cooled soup into serving sizes before putting it into the freezer. Then it makes it easier to thaw and reheat.

Carrot Ginger Soup