Classic Creamy Carrot Soup

If you’re looking for a classic take on carrot soup, this is it. It’s velvety smooth and creamy, without any actual cream. And while it has no surprising ingredients, it’s by no means bland. Success lies not in fancy tricks, but solid technique: An assemblage of roasted carrots, simmered carrots, and carrot juice bring forth fresh, earthy, sweet, and vegetal notes. Additional layers of flavor come from aromatics like onion, leek, and garlic, along with a finishing dollop of lemon-herb yogurt garnish.

Carrot is undoubtedly the star here, but this soup would be incredibly dull without any supporting components. That’s where the aromatics come into play. We want the leek, onion, and garlic to complement the carrot, not compete with it, for a great foundation to build the soup on. That means sweating them until soft and tender without browning them, drawing out their moisture and flavor without developing any color that would make them overly robust.

For a more complex and expansive carrot flavor, I divide the carrots in half and cook them two ways—roasted and simmered. The caramelization and Maillard browning that occur during roasting breaks down the carrots' natural sugars, enhancing their sweetness and adding more concentrated depth of flavor. By simmering the other portion of carrots, the soup also has fresh and clean carrot notes. 

For the liquid, I’m using a mix of vegetable stock and carrot juice. I far prefer homemade vegetable stock, which is ridiculously easy to make and will give you much better flavor than most of the store-bought options; if you do want the convenience of a packaged vegetable stock, look for one with a simple ingredient list of vegetables and not much more.

Carrot juice, on the other hand, is just fine from a store—you can usually find it in the refrigerated produce section of most grocery stores. It adds a bright layer of concentrated carrot flavor, boosting the overall flavor of the soup. Keep in mind when making blended soups like this that it's always better to start with less liquid, then add more as needed to reach the proper consistency after blending. Add too much early on, and you're stuck with thin soup, or a very long reduction step that can kill some of the fresh carrot flavor. The soup shouldn’t be a thick puree that drops off a spoon in globs. Instead, it should be thick enough to coat the spoon but still pour off it like a liquid when tipped. 

For the smoothest and silkiest texture, a blender, with its unmatched speed and vortex power, is your best option. A blender will also ensure that the final addition of rich butter gets emulsified properly, which adds a luscious texture to the soup. For an even silkier, restaurant-quality texture, you can press the soup through a fine-mesh sieve. 

The tangy, herby yogurt adds a bright finish to the dish. But the garnish is also one of the easiest ways to keep a soup interesting, changing it up to suit your mood. You could top it off with a number of things, such as brown butter, a drizzle of olive oil, or a sprinkle of curry powder.