This is my favorite cream of carrot soup with milk. It is made with just a few ingredients but has so much flavor. This simple, budget, kid-friendly recipe is perfect for any day of the week.
I have been making this cream of carrot soup with milk for about 20 years now. The recipe was one of the first I ever cooked, following one I found in an old Romanian cookbook.
It was delicious! So good that I have kept making it. I've cooked it for my husband and me before we had kids, for my kids and other people's kids, and as an appetizer for dinner parties—so many times.
All you need are simple and cheap ingredients, an immersion blender, and a sieve. The bonus: this is a carrot soup without cream; it contains only milk! Check out the Sweet Potato, Carrot and Ginger Soup or the Carrot Ginger Soup with Coconut Milk.
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Recipe ingredients
- Healthy carrots: The carrot is the vegetable with the highest content of carotin which is very important for our eyesight. They are high in fiber, are a good source of antioxidants, are rich in other vitamins, and contain pantothenic acid, folate, potassium, iron, copper, and manganese.
- For this easy soup recipe, you will need about 2 ½ lbs/ 1 kg carrots.
- Milk: I prefer to use whole milk, but semi-skimmed milk (about 1.5% fat) also works fine. Don’t use fat-free dairy.
- Vegetable broth or chicken stock. Homemade is always best, but otherwise, use your favorite brand. Bouillon cubes are ok as long as you like their flavor.
- Butter and all-purpose flour to thicken the cream of carrot soup with milk and make it nice and creamy.
- Other ingredients: Fine sea salt or kosher salt, ground black pepper, fresh parsley, or thyme to garnish the soup.
How to make carrot soup with milk?
Well, making a creamy soup with carrots or other vegetables is very easy. You will only have to cook the vegetables in broth, blend them and add milk, cream, or any nut milk you like, in case you want to keep the recipe vegan.
What makes this particular carrot soup so creamy is not any cream but a quick white roux with flour and milk.
Recipe steps:
- Sauté carrots: Peel and chop them. Cook them in the melted butter for about 6-8 minutes until they are glossy and softer. Stir frequently (1).
- Simmer: Pour in the broth and cook the vegetables until soft (2).
- Strain and reserve the broth.
- Blend the carrots with an immersion blender, adding a little of the liquid - it makes blending easier (Amazon affiliate link).
- Roux: Melt the butter in the same (now empty) pot and stir in the flour (3). Slowly add the vegetable broth while whisking continuously to avoid clumps (4).
- Add the milk and the pureed carrots (5). Stir well, and simmer for a couple of minutes longer (6).
- Adjust the taste with salt and pepper and a little bit of white balsamic vinegar.
Recipe variations
- Replace about ⅓ of the carrots with celery stalk or celery root, parsnip, parsley roots, or potatoes (not waxy potatoes).
- If you’re out of carrots, but would still like to make a creamy, healthy soup for dinner tonight, feel free to replace the carrots with pumpkin or butternut squash, parsnip, or sweet potatoes.
- Make it vegan: Substitute milk with coconut or any other nut milk you like. Coconut milk is higher in fat and has a distinctive, robust taste, so that it will change the soup's flavor quite a bit. However, you will love it!
- Substitute butter with a vegan alternative.
Expert Tips
- Cooking the carrots in a bit of butter is an important step; beta-carotin is fat-soluble and can be absorbed better by the body this way.
- Adding just a tiny amount of vinegar at the end brightens the flavors. If you don’t have white balsamic vinegar, use white wine or apple cider vinegar. Start with a tiny amount – about 1 teaspoon – stir well, taste the soup again, and only add more to taste.
Recipe FAQs
Unpack them. If you leave them in their plastic packaging, they spoil quickly. However, when left in the vegetable drawer without the packaging, they will keep well for at least one week.
If you buy carrots that still have their greens on, make sure you remove the leaves as soon as you get home because the leafage will extract the nutrients and water out of the carrots, which will make them limp and wrinkly.
The soup can be made in advance and reheated on the stovetop or the microwave.
Refrigerate in an airtight container for 3-4 days.
Freeze the carrot milk soup in an airtight container for about 3 months. Defrost in the fridge and reheat before serving.
What to serve with carrot milk soup?
- Ham and Cheese Bread Rolls
- Zapiekanka
- Dinner Rolls
- Ham and Cheese Croissants
- Spelt Bread - No-Rise, No-Knead Bread
More creamy soups
Recipe
Creamy Carrot Soup with Milk
Ingredients
- 2 ½ lbs carrots 1 kg, Notes 1,2
- 2 tablespoons butter divided
- 4 cups vegetable broth good quality, 900 ml, Note 3
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 cup whole milk 230 ml
- fine sea salt or Kosher salt to taste
- ground black pepper to taste
- 1 teaspoon white balsamic vinegar optional, Note 4
- fresh parsley or thyme to garnish
Instructions
- Peel and chop the carrots.
- Saute carrots: Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a soup pan and cook the carrots and a pinch of salt for about 5 minutes, stirring several times in between. The carrots should be glossy and slightly softer.
- Simmer: Add the vegetable broth, cover, bring to a boil, and cook on medium-low heat for about 15-20 minutes or until the carrots are soft.
- Strain the soup and reserve the liquid. Puree the carrots with an immersion blender. Add a little of the cooking liquid when you blend the soup; it makes blending easier. Melt the remaining butter in the pot.
- Make the roux: Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in the empty pot. Sprinkle the flour on top and stir well, do not let it get colored.
- Add liquid: Slowly start adding the reserved cooking liquid while whisking continuously to avoid the formation of clumps. If that is still happening, you can blend the soup again after you return the blended carrots to the pot.
- Add the milk and the pureed carrots to the pot, stir well and let bubble for another couple of minutes. If you like a thinner soup, you can add a bit more milk or broth.
- Adjust the taste with salt and pepper. Add 1 teaspoon white balsamic vinegar or more to taste.
- Serve sprinkled with parsley/ thyme/lovage/cayenne pepper and buttered toast, for instance.
Notes
- For a slightly different flavor, replace ⅓ of the carrots with celery stalks or celeriac, parsley root, parsnip, or potatoes.
- Substitute carrots with pumpkin, butternut squash, parsnip, or sweet potatoes.
- Substitute vegetable broth with chicken stock.
- A little acidity from the vinegar enlivens the flavor.
Katerina says
Your soup looks divine! Carrot soup is one of my favorites!
Anca says
This is interesting. I haven't made carrot soup with milk before. I do like carrot soup, only the well known carrot and coriander.
Priya @priyascurrynation says
divine... this is a must-have recipe especially for winters.