Roasted Carrot Turmeric Soup

roasted carrot & sweet potato turmeric soup / loveandlemons.com

I freaking love soup. Warm, comfy, and healing for the soul. And with turmeric – supposedly healing for the body. A natural anti-inflammatory, “they say.” Which is what sparked the idea for this soup: Literal sparks of pain.

Do you have those weeks where things seem to unravel? Where one mishap, leads to the next? For me, it began with a broken glass on the kitchen floor and a teeny tiny piece that I somehow couldn’t get out of my foot. I limped around for a couple days, until I could feel it was gone. Also gone  my sense of balance, apparently. During the making of this post, I tripped over some photo equipment and crashed to the floor, tangled in orange extension cords. Blog: 1, Jeanine: 0

I probably should have resorted to takeout for the rest of the week to rest my aches and pains. But I had this idea for turmeric soup (and the blog must go on!). The up side — a super tasty soup… creamy, spicy and everything I needed.

roasted carrot turmeric soup

 
Author:
Serves: serves 4
Ingredients
  • 6-8 big carrot sticks
  • 1 large sweet potato, or 2 small
  • (total - about 1.25 lbs of carrots and sweet potato)
  • 2 large cloves garlic
  • 1 medium onion
  • 1-2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 2 teaspoons turmeric, ground
  • 2 teaspoons madras curry powder
  • 2 teaspoons fresh minced ginger
  • 4 cups veggie stock plus 2 cups water
  • a pinch of cayenne pepper
  • 1-2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
spiced yogurt (on the side-optional)
  • ¾ cup greek yogurt
  • a good squeeze of lemon & a bit of zest
  • ½ teaspoon ground cardamom
  • pinches of salt & pepper
  • a few sprigs of cilantro & a pinch of red chile flakes - optional
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
  2. Peel and roughly chop the carrots and sweet potatoes and place on a baking sheet. Slice the onion into quarters, and place 3 of the 4 quarters on the baking sheet next to the carrots and potatoes. Dice up the remainder of the onion and set aside. Place the garlic cloves (in their paper) on the baking sheet as well, but be sure to pull those off after about 10 minutes into the roasting time, before they burn. Toss everything with a drizzle of olive oil, and a good amount of salt and pepper. Roast for about 25 minutes, or until everything is golden brown.
  3. Meanwhile, in a large pot, heat a bit of oil over low heat, add the chopped onion that you set aside before. Add a pinch of salt and cook until translucent. Add the turmeric, garam masala, and grated ginger and heat just until fragrant (30 seconds). Add the water and stock, and bring to a gentle boil, cover, and reduce to a low simmer.
  4. (optional step) Mix your yogurt sauce together and pop it in the fridge.
  5. Peel the paper off of the roasted garlic and add it and all of the roasted veggies to the pot. Leave the pot uncovered and turn the heat off. Allow it to cool for a bit and then puree in a high speed blender.
  6. Taste and adjust, I added a bit more salt, pepper, and a few pinches of cayenne. If you add too much cayenne (like I did), add a few tablespoons of apple cider vinegar to tame the spice (the sweet acidity also added a nice balanced flavor to the soup - a happy accident).
Notes
Watch out because turmeric stains everything. Unless you have neon yellow countertops, try to be really neat about things. Also, my vitamix blender is now a tint of yellow - if you really don't want that to happen, you might want to mix the turmeric in at the very end in a glass or ceramic bowl.

vegan sub: omit yogurt, or use vegan yogurt, or plain full fat coconut milk

48 comments

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Rate this recipe (after making it):  

  1. Mary
    04.07.2023

    Made this for my husband today who has a cold. He hasn’t tried it yet but I did and it was delicious. Was able to get that right kick of spice in it. I used curry today but will try the garam marsala next time. Thank you for sharing.

    • Phoebe Moore (L&L Recipe Developer)
      04.07.2023

      Hi Mary, I’m so glad you loved the soup!

  2. Diane
    12.02.2022

    You say add garam masala but that’s not in the ingredients

  3. Jen
    11.09.2022

    The ingredients lists Madras curry but the method calls for garam masala, can you please clarify? Sounds delicious!

    • Phoebe Moore (L&L Recipe Developer)
      11.11.2022

      Hi Jen, Either would work here. Hope you enjoy!

  4. JesseA
    12.27.2021

    I am definitely going to try this soup. Turmeric is widely used in Ayurveda (Ancient Indian Medication). I have learnt few recipes that are enriched with therapeutical herbs and spices from iahas.com but this one looks really tasty and healthy.

  5. Mustapha
    04.02.2018

    This soup is lovely.

  6. Martine
    06.12.2017

    Do you peel the sweet potatoes and then chop?

    • Jeanine Donofrio
      06.12.2017

      yes – peeled, sorry that wasn’t made clear.

  7. plasterers bristol
    08.03.2016

    This is a recipe i’ve never tried. Sounds delcious though. Will be giving this a go for sure. Thanks

    Simon

  8. Dana
    02.10.2016

    This is sunshine in a bowl. I didn’t have sweet potatoes so I used russett potatoes and added some honey. I also added a little soy sauce at the end to balance out my heavy hand with spices. Amazing recipe. Will definitely make again. Thank you for sharing. 🙂

    • Jeanine Donofrio
      02.12.2016

      Hi Dana – I’m so glad you liked it!

  9. Jennifer Stokkel
    08.13.2015

    This soup was so easy to put together, and an absolutely fabulous result. Didn’t have any Madras Curry powder so substituted with Miris Red Curry Paste and omitted the Cayenne Pepper. Very warm and hearty. I also added some leek at he fried onion stage. Soul Food.

  10. Shubha
    02.27.2015

    I made this last night for dinner (along with your quinoa fried “rice”). Both great recipes that my husband and I enjoyed! I really like the Asian spices in this soup. It’s so comforting in the cold winter here in D.C.

    • jeanine
      02.27.2015

      I’m so glad you liked them – thanks for coming back to let me know!

  11. Rachel from healthyrachelpage.blogspot.com
    02.25.2015

    It sounds good! I’ll have to give this a try.

  12. Grace
    09.19.2014

    Hi! I’m really looking forward to trying this recipe! I went to get the ingredients, but now that I look more closely at the recipe, I’m a bit stumped.Is it actually 1.25lb in total for each of the carrot and sweet potato, or 1.25lb for them together? 1.25lb doesn’t seem enough to include 6-8 large carrots and a large sweet potato in it, but 1.25lb rather than 2.50lb doesn’t seem like enough to go with so much liquid. Please tell me more, Jeanine!

    • jeanine
      09.19.2014

      Hi Grace – 1.25lb total (I weighed them together). My sweet potato might have been more on the “medium sized” side… sorry for the confusion!

      • Grace
        09.20.2014

        Thanks : D
        I know what’s for dinner tonight!

  13. rosie
    09.18.2014

    hi there-

    Making this soup now, but the ingredients call for curry powder and directions list garam masala. Either way, I’ll use a bit of both but wondering which you intended for this yummy soup?!

    cheers

    • jeanine
      09.19.2014

      Hi Rosie, I meant to say curry powder in the instructions (thanks for pointing that out!), but if you used some garam masala it’ll be fine too… all of those spices work together. (If the garam masala is too mild, add more to taste).

  14. Anna
    08.16.2014

    Mine came out thinner than I expected, but even my anti-soup husband really enjoyed this. Thanks! (As always, I adjusted based on what I had on hand; in this case I replaced the yogurt with coconut oil and a splash of almond milk.)

    • jeanine
      08.16.2014

      So glad you liked it! If you wanted it thicker, just add a little less liquid to start with (you can always ad more!). So glad you were able adapt and use what you had on had!

  15. Anna
    06.12.2014

    Hiya! Thanks for sharing this recipe! I intended to make it tonight, but I’ve forgotten the cardamom! A quick google suggests I can sub nutmeg for cardamom in savory preparations – think that will work in this context?

    Thanks!

A food blog with fresh, zesty recipes.
Photograph of Jeanine Donofrio and Jack Mathews in their kitchen

Hello, we're Jeanine and Jack.

We love to eat, travel, cook, and eat some more! We create & photograph vegetarian recipes from our home in Chicago, while our shiba pups eat the kale stems that fall on the kitchen floor.