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
- 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
- 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
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- 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.
- 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.
- (optional step) Mix your yogurt sauce together and pop it in the fridge.
- 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.
- 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).
vegan sub: omit yogurt, or use vegan yogurt, or plain full fat coconut milk
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.
Hi Mary, I’m so glad you loved the soup!
You say add garam masala but that’s not in the ingredients
The ingredients lists Madras curry but the method calls for garam masala, can you please clarify? Sounds delicious!
Hi Jen, Either would work here. Hope you enjoy!
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.
This soup is lovely.
Do you peel the sweet potatoes and then chop?
yes – peeled, sorry that wasn’t made clear.
This is a recipe i’ve never tried. Sounds delcious though. Will be giving this a go for sure. Thanks
Simon
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. 🙂
Hi Dana – I’m so glad you liked it!
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.
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.
I’m so glad you liked them – thanks for coming back to let me know!
It sounds good! I’ll have to give this a try.
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!
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!
Thanks : D
I know what’s for dinner tonight!
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
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).
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.)
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!
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!