Deep Mexico Carrot Soup ♥ with Tomatillo & Lime

Deep Mexico Carrot Soup with Tomatillo & Lime ♥ A Veggie Venture
graphic button small size size 10 Ah soup! Serve this simple colorful carrot soup hot or cold, it's gorgeous. Low Carb. Weight Watchers Friendly. Not just vegan, Vegan Done Real. Naturally Gluten Free. Whole30 Friendly. And ... delicious! graphic button small size size 10

Something to know about me. I'm a recipe-driven cook, always have been, always will be. I admire the cooks who cock their heads, fridge door open, thinking what to make based on what's inside. But that sort of intuitive cooking is just not me. I'll vary a recipe, some times turn it upside down, but almost-almost always, I begin with a plan. Almost always, the written recipe rests right there beside me as I measure, cook and time – all the while recording what I notice, penciling in other ideas, simplifying, etc.

Who else is a recipe cook? And is anyone here, now, what I think of as an "intuitive cook"? (Let's guess: more of the former than the latter, yes? After all, intuitive cooks have less need for recipes and no doubt, in addition to inspiration, vegetable recipes are what A Veggie Venture is all about.)

But we've got this little project going on, we call it Deep Mexico: Ingredient-Driven Mexican Meal Prep – and it just might be affecting my cooking style. It's got me considering the ingredients themselves as much as their preparations. I find myself uncharacteristically consulting The Flavor Bible, a gift from friend Elise Bauer of Simply Recipes.

One thing Deep Mexico is certainly affecting is our diet: we're eating a lot more vegetables (and even before, we already ate plenty). But because we're letting what's on hand drive what we cook and eat and since we started off buying mostly vegetables, well, we're cooking and eating vegetables – plus meat from the freezer, sure – but still, lots of vegetables.

This was the first soup I made after launching Deep Mexico. Are carrots a typical Mexican ingredient? No, probably not. But a huge bag in the fridge (from before launching the project) needed a big dent so I set off to make a soup that included other Mexican-friendly ingredients and plating. Did I succeed? I think so.

This soup knocked our socks off. The tomatillos not only thicken the soup but also give it a lovely sourness that contrasts with the natural sweetness of the carrots. I feared their dull green color might muddy a carrot soup's pretty orange color but not to worry. Carrots for the win!

RECIPE for DEEP MEXICO CARROT SOUP with TOMATILLOS & LIME

Hands-on time: 20 minutes upfront, 15 minutes to finish
Time to table: 1-3/4 hours
Makes 11 cups

SOUP
2 tablespoons butter (or more oil for vegan)
2 tablespoon olive oil
1 large white onion, diced
2 ribs celery, diced
2 tablespoons garlic, minced (from a jar!)
5 - 6 tomatillos (about 11 ounces/310g), hulls removed, quartered
2 pounds carrots, peeled, trimmed & cut in chunks
1-1/2 teaspoons oregano
8 cups stock (use vegetable stock for vegetarian/vegan soup)
2 teaspoons kosher salt (or to taste if using a stock that includes salt)

TO SERVE
Lime juice
Cottage cheese
Red salsa (recipe soon to come! until then use your own favorite salsa)
Black beans, rinsed & drained (I use black beans cooked with this recipe, Creamy Slow Cooker Beans)

SOUP Heat the butter and olive oil on medium high in a large, heavy Dutch oven until shimmery. Stir in the onion and celery and cook, stirring every so often, until the onion and celery soften but before they begin to turn color. Stir in the garlic and cook for just a minute, just to take off the rawness. Stir in the tomatillo pieces, carrots, oregano, stock and salt and bring it all to a boil. When it boils, put the lid on the pot and lower the temperature to maintain a slow simmer (it may take a few adjustments) and simmer the soup until the carrots are soft, about 45 minutes.

PURÉE the mixture in a blender until smooth. BUT DO TAKE CARE! To purée the soup safely, without spewing hot liquid all over yourself (yikes) and your kitchen, be sure to follow these blender safety tips. First, fill the blender no more than half-full at a time. (You'll need a big bowl to hold what's been puréed.) Second, start it off on low before increasing the speed to high. Third, for extra safety, cover the blender with a kitchen towel and keep one hand on the towel/lid while using the other hand to turn it on. No burns, no messes, okay, people? Taste the soup and adjust the seasoning to your taste, paying special attention to salt.

TO SERVE Deep Mexico Carrot Soup can be served hot right away or refrigerated and reheated later. For something really refreshing during hot weather, it also is wonderful cold. Either way, hot or cold, stir in a tablespoon of fresh lime juice per cup of soup right before serving. The soup is very good without lime juice but wow, it really makes a difference. Dollop the soup with cottage cheese, top that with salsa and then sprinkle in some black beans. Provecho! Dig in!

MAKE-AHEAD Deep Mexico Carrot Soup keeps beautifully in the fridge for up to a week. It also freezes!

ALANNA'S TIPS & KITCHEN NOTES
Could we use less fat? I think so, four tablespoons is more than my standard proportion of a tablespoon for every pound of vegetables. But I was happy with the taste, the texture, even the nutrition outcome. It makes for a healthy, satisfying lunch: and allows for a small slice of avocado toast!



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Alanna Kellogg
Alanna Kellogg

A Veggie Venture is home of "veggie evangelist" Alanna Kellogg and the famous asparagus-to-zucchini Alphabet of Vegetables.

Comments

  1. Hello! I live somewhere between your recipe cook and intuitive cook, leaning more towards intuitive. Most of the time recipes and actually measuring things feels like extra effort and I follow rough templates instead. I know roughly what needs to happen to make a good soup, or a good pasta sauce, or etc and then just approximate my way through it. Finding a way to throw a meal together out of what I happen to have on hand or building a meal around whatever vegetable (or possibly meat or other ingredient, but usually vegetable) called out to me at the grocery store is an interesting challenge. I follow cooking blogs more for inspiration, ideas and tips, but I will occasionally follow an intriguing recipe more or less as is. I think this carrot soup might fall into that category, but I'm not sure when I'll get to it.

    I do follow recipes more closely when baking, though there I'm perfectly happy to tweak away at them or take two recipes and smash them together. I can make intuition cookies with no recipe and no measuring when the situation calls for it - one of the random unexpected skills I learned by necessity in college.

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  2. Kalyna Anne ~ I bet you’re a great cook. And Intuition Cookies? Great name but I CAN’T FATHOM mixing cookie dough without at least rough guideline! PS How is your name pronounced? KA-LYN-A? KAY-LYN-A?

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Thank you for taking a moment to write! I read each and every comment, for each and every recipe, whether a current recipe or a long-ago favorite. If you have a specific question, it's nearly always answered quick-quick. ~ Alanna