Skip to main content
Main

Carrot Soup

A soup made from carrots, celery, onion, and broth, optionally thickened with bread crumbs and served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Carrot Soup

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Carrot Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scrape and wash the carrots, then peel them.

  2. In a large pot, combine the carrots, celery, onion, and broth.

Cook and strain

  1. Cover the pot and simmer on low heat for 2.5 hours until the carrots are soft.

  2. Optionally, add 1 cup of bread crumbs and boil for 2-3 minutes.

  3. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve using a wooden spoon.

  4. Add broth to achieve a thickness similar to pea soup.

Serve

  1. Reheat the soup in a clean pot, season with salt, and serve with toasted bread on the side.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Carrot + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Provide the main body, sweetness and colour of the soup as they soften and break down.
Broth
Supplies the liquid that carries the soup and sets its final thickness when adjusted.
Celery
Adds savoury, aromatic flavour to the simmered base.
Onion
Adds aromatic depth to the simmered base.
Bread crumbs
Optionally thicken the soup slightly, adding body to the purée.

The step that matters

Simmering until the carrots are soft. Carrots must be fully tender before straining; undercooked carrots stay grainy and will not pass smoothly through the sieve, leaving a rough texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, celery, beef, bread):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, beef, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More carrot soup recipes

Puree 5with Rice 3Creamy 3 See all 219 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipes