Sunshine Orange Carrot Soup

Vibrant, comforting, and delicious, we think SpiceTopia’s carrot and orange soup will become a regular in your kitchen! The earthiness of carrots with the sweetness of oranges and the savory herbiness of Two Trees Seasoning Blend all come together to into a luscious bowl of healthy goodness! 

Is This The Best Carrot Soup Recipe? 

We are going to say yes!  Just why do we make this claim? 

• It is delicious! Two Trees Seasoning Blend is created with herbs and spices which grow in the foothills around Ventura including mustard seed, lemon verbena, and citrus peel! This herby, sharp, citrus blend complements the earthiness of carrots and the sweetness of the orange juice creating a nourishing, comforting, and delicious bowl of soup!
• This simple carrot soup recipe is easy to make! It requires no fancy technique or equipment. Simply saute an onion, add carrots, broth or water, a bit of season, and a squeeze of orange juice and cook away. 
• This carrot soup recipe is dairy free, gluten-free, and can be made to accommodate both vegetarians and vegans. Use water or vegetable broth instead of chicken broth and this soup becomes a lovely plant-based soup. We actually prefer this soup made with vegetable broth as that allows the carrot and orange flavors to shine through without any distraction.
• It’s quick and hands-off! Saute the onions for just a few minutes, then add the rest of the ingredients and let it simmer away unattended for about twenty minutes.
• It’s made with inexpensive pantry ingredients! With just six ingredients plus salt and pepper, this pantry soup recipe is made with simple ingredients that you most likely have already. Carrots, onions, and oranges stay fresh for a relatively long time. 
• It freezes well! Finally, this is a great soup for when you need to stock your freezer with a make ahead meal. We like to freeze it in half or pint jars for when we need a quick tasty lunch! 

Ingredients. 

Oil. This recipe calls for oil to saute the onion. Use a neutral flavored oil such as grapeseed or avocado oil. Butter can also be substituted. 

Onion. One cup of onion is the standard measurement for an average onion. This is one of those recipes where the amount of onion really doesn’t matter! A little more or a little less won’t make a difference! Use any brown or white onion you happen to have. 

Carrots. And just like the onions, a little more or a little less of carrots, won’t make a difference in your end product! We’ve found a bunch of carrots from the farmer’s market is about two pounds. If you’ve bought your carrots from the store and they aren’t super tender, peel them.  Otherwise, a good scrub is probably enough. Any color carrot will work in this recipe, but keep in mind the color of the final soup will be those colors. We found that a mix of purple and orange carrots made a greyish orangish soup–still tasty, but not so appetizing to look at! 

Chicken Broth or Water. If you’ve seen many of our other soup recipes, then you’ve read our opinions on chicken broth! Before the 1990’s marketing campaigns touting chicken broth/stock as a needed ingredient in everything from soup to mashed potatoes to rice to pasta to beans to…, most people just cooked with water!  If you happened to have a homemade broth from a chicken carcass, then you used that for a soup or gravy. But really, chicken broth purchased in a box from the store isn’t needed to flavor most recipes – this one included! 

Seasonings

• Two Trees Seasoning Blend. Two Trees Blend is one of our signature Ventura Spices that you’ll only find at SpiceTopia! Two Trees Seasoning Blend is created with herbs and spices which grow in the foothills around Ventura including mustard seed, lemon verbena, and citrus peel! This herby, sharp, citrus blend complements the earthiness of carrots and the sweetness of the orange juice in this bowl of soup. 
• Tellicherry Black Pepper. When using just a few ingredients, it’s always best to use the best ingredients. Our Tellicherry Peppercorns are the highest grade of black peppercorns available. Their rich complex pepper flavor is considered the king of pepper! One of the most multipurpose spices we know of, Tellicherry pepper truly does go with just about anything! 
• Pacific Flake Sea Salt is an all-natural kosher flake sea salt, expertly produced from the crisp, clear waters of the Pacific Ocean. The crystals are shaped like small, hollow pyramids, as in the tradition of this fundamental salt style. Unlike other kosher salts on the market, this salt is never refined, retaining its natural trace minerals, with zero additives or chemical processing. The fine, feather-like flakes lend themselves perfectly to everyday kitchen use for finishing, baking and cooking. 

Technique.

This soup is super easy not requiring any special skills!  Our biggest soup tip would be to be careful when blending the soup to not burn yourself!  That is why the recipe calls for waiting 10 minutes before blending. If need be, gently reheat the soup after blending. 

Let’s get cooking!