Creamy Carrot Soup has surprisingly simple ingredients like carrots, onion, celery, and bacon, but it tastes gourmet. Just like our popular Potato Soup, this is a quick and easy recipe that comes together in one pot. You will love the silky smooth texture and rich flavor.
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Why You’ll Love This Carrot Soup Recipe
Carrot soup is loaded with sweet carrots, plenty of onion and celery (don’t worry – they disappear into the final soup but add amazing flavor), fresh garlic, bacon, and light cream. Sauteeing the bacon first and cooking the rest of the soup in a little bit of bacon grease elevates the flavor of this cream of carrot soup.
It’s such a comforting and flavorful bowl of soup. All you need to go with it are some Dinner Rolls or crusty French Bread.
How to Make Easy Carrot Soup
You’ll love how this soup comes together in one pot. If you use an immersion blender, it’s even easier since you can blend it right in the pot and don’t have to transfer it to the blender. Immersion blenders are amazing!
- In a large pot or 5 1/2 Qt Dutch oven, brown the bacon over medium heat and transfer to a plate, keeping the bacon grease in the pot.
- Add diced onion, celery, and sliced carrots and cook 6-8 min. Add minced garlic, salt, and black pepper and cook another minute.
- Add chicken broth, and simmer partially covered 20-25 min until carrots are soft.
- Puree soup in batches in a blender or use an immersion blender.
- Return soup to the pot, stir in 1/2 cup cream, 1/2 cup milk, salt and pepper to taste, then bring to a simmer and remove from heat.
Ways to Blend Creamy Soups
There are many ways to blend soup, but not all are effective in getting a restaurant-quality ultra-smooth consistency.
- High-Powered Blender: Transfer your soup to your blender in batches. You should never fill a blender more than halfway with hot liquids to avoid burns, spills or ‘explosions.’ A high-powered blender will do the job best. Our blender has openings in the lid to allow heat to escape so you don’t end up with a vacuum.
- Immersion Blender: You can blend the soup to the right consistency and save yourself some dishes by using an immersion blender. Blend directly in your soup pot. It has a shield around the blade to avoid scratching your pot. Wear an oven mitt and apron while using in case there is any splatter.
- An Electric Hand Mixer – This is not as good as an immersion blender for getting a silky smooth texture. An electric hand mixer can also scratch up your coated pots.
- A Food Processor is our least favorite option as it doesn’t achieve the smoothness that you get from a high-powered standing blender or immersion blender. It is better for processing thicker and chunkier sauces and soups.
Tips for the Best Carrot Soup
I fell in love with creamy soups on our honeymoon in Mexico where we dined in 5-star restaurants and soup was often served as a starter. They were so simple and so elegant at the same time. Here are some tips to make silky smooth blended soups:
- Don’t overcook or undercook the vegetables. Cook until uniformly soft without resistance to the bite.
- Season to taste at the end. You won’t be able to truly gauge the flavor until the end after it’s all blended.
- Add cream last. You don’t want to keep boiling after the cream is added.
- Don’t forget toppings! They aren’t just for looks. Toppings like bacon, parsley, black pepper or an extra swirl of cream will add just the right amount of texture and flavor and keep your soup exciting for adults. Remember it’s not baby food!
Can I Make This a Dairy-Free Carrot Soup?
Yes! You can skip the cream and milk and use coconut milk instead for a carrot coconut soup, just like we did in our Sweet Potato Soup. It will still have amazing flavor and be a dairy-free creamy soup.
This Carrot soup is a feel-good comfort food and will warm your belly. If you love quick and cozy soup recipes, don’t miss our most popular Zuppa Toscana, classic Chicken Noodle Soup, and loaded Taco Soup (to change up your Taco Tuesday routine). These are just a few of our best soup recipes.
More Creamy Soup Recipes
- Roasted Butternut Squash Soup
- Clam Chowder
- Corn Chowder
- Creamy Cauliflower Soup
- Easy Tomato Soup
- Chicken and Wild Rice Soup
Creamy Carrot Soup
Ingredients
- 6 oz bacon, 6 strips, chopped
- 1 large yellow onion, diced (2 cups)
- 1 celery rib, diced (1/2 cup)
- 2 lbs carrots, 8 large, peeled and sliced into 1/2” thick rings
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 tsp sea salt, or to taste
- 1/8 tsp black pepper
- 4 cups chicken stock, or broth (reduced sodium)
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream, plus more to garnish
- 2 Tbsp parsley, to garnish (optional)
Instructions
- Brown bacon in a 5 1/2 qt Dutch oven or large pot over medium heat and remove browned bacon with a slotted spoon.
- Into the same pot with the rendered bacon fat, add diced onion, celery, and sliced carrots and cook 6-8 minutes until onions soften (do not brown). Add minced garlic and 2 tsp salt and 1/8 tsp black pepper, and stir another minute.
- Add 4 cups chicken stock, bring to a simmer then partially cover and cook 20-25 minutes or until carrots have softened.
- Puree soup in a blender in batches or use an immersion blender.
- Return soup to pot and stir in 1/2 cup heavy cream and 1/2 cup milk. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
I made this soup & it is delicious! It is definitely a keeper! So easy to make & yummy! Thanks Natasha for sharing this recipe!
You are very welcome, Janet!
Have anyone froze this soup before??? I have a bunch of carrots to use!
Hi Katie, I haven’t tried freezing it, we always run out of it before needing it, but one of my readers mentioned the following: “it does freeze and reheats very well with no change in texture.” I hope this helps.
I made this soup & it’s delicious. I used 1 cup of full cream milk because that’s all I had; I left out the cream. I would definitely make this soup again. It’s a cheap, tasty meal to make. We ate it with a side of toasted, buttered sourdough. Yum.
I love all of your recipes! My daughter buys a very expensive, gourmet carrot, ginger soup and I was looking for a recipe to mimic that. Could I add ginger to the soup?
Hi Liz! I’m glad you’re loving the recipes. I think ginger could work but I haven’t tested it myself. Let us know how it turns out if you try it.
I have to leave a comment because I have amazed myself. For starters, I’m a gardener and a homeschool mama of three toddlers (almost 4 yo twin girls and an about-to-be 2 yr old boy). I’m also hispanic and loveeeee flavor. BUT despite all of that, I’m a carnivore through and through and don’t like veggies. What a conundrum! But being a gardener and teaching my kids, I decided to plant carrots this year so they can learn what root veggies are and how they grow. I figured my youngest and my husband would eat some sliced carrots so they wouldn’t go to waste (or the chickens would eat them). Harvested all of our carrots and found your recipe….HOLY SMOKES! I know this is a long review and a bit irrelevant but NATASHA! My family has been cracking jokes all week that I may go into a coma after devouring this carrot soup three days in a row. They insist my body doesn’t know how to digest a vegetable and might be in shock lol HANDS DOWN, the MOST surprising flavor and best use of our garden carrots. Now I’ll be planting triple the amount of carrots next year because I need to make enough of this soup to freeze. Thank you! All of your recipes are always insanely delicious. My body also thanks you for the carrot boost lol AND all of my kids had a bowl as well despite telling me “yuck, I don’t want to try it”.
Hello Brenda! Thank you for your detailed review! Nice, 3 days in a row you must have really loved it!
I made it using only 2 slices of bacon, 4 cloves of garlic, a whole onion and a couple shots of Slap Ya Mama Cajun Seasoning. Excellent!
The flavour is excellent. I put 1/4 of heavy cream and 1/4 cup of milk. Add more pepper. That’s it. Everything else, the same. Ty for this delicious recipe
You’re very welcome, Brenda! I’m glad you enjoyed the recipe.
My question is do you return any of the cooked bacon to the pot and blend it in with the blender? Or is the bacon just meant for garnish? Thanks!
Hi Susan! We just use it as a garnish.
Hi, love this soup- so tasty! Thanks Natasha for another great recipe!😘
You’re very welcome!
Natasha, I have been a fan of yours literally for years.. I Love your recipes and I love making them. Today I made your pizza sauce recipe…Very Good and I will make it again. I do have a question about it, can it be frozen? or Home canned….? Thanks for the Wonderful Recipes, Linda
Great to hear that you liked it! You can also freeze pizza sauce by portioning into freezer-safe zip bags, remove any extra air and seal. Lay flat in the freezer and it will be quicker to thaw. You can also freeze pizza dough for an easy pizza night when the craving hits.
I made this soup yesterday and it was very good.
I had my own carrot soup recipe and was pretty sure I had it, but this soup was much better and I loved it.
Next time I will make it with your recipe.
The crispy bacon really does a great job!
Your recipes are always delicious, easy and make cooking fun.
Thank you so much.
Have a great day.
That’s great to hear! Thank you so much for sharing.
This soup was so good! It was the perfect way to use up a bunch of leftover carrots. I’m already looking forward to the leftovers tomorrow. Thanks again, Natasha!!
Hi Kitty! Thanks for trying the recipe. I’m glad to hear that!
I used coconut cream, and it turned out very tasty. I don’t think I will switch back to whipped cream.
That’s great, Daniella!