Sweet Potato and Carrot Soup Recipe | Cook It Real Good (2024)

FAQs

How do you make carrot soup less sweet? ›

How Do You Balance Sweetness in Carrot Soup? If this carrot soup is a bit too sweet for your taste, you can balance out that sweetness with 1 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar or lemon juice to boost and brighten the flavor.

Starchy Vegetables

Grate a starchy vegetable like squash, pumpkin, sweet potato, or white potato into the soup and let it simmer. It will release that starch and help to thicken the liquid as it cooks.

Carrots are great sources of beta-carotene, which is a precursor to vitamin A and gives the vegetable its characteristic orange color. Thanks to the contributions of both the cilantro and carrots, this soup provides a wonderful variety of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.

The longer and slower you cook a sweet potato, the more maltose is formed and the sweeter it will taste. So if you want a much less sweet potato try steaming it, or cut it into small pieces and roast on a higher heat.

To add sweetness without sugar, try coconut, vanilla, or date, suggests Clean Eating Magazine, but for many soup recipes, sugar can help turn up the flavor volume of the original recipe.

Sugar: A pinch of sugar softens the edges of anything that tastes too sour or harsh (looking at you, tomato-based soups).

Don't overcook the vegetables. One of the main reasons that vegetables become soggy when cooked in broth or soup stock is that they are overcooked. To prevent this, try to cook your vegetables until they are just tender but still firm. This will help them retain their shape and texture.

Consider using methods like making a roux, blending beans or legumes, using bread, adding egg yolk, pureeing vegetables, incorporating heavy cream or coconut milk, adding potato flakes or starch, or making a slurry with cornstarch or arrowroot to thicken soups without sacrificing flavor or texture.

Milk or Half-and-Half: This is the other magical ingredient that turns your homemade chicken noodle soup into the creamiest soup ever. Use 1 cup of whole milk or 1 cup of half-and-half.

Add the carrots in the last half hour or so or when the beans are close to tender. That way the carrots will come out cooked but not mushy. Ditto, for other veggies… add them according to how much time they need to cook.

Should you cook carrots before putting them in soup? ›

While certain vegetables can work just fine added directly to simmering soups and stews (say, carrots and celery), other vegetables (onions, garlic, and the like) will almost always need at least a brief sweat in a fat-based liquid before adding the remaining ingredients.

In extreme cases, overeating beta carotene from carrots can keep vitamin A from doing its job and affect your vision, bones, skin, metabolism, or immune system. Too much beta carotene also may cause problems for people who can't change it to vitamin A, such as people who have hypothyroidism.

Slow-roasting the sweet potatoes activates endogenous enzymes that bring out their natural sweetness.

How to tell if sweet potatoes have gone bad. If your sweet potato is soft in spots, smells rotten, or oozes a mysterious liquid, that potato should be discarded. Another sign that sweet potatoes have taken a turn for the worse is if they start growing stalky purplish sprouts.

Despite their sweet taste, these potatoes have an intermediate glycemic index (GI) level, meaning they are digested and absorbed fairly slowly, leading to a more gradual increase in blood sugar levels. But, a lot of these benefits, including nutrients and taste, can be lost by boiling sweet potatoes.

Adding lime juice can to your dish can balance out the sweetness. In case, you don't want too much of tanginess in the dish you can also add vinegar white wine vinegar, red wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar.

Giving your dish a spicy kick can help tone down its sweetness, and pepper works really well to add some heat. Depending on the food and your personal tastes, you can use black, cayenne, or crushed red pepper to help balance the flavors in your recipe.

How to Make Food Less Sweet. Add an acid or seasonings such as vinegar or citrus juice; chopped fresh herbs; a dash of cayenne pepper; or, for sweet dishes, a bit of liqueur or espresso powder.

Carrots and parsnips have a fair amount of sugar in them and can make a soup or gravy sweet if you use too many. Ditto onions, but if you only used one that won't be the culprit. Perhaps not the pickle next time.