Elevate The Flavor Of Vegetable Soup With A Splash Of Carrot Juice

There's no better way to get a variety of nutritious vegetables in your life than a bowl of vegetable soup. No matter what veggies you're most fond of, there's certain to be a soup recipe to transform them into a satisfying meal. You might often consider deliciously umami-packed vegetable broth as the base for your soup, but there's another option that adds flavor, color, and body that's often overlooked: Carrot juice. Convenient and easy to find in most grocery stores, carrot juice might just be the ingredient you've been missing to elevate your vegetable soups.

Carrot juice is a great addition to pureed vegetable soups like roasted red pepper, tomato, or beetroot soups — the color will blend right in, and the natural sweetness of carrots will provide balance for the other earthy flavors. It's also a natural addition to any soup with carrots as an ingredient, like hearty minestrone and black bean soups.

If you're looking for a way to incorporate carrot juice into your next vegetable soup, there are no hard and fast rules or science to know. Simply add a splash to the recipe and taste the result. Carrots are earthy but also sweet, so depending on how much juice you add, expect to find a deeper background flavor in the soup with a bit of honey-like finish. Of course, the bright orange hue of carrot juice might be noticeable in lighter-colored white bean or potato soups, but you'll find that the elevated flavor is worth that glow-up in color.

Carrot juice is easy to buy, but if you find yourself with a glut of carrots from an ambitious trip to the farmer's market, you might want to make your own. A home juicer is a great addition to your arsenal of kitchen equipment, and you can use it time and time again to put carrots and other extra vegetables to use in your soup-making adventures.