Healthy Carrot and Apple soup

Comforting and delicious, this healthy carrot and apple soup is perfect for a chilly day. It's packed with nutritious ingredients, and is great as a light lunch, or a starter.

Health benefits of soup

Soup is a perfect way to include a few extra veggies in your diet.  It's filling, and it's easy to make a really healthy soup which will taste delicious. You can make it look interesting and add extra flavour and texture with different toppings. It's perfect for an easy, healthy lunch, or try a mug of soup for a warming snack. A bowl of soup as a starter before dinner will boost your veggie intake, and if you don't want to serve a big bowl of soup as an appetizer, try serving it in pretty teacups.

Ingredients for healthy carrot soup with apples

Soup with apples is naturally sweet, without the need for any unhealthy ingredients. The apple enhances the flavour of the carrots, and the sweetness is balanced by the savoury flavour of the onions. This is a great store cupboard soup recipe, as all of the ingredients store really well, and you may already have them in stock.

• Carrots. Carrots are great for your health and high in beta carotene which your body can convert to vitamin A. They are also a great source of fibre. There's no need to peel your carrots, just give them a scrub and cut them into slices.
• Apples. It's best to use a cooking apple for this carrot soup recipe as dessert apples can be a little too sweet. If you do want to use a dessert apple,  try to use green apples which tend to be a little more tart than red. For a silky smooth soup, you'll need to peel the apples
• Onions. For a bright orange soup, white onions are best, although red onions will taste equally delicious if that's what you've got available
• Herbs and spices. A bay leaf, nutmeg and some sage add a lovely warm seasonal flavour to this healthy carrot and apple soup. If you are using fresh sage, then chop it very finely, but save a leaf for decoration. Remember to remove the bay leaf before you blitz the soup
• Stock. If you have it, then fresh stock would add a delicious depth of flavour to this soup. But a stock cube will also work fine, either vegetable or chicken. If you do use a stock cube, or other purchased stock, you probably won’t need additional seasoning
• Butter and olive oil. Using olive oil and butter together allows the vegetables to colour slightly without burning, and the butter adds a lovely velvety richness to the soup. However, if you'd prefer to omit the butter, just use a little more olive oil

Recipe tips

• If you want vegan carrot soup, then use all olive oil and vegetable stock
• If you've got an immersion blender, you'll be able to blitz your soup in the pan, which will save on the washing up. Make sure that you use a big enough pan so that you've got space to blend it. If you prefer, a food processor will do the job
• You can store this healthy carrot and apple soup recipe in the fridge for two or three days. It also freezes very well.

Garnish ideas for healthy carrot and apple soup

This soup is pretty colourful as is, but if you want some toppings, any of these complement this carrot soup really well:

• Chopped nuts will add protein as well as extra texture. Almonds or cashew nuts go particularly well
• Pumpkin or sunflower seeds
• Herbs: try a fried sage leaf, or the bright green of chopped parsley adds a lovely contrast
• Fried bacon bits add a tasty, savoury hit of flavour

Oat and wholemeal crackers and quick, healthy mackerel pate would quickly turn this soup into a light meal.

You might also like to try these other healthy soup recipes:

• Quick and easy pumpkin soup
• Butternut squash and red lentil soup
• Healthy courgette soup
• Marrow soup

Have you tried this recipe? Please leave a rating and/or comment at the bottom of the page. Your feedback and questions are much appreciated.
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Please note nutritional information is for guidance only