Craving a creamy vegetable soup? My Whole30-friendly Carrot Cardamom soup from our first cookbook, Nom Nom Paleo: Food For Humans, and our iOS app is a quick and flavorful bowl of happiness any time of year!
It took many tweaks to get this Carrot Cardamom Soup juuuuust right, but it’s now my go-to recipe to showcase this lowly root vegetable.
Pairing carrot, ginger, and cardamom magically transform these simple ingredients into something greater than it’s individual parts!
Ever since I bought an Instant Pot back in 2013, I’ve been making this bowl of sunshine in a pressure cooker instead of the stovetop. Whichever way you choose to cook it will yield a bright orange bowl of fresh carrot, ginger, and cardamom soup that will warm you from the inside out!
Time to make Carrot Cardamom Soup!
Serves 6
Ingredients:
- 1 tablespoon coconut oil, ghee, avocado oil, or extra virgin olive oil
- 2 large leeks, white and light green ends only, cleaned, trimmed, and thinly sliced
- Diamond Crystal brand kosher salt or Magic Mushroom Powder
- 1½ pounds carrots, peeled and cut into ½-inch coins
- ¼ cup diced Braeburn, Fuji, Honeycrisp, Empire, McIntosh or Cortland apple
- 1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
- ½ teaspoon ground cardamom (or ½ teaspoon allspice or ¼ teaspoon cloves + ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon)
- 4 cups chicken stock or bone broth
- ½ cup full-fat canned coconut milk
- Freshly ground black pepper
Equipment:
- Chef’s knife
- Cutting board
- Measuring spoons
- Measuring cups
- Medium saucepan or Instant Pot
- High speed blender or immersion blender
Method:
Melt the coconut oil or your fat of choice in a saucepan over medium heat. If you’re using an Instant Pot, press the Sauté button and add the coconut oil or fat of choice when the metal insert is hot.
Toss in the leeks along with a generous pinch of kosher salt or Magic Mushroom Powder. Sauté until translucent, about 5 minutes.
Toss in the carrot, apple, ginger, and cardamom, and stir until fragrant.
Pour in the broth.
If you’re cooking on the stovetop, bring the soup to a boil over high heat. Turn down the heat to low and cover and simmer until the carrots are easily pierced with a fork, about 30 minutes.
If you’re cooking in the Instant Pot, cancel the Sauté function. Lock the lid and program the Instant Pot to cook under high pressure for 5 minutes. Release the pressure manually.
When the soup is finished cooking, stir in the coconut milk. Now it’s time to blend the soup!
You can transfer the soup in batches to a blender and process until smooth…
…or you can puree the soup directly with an immersion blender. Taste and season accordingly with salt and pepper.
You can refrigerate the soup in a sealed container for up to four days in the refrigerator and freeze it for up to 4 months.
Want more inspiration from my past January Whole30s? Check out my Day 21 posts from 2018!
- 2018 Whole30 Day 21: Roasted Brussels Sprouts + Bacon
A note to my Nomsters: This is one of a series of daily blog posts I’m writing in the month of January 2019 to help those doing a Whole30 to kick off the New Year. Not sure what the Whole30 is, or want info on how to get started? Read my Whole30 prep post—and then come back to Nom Nom Paleo every single day for recipes to inspire, delight, and sustain you on your Whole30!
Looking for more recipe ideas? Head on over to my Recipe Index. You’ll also find exclusive recipes on my iPhone and iPad app, and in my cookbooks, Nom Nom Paleo: Food for Humans (Andrews McMeel Publishing 2013), Ready or Not! (Andrews McMeel Publishing 2017), and Nom Nom Paleo: Let’s Go! (Andrews McMeel Publishing 2021).
PRINTER-FRIENDLY RECIPE CARD
Carrot + Cardamom Soup (Instant Pot or Stovetop)
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon coconut oil ghee, avocado oil, or extra virgin olive oil
- 2 large leeks white and light green ends only, cleaned, trimmed, and thinly sliced
- Diamond Crystal kosher salt or Magic Mushroom Powder
- 1½ pounds carrots peeled and cut into ½-inch coins
- ¼ cup diced apple Braeburn, Fuji, Honeycrisp, Empire, McIntosh or Cortland works
- 1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
- ½ teaspoon ground cardamom or ½ teaspoon allspice or ¼ teaspoon cloves + ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 4 cups chicken stock or bone broth
- ½ cup full-fat canned coconut milk
- Freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
- Melt the coconut oil or your fat of choice in a saucepan over medium heat. If you’re using an Instant Pot, press the Sauté button and add the coconut oil or fat of choice when the metal insert is hot.
- Toss in the leeks along with a generous pinch of kosher salt or Magic Mushroom Powder. Sauté until translucent, about 5 minutes.
- Toss in the carrot, apple, ginger, and cardamom, and stir until fragrant. Pour in the broth.
- If you’re cooking on the stovetop, bring the soup to a boil over high heat. Turn down the heat to low and cover and simmer until the carrots are easily pierced with a fork, about 30 minutes.
- If you’re cooking in the Instant Pot, cancel the Sauté function. Lock the lid and program the Instant Pot to cook under high pressure for 5 minutes. Release the pressure manually.
- When the soup is finished cooking, stir in the coconut milk.
- Now it’s time to blend the soup! You can transfer the soup in batches to a blender and process until smooth or or you can puree the soup directly with an immersion blender. Taste and season accordingly with salt and pepper.
- You can refrigerate the soup in a sealed container for up to four days in the refrigerator and freeze it for up to 4 months.
Trish says
Wow! Thank you so much for sharing this recipe! I likely would’ve never made this…but I had a pile of carrots and scallions from my garden that needed to be eaten. The scallions were my only sub replacing the leeks. After blending, I took a quick taste thinking I may need to add salt, but to my pleasant surprise, it was absolutely perfect! I should have never doubted it seeing as how I always love every recipe I get from you!!! Thank you sooo much for so many delicious recipes!
Isabel says
Agreed. I used white onion and beef broth but still ver delicious and I also used more ginger cardamom for more spice ! The broth has plenty of salt
Kimberann says
I had some carrots that had been in the freezer for a while and needed to be used. This soup was the PERFECT thing to make with the impulse purchased frozen carrots. I didn’t have any leeks so I just subbed a sweet onion I had in the fridge and it still tastes phenomenal! Another great recipe- thank you!
Marcy says
This recipe is sheer magic, and I say that even AFTER feeling annoyed by the “Prep time: 10 min.” fake-out, since just the processing of leeks takes that long! This is going into the regular rotation. I used the cinnamon-cloves option (so technically I guess I did not exactly make Carrot Cardamom soup, lol) and I will never make it any other way. I gave it a good squirt of Bragg’s liquid aminos and fresh lemon juice to finish, and oh so YUM. Thanks!
meg says
this recipe is delicious! i didn’t have leeks on hand, so used onion in its place. other than that, i followed the recipe as written and it turned out amazing. thank you so much! will be making again, for sure 🙂
Mark says
I liked this recipe but found that with the carrots natural sweetness and the sweetness of the coconut milk, it seemed a little too much on the sweet side. I added some extra salt and that help a lot. I think it might be nice to add in some garlic. Perhaps those of you who substituted regular onions in place of the Leeks, got more of that savory flavor that I was seeking. Anyway, good recipe, I like all your recipes! I will just play around with this one for a while and see if I can tweak it just a bit to cut some of that natural sweetness.
Lisa says
Thank you for sharing this amazing recipe! It’s on my dinner rotation. I crave it all the time. 😋🤤