A bowl of roasted carrot and parsnip soup

Roasted Carrot and Parsnip Soup by Emma Hatcher

Emma Hatcher describes this soup as the best way to use up any lurking veggies (and cream, actually), leftover from the festive period. Creamy roasted carrot and parsnip soup, made with fresh ginger and served with the most delicious maple roasted crisps on top.  

This recipe is gluten free and FODMAP friendly, but if you don’t need it to be the latter, add in a couple of gloves of garlic, use the whole leek and use any good quality stock you like. You can also adjust the amount of cream depending on how thick you like your soup (I like mine somewhere in the middle) and know dairy free cream works well here too. 

A bowl of roasted carrot and parsnip soup

Serves 6

Ingredients

500g parsnips
500g carrots
4 tablespoons olive oil or garlic infused oil
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 stick of celery, roughly chopped
1 leek, green top only, sliced
1 ½ inch chunk of fresh root ginger, roughly chopped
½ teaspoon chilli flakes (optional)
A few sprigs of thyme, leaved picked
1.2 litres hot FODMAP-friendly vegetable stock or water
100ml lactose free cream
Extra-virgin olive oil, to drizzle

Method

Preheat your oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6.

Reserve 1 of the smaller parsnips and one or two of your carrots and then roughly chop the rest. Tumble the chopped vegetables onto a large roasting tray. Season well and drizzle with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil or garlic infused oil if using, then toss everything together until the vegetables are evenly coated. Shuffle the vegetables about to make sure they end up in a single layer and then place the tray in the oven to roast for 35-40 minutes, or until tender and the edges golden brown.

Meanwhile, use a peeler to cut the reserved vegetables into strips, until you have a generously sized pile of each. Place these on another tray, season well and drizzle with 1 tablespoon of oil and the maple syrup. Toss everything together until the vegetable peelings are evenly coated and move them about so that they’re in a roughly single layer. Place in the oven to bake for 20 minutes, or until curled and crisp. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely to get even crispier.

Place a large saucepan over a medium heat. Add the remaining olive oil and when hot, add the celery, leek and ginger. Fry for a couple of minutes until softened and then add in the chilli flakes and thyme leaves. Carefully tumble the chopped roasted veggies into the pan and pour in the hot stock. Bring the mixture to the boil, then simmer for 5 minutes. Remove the saucepan from the heat and (carefully as it will be hot), use a hand blender to blitz everything until smooth. Pour in the cream and blitz once more.

Check and adjust the seasoning if needed, then ladle the soup into bowls and top with the crispy vegetables, a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and some extra chilli flakes, if you like.

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