Best Simple Fall Soups: Curry and Roasted Carrot Soup

How are you enjoying fall so far? In case you’re wondering, I’ve been spending this fall dreaming up pumpkin recipes, apple recipes and soup recipes. Fall foods are my favorite and, like most Americans, I’m an avid fan of pumpkin spice. Have you noticed that the hype around pumpkin spice has seemed to have been reduced to a mere simmer this year? Alternatively, the hype around soup seems to be at every turn. There have been quite a few memes floating around in celebration of soup season and leaving pumpkin spice in the September dust. Don’t get me wrong-I absolutely love pumpkin everything, with the (rather ironical) exception of pumpkin spice lattes. However, I love soup just as much, so hype around soup instead of pumpkin spice is something I can get on board with. Creating the best fall soups is a delicious endeavor. In New England (at least in Maine) it’s somewhat of a joke that summer ends on Labor Day-the very beginning of September. I suppose the joke is always on us because summer does seem to end just after labor day, like clockwork. Suddenly the sardine-packed restaurants and bustling sidewalks become eerily quiet, bare and chilly. Hour-long waits for a table where the waves kiss the decks are long gone within a mere 24-hour period. Labor day in New England is natures Post-it to count your fleeces and flannels, stock up on squashes and spices, and make sure you have enough firewood in the barn. Labor Day- the annual omen of cold things to come- has come and gone, but now leaves us in the midst of soup season. Today I’m sharing a newly adapted favorite- a curry and roasted carrot soup.

The Best Fall Soups

Soup season comes at a perfect time for me, as I’ve been trying to include a lot more soup-eating in our meals. In general, I’ve been aiming to add one more course to our family dinners and I feel that soup fits in the best. Eating in courses is something we’ve adopted over the years and it’s grown on me. From my experience, Americans generally eat just one “course” at dinner-which can be a few different things (such as rice, veggies and a meat) or one thing (such as spaghetti and meatballs), instead of having a starter, main dish and then end course or dessert, one after the other. Sometimes multiple dishes will be on the table at once (such as spaghetti and meatballs, a salad, and garlic bread), for everyone to grab and eat as they please. A lot of our family meals were like this for me growing up, and I do serve dinner this way sometimes.

What do your family meals generally look like? Usually we start with some type of salad or cold vegetable starter. My go-to salad is mixed greens with sliced cucumbers and grated carrot. Sometimes I add avocado, halved cherry tomatoes, sliced red onion, or fresh herbs. I always serve this with a basic homemade balsamic vinaigrette (Roman and I prefer this), and then ranch (Amelia and Ryan prefer this). I have yet to make a homemade ranch dressing, but it’s on my list. Fiona usually eats her veggies without greens and without dressing. She’ll grow into salads, I’m sure. Eating in courses has its benefits. It extends our family time, which I love, but it also offers the opportunity for more variety of nutrients at mealtimes. From my experience, some of the best fall soups are made with seasonal ingredients. Yes, it is a bit more dishes, clean up and preparation, but I’ve been working on making it as efficient as possible, and so far it hasn’t been too bad. Pureed soups have really caught my eye this season because (again!) of their efficiency. Usually you can create a pureed soup with just a few ingredients, and you don’t have to do very much. If you have a blender or stick blender, it’s really a matter of chopping a few vegetables and tossing them in the oven for an hour or so. This curry and roasted carrot soup has only a few simple veggies (carrots, onion and garlic). So this season, I’m thinking the best fall soups are the quick, pureed ones.

Curry and Roasted Carrot Soup