This Pumpkin, Carrot, and Sweet Potato soup is velvety, creamy and the best blend of fall vegetables to warm you up on cozy fall nights. Serve it as a main dish with challah or garlic bread or enjoy it as a side dish beside your favorite holiday roast or protein.
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Making soups for meal prep is one of my favorite ways to get ready for the week. They're quick to make, customizable and reheat well as leftovers. Some soups, like this pumpkin and carrot soup, even taste better after they've been sitting in the fridge overnight.
If you love soups rich in vegetables and fiber, try my Chicken Minestrone Soup, One Pot Vegetable, Bean, and Barley Soup, and Chicken Chili Without Tomatoes.
📋 About the Recipe
- Hearty and healthy! This pumpkin sweet potato soup can be made without heavy cream and is packed with vegetables. It’s naturally vegan or vegetarian friendly, low in sodium, and lower in fat making it a great healthy soup to keep you warm all season long.
- Just 30 minutes of prep time. Although the best soups have longer simmer times, they usually don’t require much effort to get everything in the pot and simmering. This pumpkin and sweet potato soup is no different!
- Freezer friendly. Freezing soups for later is always a good idea. This pumpkin, carrot, and sweet potato soup freezes very well and can be defrosted for a super quick and simple meal on a weeknight.
🛒 Ingredients
A few notes about the ingredients:
- Cinnamon - You may be surprised to see cinnamon in a savory soup, but it is a popular ingredient in pumpkin soups because it balances all of the savory flavors and brings out the warmth in the soup.
- Sweet potatoes - Sweet potatoes are similar in flavor and texture to pumpkin, but slightly sweeter and more nutritional. I love making a pumpkin soup with a blend of both for greater depth of flavor.
- Apple - I use and recommend a granny smith apple, or a similarly tart and crisp apple. Like the cinnamon, the apple provides some acidity and balances the sweeter, richer flavors in this pumpkin and sweet potato soup.
- Parsnip - Using parsnips in soups is one of my secrets to adding a peppery flavor to the base. If you’ve made my Matzo ball soup or Chicken and Rice soup, you’ve used it before! If you’ve never cooked with parsnips before, they look like pale, yellow carrots and are often found near carrots in the produce section.
- Pumpkin puree - Canned pumpkin puree is used to easily add the pumpkin flavor. Make sure to buy unsweetened pure pumpkin puree - the only ingredient should be pumpkin. There are very similar products on the shelves called pumpkin pie mix or pumpkin pie filling, and while they look very similar, they are different! Pumpkin pie mix has added sugars and spices and will not work for this savory soup.
📓 Instructions
- Cook the onions. Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add onion, stirring occasionally so it does not burn. Cook for 4 to 5 minutes, or until the onion starts to become translucent.
- Add garlic and spices. Stir in the garlic, cinnamon, nutmeg, chili powder, rubbed sage, salt, and pepper. Cook for an additional 30 seconds, stirring frequently to prevent burning.
- Add in remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Add in the sweet potato, carrot, apple, parsnip, pumpkin puree, and vegetable broth. Stir to coat in seasonings and bring to a boil. Once boiling, lower the heat and cover. Simmer for 20 minutes, or until the carrots and sweet potatoes are fork tender.
- Blend the soup smooth. Using an immersion blender or high powered countertop blender, blend the sweet potatoes and carrots in the soup until smooth and creamy. Taste and adjust seasoning as desired.
- Serve soup warm with desired toppings. Ladle soup into bowls and top with a swirl of coconut cream, pumpkin seeds, and fresh cracked pepper.
⁉️ Substitutions and Alterations
- Pumpkin puree substitutions: Instead of a can of pumpkin puree, you can use 1 cup of fresh cubed pumpkin or butternut squash. You can also use a can of butternut squash puree instead.
- Vegetable broth substitutions: You can also use a low sodium chicken broth or beef broth to the base of this pumpkin soup.
- Yellow onion substitutions: If you are out of yellow onions, try white onions or sweet onions. Avoid using red onions - the flavor is too strong and sharp.
- Use this soup as a pasta sauce. If you’d like to make this soup into a fall flavored creamy pasta sauce, halve or quarter the recipe to make a smaller portion. Or make the full portion size and freeze half of the recipe for later.
❄️ How to Store
Storage: This pumpkin sweet potato soup will store well in the refrigerator in an airtight container for up to 5 days.
Freezing: This pumpkin soup freezes beautifully. To freeze, allow the soup to cool completely, then transfer the soup to a freezer safe container like a glass mason jar, freezer safe zip top bag, or storage container. If you choose to freeze the soup in a freezer safe bag, lay the bag flat in the freezer to freeze in an easy to store, flat shape.
Reheating: Leftover pumpkin and carrot soup can be reheated on the stovetop or in the microwave. To reheat on the stovetop, add the amount you’d like to reheat to an appropriately sized saucepan and heat until warm, stirring occasionally. To reheat in the microwave, transfer the soup to a microwave safe bowl and microwave in 30 second bursts until heated through.
🔍 FAQs
This pumpkin and carrot soup is naturally thick and creamy on its own and thickens even more as it cools.
However, if you’d like to thicken this soup even more, you could stir in a cornstarch slurry. Mix together 1 tablespoon cornstarch and 1 tablespoon water and add the slurry into the soup after blending smooth with the immersion blender. Simmer for an additional 3 to 5 minutes, or until the pumpkin soup has thickened to your liking.
Although pumpkin soup does go exceptionally well with my round challah or air fryer garlic bread, there are many lighter serving options to try. I’d recommend my Fall cobb wedge salad, Apple, avocado and arugula salad, Potato latkes, roasted asparagus and brussels, or air fryer zucchini.
Not necessarily. If you are blending your pumpkin sweet potato soup smooth in a high-powered blender, you can leave the skin on because the blender will be able to blend the skin completely smooth. Note that doing so will darken the color of the soup a bit and can make it taste more earthy.
💭 A Couple More Tips
- Use a really large pot! I recommend a 5.5 quart pot or larger. This will ensure that all of the ingredients will fit without boiling over.
- If blending, do so carefully. Hot liquids expand in the blender, so be careful not to overfill the blender. I recommend blending the pumpkin and carrot soup in batches and allowing the steam to release so it does not create excess pressure inside the blender.
🍴 Related Recipes
Share your cooking with me! If you make this recipe, I'd love to know! Tag @yourhomemadehealthy on Instagram or leave a comment with a rating and some feedback at the bottom of this page!
📖 Recipe
Pumpkin, Carrot, and Sweet Potato Soup
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 cups diced yellow onion (about 1 onion)
- 2 teaspoons minced garlic (about 2 garlic cloves)
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon chili powder
- ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon (dried) rubbed sage
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- 3 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed (about 3 medium potatoes or 7 cups cubed)
- 1 pound carrots, peeled and cubed (about 7 carrots or 2½ cups cubed)
- 1 cup peeled and cubed granny smith apple (about 1 apple)
- ½ cup peeled and cubed parsnip (about 1 medium parsnip)
- 1 (15 ounce) can 100% pure pumpkin puree
- 5 ½ cups low sodium vegetable broth (I used one 32-ounce box and one 14.5-ounce can)
- coconut cream or heavy cream for drizzling
- shelled pumpkin or sunflower seeds for topping
Instructions
- Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add onion, stirring occasionally so it does not burn. Cook for 4 to 5 minutes, until onion starts to become translucent.
- Stir in garlic, cinnamon, nutmeg, chili powder, rubbed sage, salt, and pepper. Cook for 30 seconds.
- Add in sweet potato, carrot, apple, parsnip, pumpkin puree, and vegetable broth. Give a gentle stir to coat everything in seasonings and broth. Bring to a boil, cover, turn heat to low, and simmer for 20 minutes, or until the carrots and sweet potatoes are fork tender.
- Using an immersion blender or high powdered countertop blender, blend the soup until smooth and creamy. Taste and adjust seasonings as desired.
- Ladle soup into bowls and top with a swirl of coconut cream, pumpkin seeds, and fresh cracked pepper.
Notes
- You'll want to use a very large pot so you can mix everything together.
- Be careful blending the hot soup. Make sure you allow the steam to release so it does not create excess pressure and explode in the blender.
- If you halve or quarter this recipe, it would be great as a creamy vegetable-packed pasta sauce as well.
Nutrition
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Audrey Cortez
This soup is what I call 'an eye closer,' meaning it's so incredibly good, you need to close your eyes to fully enjoy the decadent yet utterly healthy flavor. In fact, my hubs and I enjoyed this rich, creamy and chock full of nutrients soup into our Thanksgiving menu. So thank you, Alana for giving us this magnificent recipe ❤️
Alana Lieberman
That's amazing! Your review means so much to me, and I'm so happy you enjoyed this soup. Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving.