Amp Up The Flavor Of Butternut Squash Soup With 2 Everyday Ingredients

Crisp apples, earthy carrots, and sweet butternut squash always deserve to make their way into our pantries and refrigerators. Individually, they can each be the star of any meal they inhabit, yet due to their common flavor components, the three should be used in recipes together more often. For example, roasted butternut squash pureed into a creamy base is perfection in itself, but including carrots and apples is a simple, yet impactful method for stellar butternut squash soup.

The three share a prevalent sweetness, with carrots and butternut squash finding common ground in their earthiness. Blended together with the right seasonings, the soup turns out savory and sweet with an incredibly layered flavor profile. Carrots and apples have proven themselves to possess the makings for a delectable soup — silky carrot apple soup is a smooth, sweet creation that shows the fruit and veggie's strengths in a new light. Added to butternut squash soup, the already velvety dish deepens in flavor.

Color can tell you a lot about a carrot's flavor, so choose based on what you want the veggie to bring to the soup. While golden and white carrots are sweet without much earthiness, the orange varieties toe the line between bitter and sweet. As for apples, a mix of sweet and sour balances out the soup. While our silky carrot apple soup recipe goes straight into simmering the ingredients, you can roast them beforehand for a richer taste. Once caramelized, blend, simmer, and top off the soup with sourdough croutons.

Infusing warming spices into a blend of carrots, apples, and butternut squash is a given. The woodsy, sweet spices deepen the soup while highlighting its natural sweetness. Cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg bring out the best flavors from the trio, but you can turn to other aromatics for a fiery kick. For spice lovers, a combination of ginger and cayenne pepper is integral to making butternut squash soup. Add fresh ginger root to the blender with the other ingredients or sprinkle ginger powder into the pot as it simmers.

If you'd prefer to keep the soup a little simpler, you can opt to season the toppings, instead. Crispy chickpeas bring a satisfying crunch to every sip of soup, and they make the perfect carrier of flavor for soup. Dust the chickpeas with cardamom, ground nutmeg, cinnamon powder, and paprika for a delicious spiced soup topping. To lean into the savory nature of the soup, don't forget to include sage, rosemary, and thyme.

While it's not uncommon to use heavy cream to thicken butternut squash soup, you can try out some other options. Coconut milk blends well with the sweet flavors of the apples, carrots, and squash; to bring out the nuttiness of the squash, try a mix of browned butter with half and half. You can also make a protein-rich soup with silken tofu and soy milk, or Greek yogurt and cashew milk.