If you are lucky enough to get your hands on purple carrots and purple sweet potatoes at the same time – don’t miss out to use them for this Out of This World Purple Carrot and Purple Sweet Potato Soup. You can roast them too to side with something – but this soup really is out of this world. These are called heritage carrots and potatoes.
What are heritage varieties?
Heritage or heirloom carrots come in other colours too, not just orange: purple, yellow and even black. They are called heritage varieties because this is how carrots used to be before Dutch growers developed a uniform orange variety (supposedly in honour of their national colour).
When it comes to the purple sweet potatoes, they are a specialist variety. They are called Okinawan sweet potato. These are originated in Central and South America.
Do purple carrots and sweet potatoes taste differently?
Yes.
They are sweeter than the orange ones, both of them. The carrots have a a sweet, almost peppery taste and the sweet potatoes are sweeter in taste too. They are both quite intense in this sweet taste as opposed to the orange varieties. As you would expect the same from different colours of fruit and vegetable varieties.
Which means your soup will taste not quite savoury as you are used to, when using the orange variety of vegetables. Which is why the coconut and chilli works so incredibly well in this flavour combination.
They are both rich is anthocyanins, which is responsible for their rich purple colour. You can find anthocyanin in other very intense blue and purple hues with edible plants like red onion or blueberries.]
Good news is, they are more nutritious than the orange ones and being cooked is even better – as you might already know that: cooked carrots are 3x more nutrient dense than raw carrots.
Enjoy!
All the same as the orange - just looks totally out of this world!
- 2+2 tbsp olive oil
- 6 medium/large purple carrots quartered lengthwise
- 3 medium/large orange carrots quartered lengthwise
- 1 large purple sweet potato cut into roasting pieces
- 2 litre vegetable stock
- 1 large yellow onion chopped
- 1 bulb garlic as a whole for roasting
- 100 ml coconut milk or oat milk
- 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
- 1 large thumb size fresh ginger minced
- 1/2 red chilli pepper finely sliced
- salt and pepper to taste
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Cut up the vegetables and place them on a baking sheet (toss with 2 tbsp of olive oil) with the whole garlic bulb and roast them for 25 minutes, until they are soft.
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In a large pan, heat 2 tbsp of olive oil and the yellow onion, the minced ginger and the chilli to soften for a minute or two. Then add the cumin seeds for 2 more minutes.
Next step is adding the roasted purple carrots and sweet potatoes. Stir well and add the stock with the coconut or oat milk. Cook for 10 minutes.
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Blitz the whole thing with a blender or in the food processor and serve it with a dollop of vegan yogurt or coconut yogurt on the top. You can also add bread croutons on the side. Enjoy!
Check out my other carrot recipes:
Vegan Roast Carrot and Romano Pepper Soup
Vegan Roasted Carrot and Garlic Risotto Recipe
Simple Vegan Carrot Cake Recipe
Vegan Thai Sweet Potato, Cauliflower and Wild Garlic Curry Recipe
Vegan Sweet Potato – Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe
