This simple carrot soup is infused with Asian flavors, such as sesame, seaweed, bonito, mirin, and miso. These give the humble carrot soup a new lease on life, with their super savory flavors, along with the inclusion of celeriac, another welcome addition.
What you’ll love about this recipe!
🍚 Asian flavors: The furikake seasoning and other ingredients add many flavors to the soup, such as sesame, seaweed, bonito, mirin, and miso.
🥣 Easy: This soup comes together after a simple boiling of vegetables, a puree, and specific garnishes.
I🍽️ Unique: I say this recipe gives carrot soup a new lease on life because of the innovative flavor profile. It’s typical to see recipes for carrot and ginger soups, but here the sesame and miso, not to mention the mirin and furikake ingredients create a very savory tasting soup, with more complexities than usual.
Above: you have the option of making homemade furikake seasoning, or using storebought. It’s a key element, sprinkled on top of the soup before serving.
Ingredient notes and substitutions
- Carrots: The simple carrot is the main ingredient here. If you opt out of using the celeriac mentioned below, you’ll need a couple more carrots. See recipe card notes for details.
- Celeriac: a.k.a. celery root, tastes very similar to celery, with a starchier, milder flavor. This root vegetable may be less common at your grocer or less common in your fridge, and if you aren’t interested in hunting it down, feel free to use 12 ounces more of carrots, additional onion, and garlic (as well as ginger root and/or celery can be added). This gives you options, though I love the celeriac flavor in this recipe.
- White miso: below are two types of white miso, and any variety of white miso works. I don’t recommend the stronger tasted red miso. There is no substitution for it in the recipe and it is a key ingredient.
- Mirin: a sweet Japanese cooking wine, if you cannot find, or don’t have, you can easily sub with an equal amount of dry sherry, sweet marsala, dry white wine, rice vinegar, or even cooking wine. If you do, add 2 tsps white sugar as well, to create the same sweet flavor as mirin.
- Furikake: this Japanese rice seasoning is a flavorful blend of sesame seeds, toasted seaweed, usually bonito flakes (sun-dried, fermented fish flakes with a very subtle flavor), sugar and salt, as well as a little heat. Here you have an option of picking some up at the store, or making my Homemade Furikake Seasoning.
- Toasted sesame oil: it is important to use toasted sesame oil versus plain sesame oil (and you can use hot sesame oil if spicy heat is your jam). The toasted flavor is important. Regular sesame oil has little sesame flavor.
Above: two types of miso packaging shown at left and ingredients for making homemade furikake, should you choose (you can also use store bought).
Step-by-step instructions
Prep the vegetables: Roughly chop all the vegetables for the soup, cover them with the water and bring to a boil to then simmer for about 15 minutes.
Blend the soup: If you like a bit of texture in your soups, then use a potato masher to lightly smash the cooked veg, as in photo #2 below before blending the soup. Otherwise, proceed to blend the soup into the texture you prefer.
Finish the soup: All that’s left to do is to garnish the soup with an ample amount of furikake seasoning and a finishing drizzle of toasted or hot sesame oil.
Above: On the right you can see the homemade furikake that adds so much flavor to the soup, garnished on the left. Store bought furikake will be less exciting but still add a bit of flavor and excitement as a topping.
Tips for making and serving this soup
- Thickness: you can decide if the soup seems to thick to you once pureed and after you’ve added in the miso paste. The miso paste adds texture to the soup, so it’s possible you might want it a bit more viscous, after adding the miso. If so, just stir in a bit of water and taste to adjust.
- Texture: as mentioned above in the instructions, you can puree to a velvety smooth texture, or smash the veg before pureeing and leaving some larger pieces.
- Saltiness: because of the use of miso, no additional salt is used to season the soup. Also, no vegetable broth is used, for the same reason. If you prefer a saltier soup or like the flavor of vegetable broth, you can certainly incorporate either or both. I feel the ingredients used give it plenty of flavor and saltiness.
Other recipes using my furikake seasoning
Other soups
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Super Savory Sesame Carrot Miso Soup with Furikake
Kitchen Tools
- 1 larger soup pot, bigger than a 3qt.
Ingredients
- 1 lb carrots (12-16 oz, 4-6 medium-large carrots)
- 12 oz celeriac (2 small or 1 medium, see notes for sub idea)
- 1 small red onion (can sub yellow or white onion)
- 1 large garlic clove (smashed)
- 6 tbsp white miso (6-8 tbsp, 5oz, see notes)
- 1/4 cup mirin (see notes for subs)
- 2 tbsp toasted sesame oil (can sub with hot sesame oil)
- 4 tbsp furikake seasoning (store bought or make my recipe for Furikake Seasoning)
- 4 cups water
Method:
- Roughly chop 1 lb carrots , 12 oz celeriac, 1 small red onion, and smash 1 large garlic clove.
- Place all ingredients into soup pot and add 4 cups water. Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer, covered for approximately 15 minutes, until all veg are soft.
- This step is optional, but I like to use a potato masher to smash the vegetables roughly, so that some pieces can be left to add texture to soup after pureeing.
- Once you've smashed (or not) the vegetables, use an immersion blender (or food processor-see notes) to puree the soup to desired consistency. It is entirely up to you whether you prefer a velvety smooth texture or a smooth texture with some small pieces of vegetable to add texture.
- Stir the 6 tbsp white miso, 1/4 cup mirin, and 2 tbsp toasted sesame oil into the pureed soup. Taste and adjust by adding more of any of these ingredients. See notes. If soup feels too thick for your liking, stir in a bit more water to loosen it up.
- Serve with a tablespoon of the 4 tbsp furikake seasoning sprinkled over each of four servings. Depending on the exact size of your veg and whether you weigh them or not, you may find this makes more like 6 lunch size servings.
