Easy Carrot Soup

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F for the Cheesy Toast Toppers.

In a large pot over medium heat, add butter and onions. Cook until onions turn translucent, 3 to 4 minutes, but don't let them brown at all. Season with a pinch of salt. Add carrots, garlic, and dried thyme, and stir together. Cook for 30 seconds just until garlic becomes fragrant.

Add stock and bring mixture to a simmer. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes until carrots are very tender.

Spread your baguette slices out on a baking sheet and drizzle them with olive oil. Then sprinkle generously with finely grated Parmesan cheese. Bake toasts at 400 degrees F until edges are browned and Parmesan cheese is starting to turn a light tan color around the edges, about 10 to 12 minutes. Remove toasts and set aside.

When carrots are tender, use an immersion blender right in the pot to blend soup until smooth. If you don’t have an immersion blender, remove soup from heat and allow to cool until it isn’t steaming hot. Then you can blend in batches in a standard blender and return it to your pot. Return the blended soup to low heat and season with salt and white pepper .

Ladle the soup into bowls and swirl in about a tablespoon of heavy cream into each bowl. Garnish the soup with a sprinkle of paprika and fresh minced chives. Plus, add a cheesy toast dipper! Leftover soup keeps well in the fridge for 5 days, or you can transfer it to freezer-safe ziptop plastic bags and freeze it for up to six months. Reheat soup gently over low heat on the stovetop. Don’t freeze the soup if you’ve added cream to it, because it will most likely separate. In theory, it would taste the same once it is reheated, but I prefer to stir in fresh cream and freeze the soup without the cream in it.